Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005)
Joss Whedon achieves something almost unprecedented with Serenity; he eliminates the usual weaknesses of science fiction movies by not making a science fiction film. Remember when Solaris came out and Clooney/Soderbergh were claiming the movie is essentially a love story, no matter how it's dressed up? True, because it was tedious the way a bad love story is boring, not the way sci fi movies can be ludicrous, pointless or just laughable. Similarly, but more successfully, Whedon's main strength as a writer is the unexpected things his traditional characters do and say, even while operating in traditional genre constraints. On "Buffy," the vampire slayer consistently rejected her arch enemy Spike's advances, until she dies, is reborn, and believes she deserves him. In Serenity, Jayne, the tough guy rebel, is asked in a moment of frustration by Mal, the ship captain, "You want to run this ship?" "Yeah," Jayne replies, to which Mal says, "Well... you can't." It's a funny line that's intentionally humorous, as opposed to movies that call children "younglings."
Read a Philip K. Dick or Orson Scott Card story and you're not looking for some subtle insight into human emotion. You're not even looking for good dialogue. You want an interesting idea, a good theory, some clever math. Rod Serling's goal with "The Twilight Zone" was to create parables that reflected on modern life, and when people talk about his show, they don't recall the smart dialogue Shatner had on the airplane while freaking out about the monster on the wing. With Serenity, that's what you walk away with - the clever moments and believable plot connections. Nobody walks out talking about what the origin of the cannibalistic Reavers means, like they would discussing the implications of The Matrix. Rather, it's the unexpected comment River makes, or the motivations behind the characters in the film.
That ultimately separates a good movie from a good television series. The first is required to resonate, the second must sustain. After so many science fiction film disappointments of late, it would be great to see something like this, with real potential for further fun storytelling, serialized. Not that Serenity is really science fiction, of course.
| Serenity at Amazon |
