Had we but world enough, and time: Serenity
Joss Whedon’s Firefly was a sf series that was never given time; episodes were jumbled by the network and the show got cancelled just when it was starting to build a serious fanbase. And that’s all she wrote.
Except, as fans of Buffy and Angel know, Joss Whedon doesn’t tell the same stories as everyone else. He managed to hold his cast together and found the funding to make Serenity. It isn’t quite the film of series they didn’t have time to make, but it comes close.
Capsule review: I liked it. I liked it a lot. You should see it.
For a slightly longer, and possibly spoilery review, kindly step behind this curtain…
I really liked Firefly. I pulled the episodes down via bittorrent as they became available and watched them in all their lo-fi glory, putting up with jaggies, out of sync audio and the rest. I bought the DVDs, downloaded the soundtrack and, a couple of weeks ago, went to one of UK’s “Can’t Stop The Signal” previews of the finished movie and laughed in all the right places as, instead of the usual previews, Joss introduced the film.
The film is great. Like most modern sf films, it’s something of a ride. There’s even the cliche of the big fight over the bottomless pit in there somewhere. But there’s snappy dialogue and food for thought too, and some beautifully violent fights (everyone else take note, casting a dancer as your lethal weapon is a good move).
However…
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near
—Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
You can almost hear Time’s chariot as you watch Serenity. The shows were never slow, but the film rattles along at astonishing speed: there’s no time for sitting round the galley table; no time to give sense of lives being lived; no time for Shepherd Book; no time for anything that isn’t going to be relevant within the space of this film. Most films do this, but it’s more noticeable when you already know the characters from a TV series.
The decision makers at Fox took that time away. The bastards. I really want to see Serenity get spun off into another TV series, but the grapevine has it that that’s not going to happen—apparently Fox won’t relinquish the rights. The bastards.
“If you can’t do something smart, do something right”
Thomas More: The last temptation is the final treason,
To do the right thing for the wrong reason
—TS Eliot Murder in the Cathedral
If the film has a message, and I think it does, it’s the same one that Whedon sent in Buffy and Angel. Morality is about personal choice. When it comes down to it, integrity is all that we have and that integrity only exists if you have the freedom to do the wrong thing. For Joss, the greatest sin is taking someone’s freedom to sin from them, because by doing that you take away their chance of redemption.
Which brings us perilously close to politics, but I’ll save that for another entry.
