Serenity: 15 years later
 

Wow, 15 years. I only mention it because I watched Serenity tonight, and I cried.

I never watched the show before I saw the movie but when I saw it in theaters I loved it. Saw it on HD-DVD a few times and still loved it. Saw it on TV and still loved it.

Well, it has been quite a few years since the last time I watched it. It was on sale in the Microsoft Store, so I bought it tonight. And it wrecked me.

I just added it to my top ten (it even made the top 5) and I’ll fight anyone who speakth ill. :D

Like for real: tonight was a freaking religious experience. I will certainly speak more once I have had time to process.

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Let me start by saying Joss Whedon is a terrible human being and a failure of an existentialist. Like one of the worst.

With that said, he is definitely a master at manipulating emotion out of an audience, and Serenity is no exception. I ardently ascribe to existentialism and have done so ever since I graduated college, and last night was the first time I had watched Serenity since packing my head up tight with all that philosophy mumbo jumbo. The reason I called it a religious experience is because the film and the characters depend on existentialism in formulating their worldviews: it just clicked, and I kept hearing line after line that depends so much on existentialism. The movie might as well be a love letter to the philosophy.

And naturally, what with times as crazy as they are right now, the character arcs spoke to a human element in a way that I had not noticed before. Or rather: I was finally listening.

Justice and autonomy are two sides of a coin that is constantly being spun on a table. It's anybody's guess which will prevail and, when comparing the merits of the two, it's also anybody's guess which is more important and right. Belief in ideas that propel action and create meaning to ones life, including laying it down for strangers? Existentialism.

I swear, I sound like a philosophy junkie getting their first fix after being off the sauce for a few years. I could tear this film apart and break down every scene and line that spoke to me, and one day I just may very well do that. But for now, I will just revel in the warmth of familiar ideas executed with clinical precision.

15 years later and Serenity is more relevant than it has ever been.

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Never heard of it. Got a link as I am too lazy to look for one?

HERE is the Wikipedia page.

And here is the movie trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAL6qVciZMA

EDIT: It also didn't hurt that David Newman is a composing genius. That soundtrack hit me like a wall of bricks and, to this day, it still elicits gooseflesh and waters my eyes. I went down the rabbit hole looking at all the films he has composed, and the number of movies on that list that I would :up: and cry when I hear their soundtracks...suffice it to say I need more than two thumbs to keep count.

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

⬆️ Cheers my dear. :)

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

For those that haven't seen it, you may want to check out the show Firefly, which the movie is sort of a finale for, as the show got canceled early, and never had a finale. The show is only 13 episodes and is well worth the trouble, IMO.

As for the film, I am a huge fan. I won't comment on McClane's claims about Whedon being a terrible human being, as I haven't kept up with him and I presume he got canceled for some reason or another, which I honestly just can't bring myself to care about.

Serenity is excellent, for all the reasons McClane listed. I would also add the excellent and unique characters, and something must be said about Chiwetel Ejiofor's fantastic turn as the villain, The Operative. Dude KILLS it in the role. ;)

The subtext that I enjoy in both the show and the film, is that all the Firefly material functions as sort of an anti Star Trek science fiction show. Instead of a ship full of squeaky clean anti-religious space collectivists that police the galaxy, putting down rogue elements that resist the doctrine of the Galactic Federation, you have the scrappy collection of rogues in a beat-up vessel evading the Galactic Federation and its agents, while defending the weak and the ideals of individuality and freedom. One crew member is a prostitute, and another is a preacher. Sounds weird, but it works. Before you react, know that I am a huge Trek fan, and in no way mean to speak ill of it in the thread. but if asked which show aligns with my person views more, Firefly is the easy choice.

The movie made my top 100 last year, would be cool if it made the refreshed mofo 100. And Firefly is my #11 favorite tv show of all time.

@Sedai: I had to Google to see what all he’s been up to of late but I’ve always disliked this dude. He’s the definition of a hypocrite. He espouses grey area philosophy in just about everything he creates but when he speaks in real life he has one of the most dogmatically binary vocabularies I’ve ever heard. I have seen him give countless interviews where he says flat out “it’s this or that” and I’m just like dude, look in the mirror. Do you not see the disconnect? Get back behind the camera and off mic...yeesh, such a tool. But if you were looking for a reason to not like him he made a joke about kids with cancer meeting with people from the current administration and his apology was essentially “oh I’m sorry you didn’t get the humor”. Like, read the room, bro. Kids should always be off limits when you get into political humor and he goes straight for the ones with cancer. But I digress. Back to Serenity.

Keep in mind I was not attached to the characters in the same way that you were but when Wash said that last leaf in the wind line. I was floored at the immediacy of that scene. It is so WELL done. That whole final 30 minutes is nail biting cinema.

Huge action, build up the crescendo in the soundtrack, bang boom...silence....and then RAWR right back into the action. I take a lot of my music inspiration from movie soundtracks and this is one of those things I tend to overuse: the ole cut to silence before the big socket watering part. This cracked my top 3 for soundtrack last night. I was just like “woah, how did I forget about this?!” And then I promptly started crying like a baby.

Religious experience, man. Next level spiritual stuff.

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Love the movie - I really ought to watch the series at some point - have had the box sitting on a shelf occasionally winking at me for like three or four years now. One day, one day...

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Cheers for the encouragement - I'll put it off until next year at least now :D
#abulltotheend

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

love that movie espciall the tv show firefly

https://media.tenor.com/images/ce79f...4fc2/tenor.gif
Argh should've gone with reverse psychology instead of that shia gif..
Don't ever watch it Chyp, take it off the shelf, place a nice plant there in it's place, watch 1.5/5 and 2.5/5 movies instead..:p

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Too late now. At least my scale doesn't start at 3/5 :p

lol, but bull, you prolly missed my 1.5/5 rating from a couple days ago..

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Wow, yeah I must have missed that :D

Re: Serenity: 15 years later
 

Totally agree, Serenity is so good. We saw it before seeing Firefly, which is nuts, but also a testament to how will it condensed each character's vibe and back story into the opening of that movie. The scenes where Mal's walking through the ship interacting with each of them for just a few seconds near the beginning is an absolute masterpiece of character exposition. It gives you such a great sense of everyone's personality and relationships to the others in such a short period of time, none of which feels forced. So good.

Lovely movie, so well done, and even more impressive when you realize that it had to work for people who'd never seen the show and people who knew every line from it.

Agreed, 100%. I happened upon the movie on release without any context of the series or even that there was a series. I fell in love with it. I was hesitant though, due to the B-movie vibe I got from it and the weird country/sci-fi world, but that soon passed. Probably right around the reavers' popping in attacking the heist. Fun movie, great sci-fi design, underestimated story that took me by surprise, and I actually cared for the characters. That combination rarely hits equally well in a movie, let alone this genre, so it has always scored very high for me. Odd that I haven't seriously considered this flick for my top 25. I need to watch this again to see how I feel about it now. It's been at least a year since my last viewing.

It's also one continuous take with the steady cam. So good!