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October 2, 2005

Serenity

You, my fine reader, may not know this, but I admit to you now that I am a bit of a sci-fi fan. I love that humans have the ability to create (from nothing other than our dense imaginations) utterly new complex worlds, complete with creatures, customs, languages, societies, laws and politics. I love the idea of stretching the boundaries of what we currently think of as hard science.

Tonight I watched Serenity, the new film from Joss Whedon (creator/writer Buffy the Vampire Slayer) based on his short lived, FOX show Firefly. Though I was on the road for most of 2002, I had the chance to catch a few episodes and was absolutely hooked on the characters and their richly imagined world. The writing was so very smart and Whedon beautifully captured the complicated tapestry of human nature. Plus, it was at turns both funny and heartbreaking, a combination I find irresistible (I can not fail to mention the fine art with which each episode was scored).

Network executives at FOX proved themselves, for the umpteenth time, to be without an ounce of imagination or patience when they cancelled the show without ever giving it the time to develop a proper audience (too bad there is no such thing as independent tv, ala the singer-songwriter realm). Much as when My-So Called-Life was unceremoniously dumped ten years ago, I felt a loss at never knowing what would become of these people Joss Whedon cooked up in his mind.

I just found out about the film a few days ago (I get the feeling the film has little in the way of an advertising budget) and had been tapping my feet in anticipation of today.

I loved the movie, folks. LOVED IT. I feel as if it is my job to spread the word about this self described space-western-adventure-comedy-drama. It proves that a good movie has more to do with characters, story, and heart than a 200 million dollar budget. I wish we would get more of these to choose from. I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats. And, hell, don't you love a great space chase?!?

Posted by bethamsel at October 2, 2005 11:10 PM