Serenity
Well, last night was the night; the Serenity preview screening. The challenge here is to sum up how great it is without giving too much away about the story.
First, let me set the scene, the film was introduced by a UIP rep and preceded by a short recorded message from Joss Whedon, which had everyone laughing from the start - "This version of the film is complete, all the sounds, music, CGI, everything is in there...except for a couple of gaping plot holes that I couldn't be bothered to fill in". After the film, we were treated to a Q&A session with Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin, who were both made very welcome and certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, to the extent that they extended the Q&A session, beyond that which the UIP rep had set, by about 15 minutes.
Right, onto the film itself. What to say other than "Wow" - easily the best film of the year so far, not a moment of it that I wasn't glued to the screen. Now obviously I'm not entirely without bias here, I loved Firefly, so it wasn't going to take much to impress me, but Joss has really produced an excellent film here. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to see it again - on that note actually, if you've not see Firefly then you'll probably be a little surprised by the amount of humour in Serenity. Most Sci-Fi tends to shun overt humour for some reason, but Serenity has more than its fair share of laugh out loud moments - something which I think does a great deal to make the characters feel more human, you grow quite attached to them by the end of the film. The cinematography was also excellent, scenes flowed together seamlessly, when someone walks out of a room and you follow them, the conversations of the other characters continue in the background until you're out of earshot - you never get the impression that this is anything but a single continuous story.
For non-fans, the film does a very good job of doing a quick introduction to everything. The opening scenes include a quick background of River and Simon as well as a walk around Serenity following Mal and introducing all of the crew and their roles in the process. There are in-jokes and references to the series throughout the film, but nothing that would make a newcomer to it all feel left out - obviously if you've seen Firefly you'll have a much better idea of what's going on, the film is set some 6 months after Objects In Space and bridged by the 3 Serenity comic books from Dark Horse Comics (Available online at http://www.tfaw.com/).
It's very hard not to include any spoilers, but I've done my best so far; I'll simply say, expect to be shocked. There are things that happen in this movie that you really will not expect - especially if you've seen Firefly - and nothing will really be the same by the end of it.
If you only see one more film this year, make it Serenity, I can't remember the last film I enjoyed this much. I wish it all the success it deserves and have high hopes for a sequel and with any luck the full trilogy.
First, let me set the scene, the film was introduced by a UIP rep and preceded by a short recorded message from Joss Whedon, which had everyone laughing from the start - "This version of the film is complete, all the sounds, music, CGI, everything is in there...except for a couple of gaping plot holes that I couldn't be bothered to fill in". After the film, we were treated to a Q&A session with Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin, who were both made very welcome and certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, to the extent that they extended the Q&A session, beyond that which the UIP rep had set, by about 15 minutes.
Right, onto the film itself. What to say other than "Wow" - easily the best film of the year so far, not a moment of it that I wasn't glued to the screen. Now obviously I'm not entirely without bias here, I loved Firefly, so it wasn't going to take much to impress me, but Joss has really produced an excellent film here. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to see it again - on that note actually, if you've not see Firefly then you'll probably be a little surprised by the amount of humour in Serenity. Most Sci-Fi tends to shun overt humour for some reason, but Serenity has more than its fair share of laugh out loud moments - something which I think does a great deal to make the characters feel more human, you grow quite attached to them by the end of the film. The cinematography was also excellent, scenes flowed together seamlessly, when someone walks out of a room and you follow them, the conversations of the other characters continue in the background until you're out of earshot - you never get the impression that this is anything but a single continuous story.
For non-fans, the film does a very good job of doing a quick introduction to everything. The opening scenes include a quick background of River and Simon as well as a walk around Serenity following Mal and introducing all of the crew and their roles in the process. There are in-jokes and references to the series throughout the film, but nothing that would make a newcomer to it all feel left out - obviously if you've seen Firefly you'll have a much better idea of what's going on, the film is set some 6 months after Objects In Space and bridged by the 3 Serenity comic books from Dark Horse Comics (Available online at http://www.tfaw.com/).
It's very hard not to include any spoilers, but I've done my best so far; I'll simply say, expect to be shocked. There are things that happen in this movie that you really will not expect - especially if you've seen Firefly - and nothing will really be the same by the end of it.
If you only see one more film this year, make it Serenity, I can't remember the last film I enjoyed this much. I wish it all the success it deserves and have high hopes for a sequel and with any luck the full trilogy.
