Serenity
Just got back from seeing this movie. And while, yes I loved it and highly recommend it, even to those who haven't seen the tv show, there was something...something that left me disappointed. I wanted more. I was just getting to know/love the characters on Firefly when the show was dropped. The ship was familiar and now this movie....again, the ship is familiar, but the characters act a little different. They have to, it's a 2 hour movie, not a never ending series.
This from Stephanie Zacharek, pretty much mirrors my feelings.
**My problem, I think, is that "Serenity" dredges up some of the same feelings I have when a movie adaptation of a book I love just doesn't measure up. I'm so used to "reading" Whedon in the long form -- so used to riding the rhythms of his television series, rhythms he sustains beautifully week after week, season after season -- that "Serenity," as carefully worked out as it is, feels a bit too compact, truncated. That's less a failing on Whedon's part than a recognition of the way TV, done right, can re-create for us the luxury of sinking into a good, long novel. I hope Whedon makes many more movies (and there's the enticing possibility that "Serenity," if it does well, will be the beginning of a franchise). Faced with a big screen, Whedon knows exactly what to do with it. But the small one needs him, too. Of all the pleasures TV watching has to offer, he has perhaps tapped the greatest one: that of waiting on the docks, anxious to find out what happens next.
I am definitely glad that the bizarro accents were muted, but the foreign language references that became as familiar as words like "rodeo" or "quesadilla" were missed.
I will definitely be buying the dvd set of Firefly and working my way through all of the reviews in the coming days. Daniel Drezner has a number of links. As does Instapundit and probably every other geek on the internet like me. I'll see it a second time and really - do, go see it! It's worth it.
This from Stephanie Zacharek, pretty much mirrors my feelings.
**My problem, I think, is that "Serenity" dredges up some of the same feelings I have when a movie adaptation of a book I love just doesn't measure up. I'm so used to "reading" Whedon in the long form -- so used to riding the rhythms of his television series, rhythms he sustains beautifully week after week, season after season -- that "Serenity," as carefully worked out as it is, feels a bit too compact, truncated. That's less a failing on Whedon's part than a recognition of the way TV, done right, can re-create for us the luxury of sinking into a good, long novel. I hope Whedon makes many more movies (and there's the enticing possibility that "Serenity," if it does well, will be the beginning of a franchise). Faced with a big screen, Whedon knows exactly what to do with it. But the small one needs him, too. Of all the pleasures TV watching has to offer, he has perhaps tapped the greatest one: that of waiting on the docks, anxious to find out what happens next.
I am definitely glad that the bizarro accents were muted, but the foreign language references that became as familiar as words like "rodeo" or "quesadilla" were missed.
I will definitely be buying the dvd set of Firefly and working my way through all of the reviews in the coming days. Daniel Drezner has a number of links. As does Instapundit and probably every other geek on the internet like me. I'll see it a second time and really - do, go see it! It's worth it.
posted by Terri at
10:31 PM
