***OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SERENITY YET, BUT WOULD LIKE TO DO SO WITHOUT KNOWING IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS, SKIP THIS ENTRY.***

Much to the delight of the lovely Ms. Dalton, we took in last night's premiere of Joss Whedon's Serenity, the long-awaited feature film based on his abruptly-cancelled TV series Firefly. And how was it?

Well, since we were stone fans of the show, it shouldn't come as a shock that we enjoyed it immensely. If there were relatively few delightful shocks, we were still treated to a great many familiarities, some cranked up to a higher pitch than we'd have expected--the improved special effects and fight scenes, for example. Perhaps more important, many of our fears were allayed, as we'd been somewhat concerned at how well a nine-character show designed to stretch out over twenty-odd episodes could have its sensibilities transferred to a two-hour film.

Luckily, Whedon has not only spent a lot of time writing for the small screen, but has worked in other media such as comics (if you're not reading his Astonishing X-Men, you're missing a treat) and the big screen, which is where Buffy the Vampire Slayer had its first (uneven) treatment. He's thus got a pretty good idea of how different formats demand different tricks, and he did a good job, to my thinking, of adapting the universe of Firefly to the two-hour format. The events of the nine episodes that made it to air were neatly summarized with a minimum of Expositional Dialogue, and we were treated to an action-packed escape sequence almost immediately.

Naturally, the balance had to be shifted to a small number of characters, and those two were Mal and River. This was fine by me, as Mal is probably the most interesting of the bunch, and River's story was the biggest loose end still dangling when the show was cancelled. Yeah, I would have liked to see a bit more of Kaylee and Zoe (and I mean that in, um, only the correct sense...) but (well, actually, I mean it in the incorrect sense as well...) I can't really (oh, c'mon, can you blame me?) fault Joss for putting them on the back burner for the moment. In the sequel, though... mmmm...

Where was I? Ah, yes, Serenity. Well. Apart from a few pseudo-western lines, the dialogue crackled nicely. Some of Mal's cowboyisms worked well, such as the punchy "I aim to misbehave," but when he said that soon there'd be "no place for naughty men like us to slip about" I felt like signalling a waiter to box up some of the vernacular for me to take home; it was certainly too much to eat right there. Both Wash and Jayne had some lovely mood-altering interjections ("How about the part where it's a trap?"), and River's post-aircar chase "I swallowed a bug" should probably be in the Bathos Hall of Fame.

But there's no getting around the Big Events, at least as far as the rabid fandom is concerned: the deaths of Book and Wash. (Yeah, some other people die, too, but they weren't on the show.) Book's death was the sort of trade you can imagine Whedon brokering with an old veteran like Ron "Harris" Glass: "Look, since you're getting a smaller part in the movie no matter what, this way you at least get a really great death scene. Besides, we need to give Mal some motivation to take on the Alliance, and if they go after his old friends, his change of heart will be legitimized." It's completely logical from a storytelling standpoint, as it transforms Mal from a maverick trying to avoid the Alliance to a rogue trying to hurt it.

It's a little harder to take the death of Wash. For one, he's one of my favorite characters, starting from his first appearance onscreen in the pilot, where he was playing with his toy dinosaur figures and providing dialogue for them:

Stegosaurus: Yes... This land will be fertile. We will thrive here, and we will call it... This Land.
Tyrannosaurus Rex: I think we should call it Your Grave!
Stego: Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
T-Rex: Ha ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh!

You've got to love anybody who can pull that off. But again, in the context of the film, losing Wash makes sense. First, the climactic battle sequence occurs on the ground, after the death-defying flight through the fleets of both the crazed, cannibalistic Reavers AND the tight-assed, militaristic Alliance, between the blasts of lasers and the screaming of projectiles, after the death spiral and the G-forces too nasty to count. Wash is a pilot, and getting through all of the above is his triumph, and his character's only real opportunity to triumph; he's not going to top that in the battle. He goes out on top. More important, his loss signifies that the threat is serious. If Joss demonstrates that Wash can be lost, then the audience can't make any assumptions about the outcome of the final fight--anybody could be killed.

Because of that, the audience is kept nervous about every other character in the battle; when Zoe charges and is wounded, when Jayne takes a hit, when Kaylee is darted, and when Simon gets shot, the stakes are significantly raised, which makes River's rush back toward the Reavers that much more meaningful. I assumed at first that River had sacrificed herself by rushing back and closing the blast doors from the other side. The possibility that she could survive may have lurked at the back of my mind, but I was already into my Character Attrition mode. Thus, when we eventually see her hacking and slashing away (and oh my god, what amazing fight choreography for Summer Glau--her dance background really worked beautifully here) it's a shock, but a more positive one; instead of saying to ourselves, "She's alive? Oh, yeah, right..." we say "She's alive! Holy shit!"

(That also allows us the lovely Buffy-reincarnate shot of River, standing in her little waifish dress and combat boots, gracefully holding her weapons over the bodies of the Reavers, with blood flowing down the edge and dripping off.)

Kel and I also noted the way Mal defeats the Operative--by using his weakness, his old war wound, rather than his strength--and the fact that in the end, the true-believer Op is forced to watch the broadcast and witness exactly what his beloved Alliance has done--the film's tag line, "Can't stop the signal," also applies to those who would just as soon not know what their own side is doing, a lesson worth recalling in these days of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. And perhaps more important, after this witnessing, the Op is given another chance to shut down Mal and the others for good--and now, fully cognizant, chooses not to. With all the death that's been dealt, it's an oddly positive conclusion.

So: it's a thrill ride, a delight for those who enjoy Whedon's trademark wit, and a darker and meatier examination of the morality of imposing peace and freedom than you might expect in a space opera. By all means, if you haven't seen it yet, see it; and if you have, find a friend who hasn't and get to the multiplex.

Oh, and the DVDs of the complete series? A damn fine Xmas gift.
9:06 PM

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