Serenity

[Deleted]

I'll get the "meh" ball rolling (or perhaps will stand alone with my non-excitement). I have to say that I never got into Buffy or any other Whedon stuff, so I am far from the target audience for this movie, and I think it looks bad. Bad acting, bad effects, bad dialogue, lame plot, etc... Nothing about this looks good to me. I can't talk about the finished product (previews can be tricky) but I am not inspired to see the movie to find out if I am wrong about my first impressions. That said, I think there is an audience for this movie - people love Whedon and Firefly . I am just not part of it.

I think this movie will perform (box office wise) rather like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The people who are chomping at the bit to see it will give it a nice opening weekend, but it won't do much after that because it isn't being marketed, imo, to people who aren't familiar with Whedon or Firefly. It doesn't seem to have any crossover appeal. I could be totally wrong, though and it could be a great movie even if you have zero idea what Firefly was about, but all the great reviews in the world won't tempt me to see it.

[mostlyharmless]

ThursdayNext, I see your point, previews and trailers can be very misleading. Some of the earlier screeners were rough cuts, the version I saw was the finished complete version. And I swear to you the effects were great.

I loved the Matrix style fighting when Matrix first came out, but everyone has done these to death since and mostly they look derivitive at best and cheesy and lame at worst. Serenity fight scenes are NOT Matrixy. The brief fight clip in the trailer was a very cut version of a fight scene, the actress is a ballet dancer and can do things that most pro stunt fighters cannot. The shots in the fight were (relativly) long shots with excellent chorography and no "Bullet time" or CGI tricks.

I, as a Whedon fan can sit here until the cows come home and swear that the acting and dialogue are both great but I am biased. However Serenity had it's premire Monday at the Edinburg Film Festival and it is STILL leading the Audience Awards voting. ( See here for latest results) This is a film festival, full of movie fans, critics and so on, and many of them love it. Even when they had the critics-only screening they all burst into applause at the end.

The dialogue is great, the characters are real characters and not one dimensional, the good guys and the bad guy are not black and white but shades of gray.

Why not go see it? And I again have to swear I don't work for the studio! How much is a cinema ticket? A few pounds (or Dollars). You might like it, and if you don't then you've still had an evening out with friends.

And if you and lots of other people do then they will make a sequel. And with all the crap that comes out of Hollywood a movie made by a writer/director because he LOVED the story and wanted to make HIS movie HIS way is something to be rewarded. The alternative is movies made by committe.

[foxyepicurean]

It occurs to me that with the seemingly widespread popularity of the new Battlestar Galactica, this movie has a chance to cash in on that audience as well as the Whedon devotees. Granted, there's likely to be a great deal of overlap in those audiences. But it seems like a good time to release Serenity.

I'm really looking forward to this film--thanks for the review, Mostly. The previews looked good, but endorsement from a fellow CPMCoGer is better than two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper any day. (Have those two chuckleheads reviewed it yet?)

Confession: I never got around to watching Firefly even though it sounded interesting--it premiered during the hectic weeks when I lost my job, got married, and moved to a different state. Upheaval much? By the time things settled down enough to watch TV again, the show was nowhere to be found. I was wicked irritated. I'll try to make up for my disloyalty by seeing the movie opening weekend.

[hobbes]

One question: Does anyone else always think Now!! after reading the title of the film?

Yes! I totally do.

Also, I've seen like 2 episodes of Buffy, maybe 3 of Angel, and 0 of Firefly, and I think this looks fabulous. It just looks fun, and I can't wait to see it.

[spiderwyman]

thursdaynext said:

I'll get the "meh" ball rolling (or perhaps will stand alone with my non-excitement). I have to say that I never got into Buffy or any other Whedon stuff, so I am far from the target audience for this movie, and I think it looks bad. Bad acting, bad effects, bad dialogue, lame plot, etc... Nothing about this looks good to me. I can't talk about the finished product (previews can be tricky) but I am not inspired to see the movie to find out if I am wrong about my first impressions. That said, I think there is an audience for this movie - people love Whedon and Firefly . I am just not part of it.

I agree.
This looks bad, it actually feels like one of those really lame films you see on that Science fiction cable channel...like Mansquito and Star Terror and such.
And seeing how the competition is and how this has no stars, I don't see how this movie will be huge.
What's the appeal to the public at large?
Zero, I bet.

[Witchie]

rattlerbrat said:

The showing out in Atlanta (which is the closest city to me) was said to have sold out in FIVE MINUTES. This is going to be sooooo huge.

Please tell me you're talking about the screenings and not September 30th. Please.

I can't wait for this movie to be released. We saw the cast at last year's DragonCon and this year's too, and the excitement was insane. They showed a 5-minute clip and it's going to blow people away. So good.

[realitybug]

spiderwyman said:

thursdaynext said:

I'll get the "meh" ball rolling (or perhaps will stand alone with my non-excitement). I have to say that I never got into Buffy or any other Whedon stuff, so I am far from the target audience for this movie, and I think it looks bad. Bad acting, bad effects, bad dialogue, lame plot, etc... Nothing about this looks good to me. I can't talk about the finished product (previews can be tricky) but I am not inspired to see the movie to find out if I am wrong about my first impressions. That said, I think there is an audience for this movie - people love Whedon and Firefly . I am just not part of it.

I agree.
This looks bad, it actually feels like one of those really lame films you see on that Science fiction cable channel...like Mansquito and Star Terror and such.
And seeing how the competition is and how this has no stars, I don't see how this movie will be huge.
What's the appeal to the public at large?
Zero, I bet.

That's my feeling on this movie. It looks kind of cool. But I am far from a Buffy fan. I think it'll be a minor hit, if that. If nothing is going up against it, then it'll be number one. It only appeals to a certain group of people. But to the public as a whole? Not. At. All.

[spinsterliz]

I hate Joss Whedon. Even if this looked like the best movie ever I still wouldn't see it, because he comes off as such a whiner in every interview he does.

Also, I just think the idea of people hundreds of years in the future riding around on horses like it's the 19th century is just silly.

[spiderwyman]

realitybug said:

spiderwyman said:

I agree.
This looks bad, it actually feels like one of those really lame films you see on that Science fiction cable channel...like Mansquito and Star Terror and such.
And seeing how the competition is and how this has no stars, I don't see how this movie will be huge.
What's the appeal to the public at large?
Zero, I bet.

That's my feeling on this movie. It looks kind of cool. But I am far from a Buffy fan. I think it'll be a minor hit, if that. If nothing is going up against it, then it'll be number one. It only appeals to a certain group of people. But to the public as a whole? Not. At. All.

But there is a lot going against it: Into The Blue opens the same week, (if Jessica Simpson in a bikini for 5 minutes can power the crappy Dukes of Hazzard to a 78 million gross, Jessica Alba in a bikini for 90 minutes will probably not hurt this film)and the week before Corpse Bride, the latest Nick Cage, and the latest Jodie Foster thriller also open.
Reese witherspoon is also in theaters with Just Like Heaven and Cameron Diaz, Vigo Mortenssen,Al Pacino and Matthew MacCounegheu all have films opening around that date...

[mostlyharmless]

Also, I just think the idea of people hundreds of years in the future riding around on horses like it's the 19th century is just silly.

It make sense. If you're somewhere where there are no roads, and maybe lacking in support like gas stations, mechanics etc, horses are a better form of transport than cars. Even today, in many parts of the world far off the beaten track or with extreme terrain, horses are the prefered form of transport.