Serenity

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

I was listening for the theme all through Serenity. I really love that theme song from Firefly. It actually makes me sad now that I've finished the movie. The Firefly Universe is done, there's nothing more. But you can't take the sky from me.

There is no way for me to give an honest unbiased appraisal of Serenity. I love the show too much and I can't separate the show from the movie. That's why, I think, that Serenity is one of the top three 2005 films I've seen so far and will likely make my Top 10 list for the year...at least when I can make the list up in a couple years.

The timeline is sometime after Firefly ended. I thought it was two years, but then in film I hear that River and Simon have been on the ship for 8 months...so is this 8 months after River is rescued? I imagine so. That's my guess. Somewhere, somehow River is captured by the Alliance, tested on, and Simon rescues her. That's my call right now. Maybe this is all stuff that happened before the television show, but I'm going with not.

So the Alliance is seriously after River (Summer Glau). No surprise. They send The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor in a fantastic performance) to reclaim her. He is deadly. He is without passion. He is good at what he does. Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and creware just trying to do their jobs, stay alive, and figure out what to do with River. But there is more to River than it seems because when she snaps in a bar it seems she isn't just the damaged girl, but also a Weapon.

So that promo poster with River in a fighting stance was accurate. It didn't fit what we knew but it is accurate.

*Sigh* Cracking wise and with a space western, Joss Whedon has created one hell of a science fiction movie...one which questions the nature of Empire, the consequences of forcing peace on others, and why the outcasts are perhaps not the bad guys even when they don't fit into society. But even the Alliance itself isn't such the Evil Empire, though it is, because the Alliance is made up of people who are trying to do right but got it so very wrong.

And so on and so forth.

Here's what I know and can express in words that don't confuse me. I loved Serenity. I do not think I can fairly evaluate the movie, but I can say that I would rather watch two hours of Serenity than perhaps any other movie released this past year and the two hours of Serenity brought me more pleasure than most other movies.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I go to the movies.

Or watch them at home.



By the way Nathan Fillion was in Saving Private Ryan. He's the Ryan from Minnesota. Just some random trivia.

And now, onto reading Finding Serenity and getting to the essay by Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and her thoughts on the episodes.