Being a big fan of Joss Whedon's Firefly series, I have been anxiously awaiting the feature film follow up to the cancelled series, Serenity. Last night I went to the local mega-plex, with the new jumbo-screen theater (which incedently has chairs more comfortable than any in my house) sipped a supertalative sized soda, and enjoyed the film event I'd been waiting for. You know, sometimes the American habbit of having everything disgustingly huge can be kind of fun.

At the risk of being a spoiler, I won't say much about the content of the story, although I will say it has some great effects and chase scenes. It was interesting to see how different the film and TV genres can be as storytelling tools. Having seen the characters and the story develop in the series over the all too few 14 episodes, the development seemed shockingly fast in the film. It makes sense, the film needs to draw in the entire audience into the film regardless if they have seen the series, but I was suprised to hear myself talk about TV being the richer medium in telling this story.

Serenity, like other Whedon created worlds (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) deals with the spiritual and the supernatural. In Serenity, modern politics, social, and religious issues are a big part of the story sub-text. Particulary, the villian assasin claims he is working to create a universe, (there are many habitable worlds in the story) that is free of sin. He counts himself out of that future as he calls himself a monster. What he means by sin, isn't very well developed but is a primary motivation for the character. The our hero / anti-hero, Captain Mal Reynolds acts as the opposing view point in letting the universe be what it is even though he operates by a moral code. To understand this story line better, I'll have to see the film again, perhaps from one of those really comfy seats with the cup holders...