*** Official SERENITY Discussion Thread - Page 5

Jayne lost a lot of weight, looks much older, and is far from the force of nature he was on the show.

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H

Zoe, not Chloe.

I still want to know Book's mysterious backstory. I was surprised that he was killed off.

Really? He looked basically the same to me.

Jayne looks the same to me too. The biggest visual difference for me, besides Kaylee no longer being as convex, was Wash's clothes which were much less casual and colorful.

D'oh! I knew there was something wrong about that. I probably picked it up from a previous post.

Watching "Objects in Space" and just noticed Early tells Simon, "You ought to be shot..."

EDIT: Hmmm. Just saw he got shot in that episode too. Forgot about that. Guess it doesn't apply. Could be a recurring gag though.

Mal looked to be the one who looked the most different. He aged a lot and looks extrememly tired with the bags under his eyes.

Adam Baldwin's Jayne to me depends entirely on the facial hair. It's the key physical characteristic that makes Baldwin look like Jayne.
"The Train Job" still sticks out to me because Baldwin is clean shaven and I keep wondering why the super soldier from the X-Files is dangling out the underbelly of a spaceship

To me, the show and movie looked like they could've been shot the same day. The actors look exactly the same. I don't see a difference especially in Mal (other than the end of course).

Saw this last night, and enjoyed it. I never watched the television show, but was interested to see the movie. I liked the lived-in universe the characters inhabited, and I wanted to see more of the Alliance worlds and the rim worlds. It seemed to me that when concocting the series, they must have thought it would be nice to base it on what life would be like for a Han Solo character, separate from any government institution. That's what gives us the average-guy feel to the universe.

I'd go see any sequels.

One of the things I liked the most about Mal is that he not only has the qualities of Han Solo (scoundrel in space) but I also realized during his first fight with the Operative that he can take a punch like Indiana Jones.

I just want to chime in with my thumb way way up. I liked this from the first show on TV and it just got better. The movie was so much more intelligent and satisfying then any other science fiction movie I've seen. What was weird was that as soon as I saw the part of the reiver ship get swallowed by Serenity and the doc walk over toward it, I thought to myself the alliance created the reivers. This is definitly going to be watched many times by me. I can only hope for sequels.

They may not do it in the movies but in the army they do. The more F'ed up the situation the more surreal and absurd the humor gets. Sort of like James Coburn at the end of Cross of Iron.

She did look thinner...She looked just as good in the show.

Watched "Serenity" last Monday afternoon and another Thumb's UP!!! (wife, friend and me)!

Bought Firefly - The Complete Series on January 9, 2004 and we watched the entire 14 episodes, in the correct order, ... about 3-time and we all looked forward to the movie!!! We just loved the Movie! The Theater was about 1/4 full @ 5:10pm, ... so go out and see it on the Big Screen, ... just to experience the Reaver's up-close and personal!!!

Can't wait for the DVD to come out in 4 - 6 months!?!?! Definitely sound & feel (LFE) better @ home!!!

Phil

While the pic. looked GREAT at the theatre in Emeryville where we saw it, the sounds kinda blew. NO low end, way too harsh and midrangey sounding and not loud enough. Can't wait to get the dvd to hear it good as well.

d

I noticed that as well.

I'd give it 2-3, looking at the Box Office. They could, feasibly, have this thing out in time for the holiday season if this 2nd weekend drops like people are predicting. It might be out of theaters 3rd week of October.

This risk of Universal's looks like it's going to bite em in the ass, (although I loved the movie) and if they feel like taking any more risks--why not risk just releasing future Serenity movies STRAIGHT to video. Whedon made the Firefly pilot on 10 million..sure, it'd be risky, but I think it'd be a safer bet to let Whedon run a string of 15-20 million DTV movies than to strike the prints and blitz the advertising for the theatrical release that won't return enough on the investment.

I really liked the movie, and I really like the universe, and I think this might be one of the few ways it can continue from here.

Finished the show last night, and saw the movie tonight. I guess it's good that I saw the movie with the BO specter over it. I knew I was likely watching the end, not a new beginning So I remembered to say goodbye to a quality universe.

I'll pop a review in tomorrow, but I really enjoyed the film. It brought some of the bad-Whedon in, but kept all the good stuff and great stuff that makes up for it.

A few brief thoughts:

1) Jewel looks better with the weight. She really does. It fills out her face and makes her smile bigger.

2) Shame about Book. His backstory was as intriguing to me as anyones. Prior Operative?

3) Ejiofor had great presence. With the exception of the beginning of the big space battle (where they forgot how smart and perceptive he was), his scenes were all good.

4) I was extremely impressed with Summer's fight scenes. Clearly, Joss has seen Equilibrium, as he poached the best elements and made them really, really work. They were poetry to watch. Must be something about dancers...

5) Kudos to Nathan Fillion.

6) And kudos to the first time theatrical director. The film looked good.

More in the review tomorrow. Got to let it simmer.

Take care,
Chuck

And quick complaints:
- Shouldn't flying through Reaver ships be LIVING HELL on a psychic

- How did the guy "go Reaver" in the early TV episode...since Reavers are the product of a chemical breakdown????

- Simon seemed more "matinee" in the film than the show. Could be a product of the missing time.

I don't see any evidence of a big dropoff this coming weekend (over 45%). In fact, with word of mouth as positive as it is, I would think a low dropoff is possible. I know I'm seeing it again - and this time I'm getting 8+ people to go with me.

This movie is dropping like a rock, man. Which sucks ass, no doubt, but it's dying on the vine, Land of the Dead style. which, by the way, was another movie I really liked.

Even mildly successful movies make more on their opening Saturday than they do on the opening Friday, and they typically make about as much on Sunday as they do on Friday, if not a LITTLE bit more. They drop pretty far on Monday, because it's Monday, but pick right back up on Tuesday.

This movie has made less money than the previous day (by a pretty decent amount) every day it's been out. The numbers up at Box Office Mojo make this look like it might actually do WORSE for Universal than Land of the Dead did. An argument I've read at another board states that if they swapped release dates, both movies might have more closely approached the 50-60 million range before dropping out of theaters. Critical reviews and word of mouth ARE good--but it seems people just don't want to watch a sci-fi/western "cult phenomenon" with the weird ads. Which, by the way, Universal's pretty much dropped. Word of mouth had BETTER be good, because that's all the advertising this movie's going to get for the rest of it's run.

Yep, I saw the writing on the wall when they shifted the release date from April to now. At least we got a cool movie, and eventually a dvd out of it. I mean, the fact that this movie even exists is insane. So I'm looking on the bright side for now.

Yeah, this movie was quite a longshot to begin with. Be happy that it even exists at all, and that it provides at least some closure for fans.

I can't think of any kind of compelling reason for Universal to make a followup Serenity movie, but I'd certainly watch it if they did.

Same here. Like Chuck said, I'm sure this movie actually plays a little bit better as an ENDING rather than a hopeful beginning. When I see it again, I know that's how I'll be looking at it.

Y'know, I had a comment here, but this monday morning quarterbacking about how next weekend will do, before Friday even has started, is just absurd.

Well, Universal blew it big time. That's the only reason this film is failing financially - something that should not have happened for a film with such a modest budget.

There are only three general reasons why a film fails financially:

1) "Artsy" and perceptively limited in audience appeal (Americans don't like subtitles, don't like "serious" movies, etc.)

2) The movie sucks.

3) The movie is poorly/inappropriately managed/advertized.

Only the latter fully applies. There is some of #1 in there, but it's mostly negligible (although I've convinced a lot of people to go with me on my next viewing, some just don't want to see anything from "that idiot who made that crappy Buffy", even after I tell them I've never seen a frame of Buffy and yet love Firefly/Serenity). Anyway, it's really almost entirely #3. Just goes to show that, for the most part, Americans need to be told what is good by the advertizing, by having a name, actor or franchise, tie-in. Americans are too unwilling to take chances on something new/different.

So, instead of even Dukes of Hazzard numbers ($80 million), we get one of the best pure FUN films of the year tanking. With the Digital Bits already putting the DVD release date as 12/20/05 in their Rumor Mill.

I haven't been this disgusted with a film's box office performance in years. It hurts. It hurts bad. And now it'll always hurt bad because of the idiots out there that will say "Dude, that film made no money, so it sucks."

And I just get angrier and angrier with every passing day.

Look, they planned for this film to be a word-of-mouth film. The first weekend was the fan base - which as expected weighed more heavily in on Friday - opening day - since they (and I!) wanted to see it as soon as possible. Now it is whether week two starts attracting people from word of mouth.

I don't even watch tv, but since there's a small tv that is sometimes on as my housemates cook dinner, I can say that I must have seen the Jodie Foster Flightplan movie preview a couple dozen times already. I've never seen any ads for Serenity, ever. So I have to assume that was intentional, that they were going to rely upon word-of-mouth.

I have been hearing good word of mouth here, and from friends, and from people on other message boards. I believe this film may appear be dropping out of 2nd place this weekend, but I think it will hold steady for a 3rd as people start to check it out. I give it four weeks in theatres (first run) total, or about, oh, maybe $35 million U.S. Add in Australia and Europe and that'll be double. Still short of the hoped for $80 million? Maybe, but since they had such a small advertising sink-hole, it may be a profitable film for Universal. I think we'll see a pair of sequels, especially when DVD sales are considered.