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Originally Posted by somerfrost
Fair question...the whole point of Firefly (the TV series from which Serenity came) is that in the future, while the central planets have all sorts of advanced gizmos, the outer colonies are quite backward. It came out more in the series but they ride horses, live in small backward communities, raise cattle and crops...live pretty much as in the old west. Two distinct earth cultures survive (earth was rendered unliveable due to polution and lack of resources)...American and Chinese (makes sense...no?) and the average guy speaks both languages. A neat part of the show was that most swearing was done in Mandrin Chinese...got by the censors and sounded really cool! The movie just didn't have the time to highlight all that. There was a civil war between the colonies (rebels) and the centralized Alliance...the Alliance had overwhelming superiority and won. Capt Mal Reynolds and Zoe fought for the rebels and were best friends. After the war, Mal bought an old rust-bucket firefly model ship which he called Serenity after the turning-point battle of the war. It's this ship that they fly through the verse doing odd jobs (some legal, most not) staying one step ahead of the Alliance and avoiding the Reavers. They added a crew...Wash, the pilot and he married Zoe (very much the odd couple, warrior woman and well...Wash. But very much in love), Kaylee the ship's mechanic who Mal met one day when he walked in on her and his former mechanic having sex in the back of the ship while docked, Jayne..the muscle and less than trustworthy. He also rented a shuttle to a companion (prostitute) named Inara. In their time, companions were a highly honored profession and she added class to the ship. All went smoothly until they took on 4 passengers to help with costs. One turned out to be a government agent and Mal would eventually shoot him in the head and dump his body on an outer planet. Sheppard Book (read minister), and Simon and River Tam. Simon was a brilliant young surgeon who sacrificed everything to save his sister River. She was experimented on by the Alliance and, as it turns out, turned into a skilled and deadly human weapon...she also can read minds. Simon rescued her and the Alliance very much wanted her back (the movie finally explains why). The characters were so well developed despite the fact that the series lasted only 14 episodes (Fox butchered it, showed it out of sequence etc) and it was typical Whedon genius. There are no aliens in this future, just very down-to-earth folks struggling to get by facing the same problems we face today.
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Thanks, I can see where there would be some appeal. It seems that the characters were fleshed out much more on the series.
I just had to laugh at one point after Mal stated how bad things were being chased by the assasin, the Reavers, and how he hadn't had anything to eat in a long time. Then I look aroung the ship at these girls with long manes of hair, obviously well taken care of, washed, curled, styled, etc, and I'm thinking to myself if he would just cut back on the hair care budget they might have some money to eat! Not picking on this show in particular, its pretty much what I do with all sci-fi, look for the incongruities. And they all have them. One of the all time best (worst) for this was the movie The Core. What a scream that one is. It's so bad that I have to watch it over and over!