Serenity (Collector's Edition)
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.99 You Save: $15.99 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $8.46 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Serenity (Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Browncoats Rule!
Summary: 5 Stars
SHINEY! A continuation to the Firefly series, this movie closes out the show and has a lot of gusto in doing so. A must have for any Fan of the series and the explanation of what the Reavers are and where they came from. Very well made without the swearin', cursin', or Godlessness of most Sci-Fi movies. Add to your collection. 'nough said....Movie Review: Too Bad they had to finish the show with a movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
The show Firefly was really good. After one season they cancelled the show; the movie although good really doesn't answer all the questions we have. If Firefly were allowed to continue it would of had more viewers and ratings probably would've gone up. However, the movie especially in HD is really clear, great sound, and great special effects. Anyone would be happy with this on HD-DVD.Movie Review: firefly
Summary: 5 Stars
Loved the show. Loved the movie. The extras where great. I enjoy movies better with the extras.Movie Review: what an awesome series, too bad it's gone
Summary: 5 Stars
What a shame that tv producers did not see the charm in this shoot em up, sci fi original with such wonderful characters. From the first episode to the last, you just want to see more.Movie Review: Joss Whedon: modern Plato?
Summary: 5 Stars
Every philosophy student should watch this movie!! The characters can be seen as dialectic interlocutors representing different shades of morality. This film is definitely among the more unique in our time. It is as exciting as Indiana Jones, but is layered with deep philosophical complexities and moral ambiguities that many modern art house films don't even get quite right.
As most people know, this film grew out of a short-lived series called Firefly, which, admittedly, I didn't know about before this film but have since watched in its entirety. It is set in the future, in a post-war Reconstruction-esque Era where several worlds are run by the Alliance, a Sino-American, culturally fused mega-government that is, after all, just trying to make a better world. The numerous system of worlds governed by the Alliance have forced them to spread their presence thin, leaving wiggle room for fringe settlers to live by their own laws (or lack thereof), similar to the American frontier era.
Malcolm Reynolds is captain of the Serenity, a firefly class space vessel that is as iconic as the Millennium Falcon or the Black Pearl. He fought for the browncoats, a resistance group who fought against the Alliance in the Unification War. I'd coin the term "vicarious schizophrenic" just for Mal. He's that complicated a character! For the crew with which Mal has surrounded himself, I would make the argument, are a complex of Mal's many manifested personalities:
Zoe - the Spartan who never diverts from her sense of purpose.
Wash - the light-hearted adventurous pirate, filled with wanderlust.
Kaylee - the suppressed inner child, innocent but adaptable and capable.
Jayne - the churlish brigand, always calculating his advantages in any situation.
Simon Tam - a man of moral purpose with a deep hatred for the Alliance, who abandoned a potentially comfortable life to resist the Alliance, who victimized his sister.
River Tam - an otherwise gifted individual, twisted into something dark by the Alliance.
Shepherd Book - warrior/preacher searching for cosmic purpose, who explores a realm where Mal himself won't venture, but who comes to teach Mal that belief doesn't necessarily have to involve something spiritual.
Inara - a high class courtesan and Mal's soul mate, whom he petulantly alienates (implying Mal's self-hatred).
The dialogue in this movie rivals some of the best I've ever seen on film. It delves so deeply into the fabric of humanity and all of its moral dilemmas. Here are a few examples (disclaimers: I did my best to be exact. I've only seen this movie three times, so please forgive any inaccuracies):
(my personal favorite!)
Mal: Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
(while experiencing a rough landing)
Mal: Just get us on the ground!
Wash: That part will happen pretty definitely!
(before the payroll robbery)
Mal: I don't plan on any shooting taking place on this job.
Jayne: Yeah, but what you plan and what takes place ain't exactly been similar.
(Simon protesting River's involvement in the payroll robbery)
Simon: Do you understand what I've gone through to protect River from the Alliance?
Mal: I do. It's a fact we here have been courteous enough to keep to our own selves.
Simon: Are you threatening me?
Mal: I look out for me and mine. That don't include you unless I conjure it does. Now you stuck a thorn in the Alliance's paw. That tickles me a bit. But it also means I have to step twice as fast to avoid them. And that means turning down plenty of jobs. Even honest ones. Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don't push me, and I won't push you.
(during the payroll robbery)
Mal: I see a head rise, violence is going to ensue. Probably guessed we mean to be thieving here, but what we're after here is not yours. So, let's have no undue fuss.
(after rescuing Inara from the Operative)
Inara: This isn't a war, Mal. You came to that training house looking for a fight.
Mal: I came looking for you.
Inara: I just want to know who I'm dealing with. I've seen too many versions of you to be sure.
Mal: I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.
(after realizing the Alliance is hunting River Tam)
Shepherd: You have a plan?
Mal: What, hiding ain't a plan?
(Later in that conversation)
Mal: I could've left her there. I had an out. Hell, I had every reason in the `verse to haul anchor.
Shepherd: it's not your way, Mal.
Mal: I have a way? Is that better than having a plan?
(before the story's climax)
Mal: You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Sure as I know anything, I know this. They will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now. Maybe ten. They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.
There are many, many more that I have omitted. This story could be used as a study on human nature and a makeshift morality achieved through dialectic. There is nobody here that is essentially good or essentially bad. Instead evil is represented by the Alliance, which is really no more than a metaphor for how badly a seemingly benevolent ideology can be twisted. A core belief held by the Alliance is that, as Mal stated, they can make people better, the opposing viewpoint being that humanity should be free from such intervention, no matter how bad it might get. We have been seeing a similar struggle play out globally since the Cold War in the two forms of state governance that have dominated the world since then, and in our attempts to spread the ideals therein by force when deemed necessary. Exactly who is right has not been determined, and I don't think ever will be. Atrocities have been perpetrated by all sides. Mankind will continue ever to find its moral equilibrium within the many shades between right and wrong, and struggles such as Mal's and the crew of Serenity will be those that punctuate the very essence of it all. The story of Serenity always was and always will be the story of mankind, in its largeness and its smallness.