Call us dorks, but Chris and I are absolutely hooked on the TV show Firefly. Of course, they cancelled it after one season, but they did put out a movie Serenity recently. Their trailer, and some great reviews from geek friends of mine, convinced us to put the series DVDs in our Netflix cue. I'm so glad we did. We liked the first couple of espisodes so much that we vowed not to watch the movie until we've made it through them all. So if you've seen Serenity, button your lip about it around us!
If you haven't seen or heard of it, think of it as a space western. There are no aliens,thank God, but there are sweet spaceships and cool sets with weird juxtapostitions such as a dusty western town with futuristic buggies driving alongside men on horses. If you can overlook the constant loopholes in reasoning (like why take huge spaceships to far-flung planets only mine minerals there by hand), but you get so caught up in it that you don't even care.
The show follows the ragtag crew of a smuggler ship called Serenity as they try to make a living in the outer reaches of the galaxy taking anything to anywhere--no questions asked. Kinda like the Millineum Falcon on Star Wars. The crew even mirrors the Falcon's.
Malcom Reynolds is the Captain, a wisecracking tough-guy with a heart of gold (Han Solo). Jayne is the local bully. He only does two things: whatever he wants and whatever the Captain tells him to do. He's not terribly smart, but he makes up for it in brawn just like Chewbacca. Shepard, the preacher, is the old guy used to find a moral in nearly everything (Obi-wan). Kaylee is a sweet young girl who seems really out of place as the mechanic. She's as resourceful as Star Trek's Scottie but a hell of a lot better looking. She's dead-on R2D2. Simon (C3PO) is the ship's doctor and is a little too high-brow to be on the ship, but Serenity needs a medic A LOT, so they put up with him. He's running from the Alliance with his sister, River, who has some crazy brain powers, but she's not quite "all there." Inara is a "companion" which is the futuristic word for high-class call girl. She commands respect (and high prices) wherever she goes. She is the Princess Leia.
Finding a Luke Skywalker is a bit tougher. My best guess is that Luke is a combination of the last two characters: Wash and Zoe. Wash is the pilot of the ship and he's married to Zoe who is the ship's first mate and pretty good with a gun.
On paper, it may look silly, but on the screen, it's sci-fi gold! Do yourself a favor and rent these things, or better yet, let me know and I'll loan you one of our discs.
I know what you mean about sci fi addiction (to some programs), I've been there!
This "serinity" movie sounds like a japanese cartoon I've seen on the cartoon network..... (or a combination of series). My memory is very full of "holes", so I can't remmember the names...
Glad some other people like this sort of thing like I do!
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So, I heard this weekend that you were one of the converted, but had to come and check it out with my eyes; Josh, you're moving up in my Geek Book. ;)
Welcome to the ranks of the Browncoats, my friend, albeit a little late; I roped Craig, the Polks, and the Stuevers into watching Firefly many moons ago, and just got the DVDs back from the Kaos so I can continue my role as obsessive Firefly pusher; I've also converted at least 4 co-workers and a couple of random friends.
All I'll say about Serenity is this: It rocked. It rocked hard. The DVD comes out Dec.20, pre-order yours now. Now!