Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Better than Star Trek

Ok, that's an easy target since there hasn't been a good Trek movie since First Contact. Never the less, I really liked Serenity.

It compares pretty well with Revenge of the Sith, also.

Even though the movie is a continuation of the TV show, it works quite well as a stand-alone feature. My wife never watched the TV show and enjoyed the movie.

The plot revolves around River, a 17-year-old girl who was the subject of some experiments. We saw some of this in the TV show but a couple of new things are revealed - River is a living weapon and she might have picked up some vital secrets through telepathy. This is why she and her brother are on the run.

The movie starts with a quick re-cap of River's background. This is followed by a typical Serenity "mission" (heist) which has some major complications (also typical). Things get more complicated when River goes apeshit.

Unlike most TV-show-to-movie translations, this one has no problem killing off cast members.

The special effects are spectacular. The big space fight near the end is shot much more realistically than the Star Wars opening sequence. The whole movie has the sort of natural-looking shots featured in Battlestar Galactica. In a just world, this movie would get a nomination for best effects but it will probably be overshadowed.

Many TV shows have a problem trying to find a plot big enough for a movie. Babylon 5 had several made-for-TV movies and most of these were disappointments. The first Star Trek movie was held up for years because the studio executives kept rejecting plots as "not big enough". That is not a problem here. River's plot is big enough and ties into other character's backstories well enough to justify the bog-screen treatment.

Update: I got a link from Instapundit! It is the 14th link to Serenity reviews so I don't expect much of an Instalanch but it's still cool.

7 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Just wanted to let you know that you are getting some traffic from Instapundit. That's how I found you.

Nice review, BTW. Looking forward to the movie.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Hello The Truth According to Mark, I came across your site while doing a search on Marvel Super Heroes. Even though you don't have exactly what I'm looking for, your site did provide for quite an interesting read. Thanks!