Firefly (TV show first aired 2002) and Serenity (film 2005)

 

100 best Science Fiction films

Popular Mechanics list

#100. Firefly (TV show first aired 2002) and Serenity (film 2005)

 

There are three things you need to understand about “Firefly”:

 

• The TV series bombed.

• It should’ve been a monster hit.

• Its fans are ferociously loyal, like Whovians and Trekkies.

 

After the huge hits of two Supernatural TV series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (first aired 1997) and its spin-off “Angel” (first aired 1999) Joss Whedon should’ve been a Golden Boy, and I guess he was, he managed to get this highly unusual SF series produced, but once the money was invested and the episodes already made, the network then abused it with bad scheduling, under-promoting, butchering the pilot episode and refusing to show later episodes in their proper order. It is not a surprise that the series was canceled without even completing its first season, a bit more surprising is what the fans accomplished next (more about that later).

 

One of the great challenges in series SF, unless it is in a very Near Future or Post-Apocalyptic setting, is laying down the back-story to allow the audience to be immersed in the strange environment in the first episode and still have time for actual story-telling. Among the TV series reliant on very unfamiliar settings, “Firefly,” was far more dependent on its complex back-story than either “Doctor Who” (first aired 1963) or “Star Trek” (first aired 1966), but it also had a great device to gently ease the audience into its complex future-history, it made itself look like the past. It was only over time, by gentle increments, that the audience is introduced to the rich complexities, and make no mistake, this complex future-history shapes everything we see.

 

In the simplest terms, it follows the adventures of the crew of a Firefly-class Space Freighter, ironically named “Serenity,” that moves cargo and passengers, sometimes legal and sometimes not, between Colonized Planets that usually look a lot like America’s Wild West. Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is a Veteran of the rebellious and losing side of a Civil War and his crew includes a member of his former Military Unit, Zoë Washburne (Gina Torres), and her non-vet husband, Hoban 'Wash' Washburne (Alan Tudyk), and several other appealing odd-balls who represent the kind of diversely of useful skills and personality weaknesses that always make for a good ensemble comedy (there is a total on nine lead characters).

 

At first, their adventures seem strictly episodic (arrive on a Planet, face a threat, resolve it, and leave) but there was an emerging story-arch concerning two passengers that are quickly adopted as crew, Doctor Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his sister River (Summer Glau); River is a fugitive from a Secret Government Experiment, and both are being hunted. The Secret Experiment was illegal, so her Hunters can’t put up wanted posters for her, but that doesn’t make her Hunters any less relentless.

 

Excluding the story-arch about the Experiments, by all appearances, this could easily be a heavily-romanticized retelling of the Real-World James-Younger Gang (active from 1866 through 1876 in the states of Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa and Minnesota) except the Real-World gang were not really soldiers, but former Confederate Bushwackers (at best guerillas, at worst terrorists), completely committed to a wholly Criminal life-style and supporters of Slavery. Meanwhile, “Firefly’s” former Soldiers are disciplined and decorated Veterans, have a pretty conventional Moral Code, arbore Slavery and the cast includes two Black Characters: Zoë and Shepherd Derrial Book (Ron Glass), a Preacher with a mysterious past, as well as an inter-racial relationship; Zoë’s husband Wash is a White guy.

 

Little by little we learn so much more.

 

The story is set 500 years in the future in a distant Star-system. This Star has an exceptionally large Goldilocks-zone (meaning the Planets are not too hot and not too cold for liquid water and life as we know it) and contains a surprisingly large number of geological stable, non-tidal-locked, rocky Planets and Moons that are of adequate mass to retain a substantial atmosphere. Long before this series begins, the Earth refugees (our mother Earth is never mentioned, we must presume it was destroyed) established themselves on the most easily Colonized Inner Planets which became the seat of a System-Wide Government called the Alliance. The Inner Planets are Affluent, Cosmopolitan, and never visited during the course of the series.

 

Then the Humans began to colonize the Outer Planets, this required extensive Terraforming to make them Human-habitable, and after that was achieved, the unwanted Humans of the Inner Planets were dumped on those Colonies to make due -- this explains the mix of high-tech and low- as they were a Refugee population descended from another Refugee population. The Outer Planets have Spaceships, but inadequate an Industrial base, so almost everything not specifically related to Interplanetary travel has been reduced to the levels of the early Industrial Revolution. 19th c. style six-shooters and shotguns are more common than SF-style Lazars and Blasters, and though ground transportation includes Hovercrafts, horses are more common.

 

What used to be the USA and China dominate to culture, everyone speaks a rural-jargony English peppered with Mandarin slang and almost all text that appears in the series is either in Chinese or something invented specifically for the series (apparently some of these ideas came out of a rejected script Weldon penned for the fourth film in the “Alien” franchise (first film 1979))

 

The Alliance handles the Outer Planets with a combination of exploitation and indifference, which were the main issues in their Civil War, making it more akin to the American Revolution (1775-1783) or Boer War (1899-1902) than America’s Civil War (1861-1865), even though it looks more like the American Civil War. Notably, even after the Alliance won, Slavery still thrives in the Outer Planets.

 

The best episodes were more Space-based (so less Western-like) which was where the series exceptional sense of style is best communicated. For probably the first time, a Space Adventure stole aesthetic elements from the "Found Footage" genre, though it never used the actual Found Footage devise. Scenes would open with camera pans seeming to be frantically searching for the subject, zooming in and out with a few seconds of uncertain focus, all evoking the sense of a pseudo-documentary feel. This has been much imitated since.

 

Like all Weldon shows, the dialogue is witty but the joking doesn’t distract from the occasionally more serious dramatic content. The entire cast is engaging, but easily Actor Fillon as Character Mal carries the show, though that might mostly be because in the short fourteen-episode-run he’s allowed the most development. He’s a more good-hearted version of Character Han Solo from “Star Wars” franchise (first film 1977), and as all fanboys know, George Lucas was undecided what he wanted to do with his Charismatic Space-Smuggler (I assume you’ve seen the T-shirt, “Han shot first”) which the Actor, Harrison Ford, complained bitterly about in later years. With Mal, the conflicts are not in the Writer’s inhibitions, but as a part of a Character unable to align his Moral World-View with the actual World. He’s a battle-hardened Vet who carries resentments related to his Lost Cause, but he’s also a Man of Honor deeply embarrassed at becoming a Criminal.

 

There’s a great bit of dialogue while he tries to make the Henchman of a Mob-Boss to see reason, “We’re not thieves. Well, we are thieves. Point is, we’re not takin’ what’s his. Now, we’ll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You explain that that’s best for everyone, okay?” When the Henchman rejects the reasonable argument … well … Mal’s nice when you let him but, but he’s also got a taste for blood.

 

Mal is rather courtly in his manners towards women, so he finds emotionally tied-in-knots because the woman he most cares for is a high-class Prostitute, Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin), and more than a little miffed that in this Universe, because her Profession is not only Legal, but more respected, it’s than his own. His attraction to, and unease with, sexually powerful women leads him to get literally tied-up by Con-Woman Saffron (Christina Hendricks).

 

Two characters, one male and one female, were included specifically so the Geeks would have someone to identify with.

 

Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), the ship’s engineer, is the youngest crew member. She’s bubbly, optimistic, and has a crush of Dr. Tam. She’s also terrified of, but also longs-for, social engagements, and her best moment comes when she attends a fancy dinner party hosted by a certain Planet’s Elites and the Debutants (dressed and acting like Antebellum Southern Belles). The debutants cut her to the bone with their snobbery; but soon she’s the center of all male-attention because she’s the only female there who can talk intelligently about Space-Ship propulsion systems.

 

Walsh, Serenity’s Pilot, is Geekier still. When he’s first introduced, he’s playing with plastic Dinosaurs. With the exception of Mal, he gets the best bits of dialogue, like when he’s tempted by Saffron, “I wish I was somebody else right now. Somebody not married, and not madly in love, with a beautiful woman who can kill me with her pinky.” Pairing the statuesque, Amazonian-Warrior-like Zoë with the shows biggest Geek was the ultimate bone to throw at the teenage, male, fans, but it also helped in Zoë’s characterization. At that point, casting Actress Torres in such a role was becoming a cliché, and too much of her writing in other shows was a bit stiff, but there’s good chemistry in this opposites-attract couple. Here’s a bit self-referential humor I am especially fond of:

 

Wash: “Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of Science-Fiction.”

Zoë: “We live in a Spaceship, dear.”

Wash: “So?”

 

In an interview Weldon said he had to fight with the network to keep the plot-point that these two were happily married.

 

It was canceled after only fourteen episodes, but this was still (just barely) in the era of the Video Store, and “Firefly” became a bestselling DVD (where the original pilot and correct episode-order were restored). This created word-of-mouth and the fandom proved far more substantial after the show was canceled than while it was still running. Failed TV shows often find homes in other, cheaper, media (novels, comics, video games, etc.), but it is rare that this happens with a show that ran for such a short period of time, and certainly not with this fandom’s singular accomplishment -- the story of failed TV series was continued in a feature film.

 

Given that the movie needed more than just the fan audience to be successful, the movie version, “Serenity” (2005), faced challenges as it was coming in at the mid-point of a developing story-arch. The creators pulled it off better than one would’ve expected by shifting the story’s emphasis off Character Mal and onto Character River, whose backstory was never fleshed-out on TV so it became easier to focus-on here.

 

On the show, River was presented as an emotionally damaged outsider with hidden gifts. Here we see the gifts fully realized and (in flashback) where they, and the damage, came from: The Alliance’s experiments on her turned the petite girl into a Super-Soldier. Gau is a fine Actress, but largely typecast as emotionally damaged; she seems to be having a grand time here, being both emotional damaged and a Ninja.

 

Another smart move was more time on the Space Ship (where the TV always seemed more comfortable anyway) and to have the main plot concerns a Planetary Colony not visited before. That Planet was the subject of another, Illegal and Unethical, Behavior Modification Experiment by the Alliance, which had both tragic and terrifying results.

 

The film won both a Hugo and a Nebula award, and though it did make a profit, the profit margin was too slim to justify a cinematic continuation of the saga.

 

But the fan community, who call themselves Browncoats, after the losing-side of the show’s Civil War, are still very active, still hungry for more and more stories from the cheaper Medias, holding Conventions and organizing Charity Events.

 

The series is more closely examined in retrospect than during its short run. It has been pointed out that the Science is actually pretty shabby, but I doubt that could’ve ever become a serious obstacle to anyone’s enjoyment.

 

More substantive sticking point was questions raised about ethnic representation among the characters -- and this is not mere PC whining: It’s a plot point that the Chinese are important founders of the Inner Planets’ Civilization, and their language permeates the show, yet there are virtually no Asians in the TV series and none at all in the film. Simon and River have the Asian surname “Tam,” yet are played by Whites.

 

Also, the Politics (which never had time to be properly developed) seem to be simplistically Libertarian, and the Old West and Civil War (The Villainous Bounty Hunter Jubal Early (Richard Brooks) is named after a Confederate General who was apparently an ancestor of Actor Fillion) references that were supposed to make the show accessible to a large audience also played into Confederate Romanticizing; it looks like our Civil War, but does not allow Slavery to become the cause of its own Civil War,  playing into the myths of Neo-Confederate apologetics. Both Libertarianism and Confederate Romanticizing have become increasingly odious since Real-World Tea Party surge in USA Politics in 2010 (so after both the TV show movie). 

 

Wrote Abigail Nussbaum, “It is possible that in its later episodes ‘Firefly’ would have addressed these concerns, and equally possible that, given the chance, it would have collapsed under the weight of its contradictory, poorly thought-out worldbuilding. It remains, however, in a state of perpetually unfulfilled, unsquandered potential, and thus shines all the brighter in the minds of its admirers.”

 

Trailer for TV show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG9bSBGLtMc

 

Trailer for movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGHCQJMvRY