She’ll Fly True

The character development of Serenity

Serenity, the fan fueled, cult classic (to some) made an impact on today’s society of “geeks.” Serenity, the science fiction western as some would call it, is full of memorable characters, which represent a more “down and dirty” type of space travel. Joss Whedon presents us with a world of people who are just trying to fly under the radar and get by with what they can.

Although the story seems like one of the “good guys protect a woman whom bad guys will do everything in their power to capture lest she reveal a secret diabolical plan that would unmask them as superbad guys” (Ross), it really is a story of a man and his family, even if it is a makeshift one, and their ability to face anything that comes against them. Serenity is a story:

Set nearly 500 years in the future, and the title is the name of a ship commanded by Capt. Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), whose crew of "naughty men" has resorted to thievery and smuggling to survive. Serenity has also picked up its share of passengers, including Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his younger sister River (Summer Glau), whom he recently freed from an experiment designed to create "human weapons." (Vice)

Joss Whedon created a world that gives the audience a sense of reality not a Star Trekesq world where everything is bright and shiny and aliens are diplomats as with humans. Serenity gives the audience a view of what the other side is like, a world in which the hero doesn’t always prevail and in some cases even runs away.

When Joss Whedon started to write this story, he has a bit of a dilemma. The film was a continuation of the show Firefly that was canceled after twelve episodes. Whedon said that he was ultimately making a movie for everyone not just the fans but he “had nine characters who had all already met. So there were no shortcuts, no easy paths, no simple pieces of storytelling. What [he] had to do was construct a story that hid that fact structurally as much as it hid things expositionally” (Eag