Serenity mixed review

POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Saturday, October 22, 2005 16:21
VIEWED: 2633
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DREAMTROVE

Friday, October 21, 2005 8:51 PM

Okay, back from seeing Serenity a second time. It was much more mixed for me this time. I have some nitpincking to do, but also some accolades to award.

So here come my cheers and jeers. But first I want to say, of course it's a 10. It's flat out better than Matrix as a stand alone movie, and should be up there with bladerunner.

I hope you forgive if these are in the wrong order.

Simon gets river out. I liked this a lot. Simon was a little more badass than expected, true, but it was a sweet scene. My one qeustion is "When did Simon strip his sister naked?"

The Job. This was great. I have no problems with it.

The chase. this is a little goofy. Reavers should terrify me, but instead they're wily coyote. Also, when Jayne falls off the back, it's comical. I like Jayne, I should be fearing for his life, not laughing my ass off. The whole chase scene is pretty much a failure. Additionally, the angles are very stock, and there's nothing particularly happening on the mule/wagon. People are pretty much in place as if they were puppets. You know what would make Reaver's really scary? if they were outsmarting our guys and we only got away with luck, and maybe a little cheating.

The deal. This is the best scene that Joss has ever done in anything, Bar none. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's easily one of the top ten scenes in the history of film. The highlight for me was the octopus thing.

Haven. This scene was too short. It strikes me as barely an introduction to Book for the non-fans. His stereotypical movie death later will elicit chuckles from the audience. Thus anything he says also is interpretted as comically cheesy.

Inara. I would've liked a signal that it was a trap, but it's not necessary. I thought this scene went well, no real issues. It wasn't amazingly brilliant, but it didn't suck.

Mr. Universe. Oh boy, this had problems. I like the character fine, in spite of the fact that he's presented as our character's major lifelong ally and we've never met him.

But the deconstruction of the message was just a piece of bad filmmaking. 1) It's a cliche. It's an extreme cliche. 2) It's horrible over-exposition. We all got that it's a subliminal message. If there's a monkey in the audience who didn't get that, they did when Mr. Universe says "It's a subliminal message." He can do that. But to go on in a a bogus "we've never actuall seen a computer before" hollywood way, it's like miami vice. 3)It's a big "Nah!" This is in no way what would really happen. First of all, tracing a signal to it's originator is hard work, very hard, and long before you had that you would know what it was. You'd say "Whoever is broadcasting this, whatever they want," not "It's top secret high government" This is hollywood jibber jabber. I could go on and on about how bad this was. It's like the scene in the Matrix where Fishburne compares human beings to Duracell, thus making the entire movie premise take a sharp turn off the cliff of scientific plausibility.

River finds Miranda. This was great. I like the not knowing if she's a psycho looney or not. No complaints.

Dead Haven. This is also nice, the only thing is the cliche death of Book. He'd been grating for a while with his self importance for me, so I didn't mind seeing him get it, but the death has problems. We need a reason he's still alive. We know he's a former operative or so, even the first time movie goers know that by now, so sure he's tough, maybe he's too tough. 1. How did they get him? 2. How'd he survive once they got him? 3. Last words guy is too cliched. Maybe if Simon got there but could save Book, but he couldn't talk, or went into a coma and died an hour later, it would all seem like a real death, and not a cartoon satire of a death. Non-fans thought it was funny. PCD should never be funny.

Reavers. I liked this spookyness. It's sufficiently creepy.

Miranda. Oh this has flaws. It is, sadly, as someone posted earlier, a plothole you can drive a truck through. This is so huge I have to stop and enumerate:

1) PAX something hydrochloride. It

UMSUMAYYAH

Friday, October 21, 2005 9:21 PM

1. I wondered about the body (of the investigator) too. Then I thought about them coming into Reaver space and hearing the transmissions of all the people screaming. Stands to reason that they kill/torture some people right away, but take others back to their ship to torture/eat later.
(But you'd think there would be a little blood spattered here and there)
2. No eaten/tortured on Miranda: Reavers like people alive and kicking when they get 'em.

CAUSAL

Saturday, October 22, 2005 2:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Miranda. Oh this has flaws. It is, sadly, as someone posted earlier, a plothole you can drive a truck through. This is so huge I have to stop and enumerate:

2) Not enough reavers. .1% doesn't make enough reavers. Very few are going to survive and pilot space ships out of here.

On just their little flight to find the beacon, something is said about passing numerous large settlements--not little western-y towns, mind you, large cities. So it's an entire planet, and it has many large-size cities. So let's go on the extreme low side and say there are only about 100 million people (not that many--that's only about a third of the U.S. population, or about the size of ten LA's). At the rate of 1 in 1000 that would make 100,000 Reavers. Say the average Reaver ship takes a crew of 100 (which seems high, given Serenity's original 6-man crew) that makes for one thousand Reaver ships. If the population of Miranda were 300,000,000 (about the size of the U.S.), and their ships took a crew of 25 (both in the range of possibility, I think), there'd be 12,000 Reaver ships floatin' around the verse! This supposed plot hole just doesn't hold water for me.

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3) And this is an "Oh Boy." We see the woman sending a signal from a room much like the one we're in. It could be this one except that she isn't here and eaten.

So...the fact that the room that the woman is in looks like the one that the heroes are in means that they must be the same room. Come now. You're begging the question, here. We see precious little of the room where the woman is--certainly not enough to say that it was one-and-the-same room as the ones the heroes are in. It doesn't follow from necessity that the room they're in is the same as the one in the video, simply because they look similar. It would take some more convincing arguments than just "looks like it".

But let's say we take for granted they are. After all, the recording equipment is there, and the "tape" is there, it seems to be part of a crashed spaceship, and there is the aforementioned similarity. So for the sake of argument, they're one and the same room. Why no blood? Perhaps the Reavers didn't commence to eating on her there. Perhaps they just ravaged her a couple of times (horrible and frightening and scream-inducing, but not the sort of thing to produce blood by the buckets-full) and then took her somewhere else to consume at their leisure. Maybe the just beat on her with fists and feet for a spell (again, none-too-messy). There's all manner of reasons why there wouldn't be blood and or bodies in that room, even if it's one-and-the-same room as the heroes are in (and ain't convinced it is).

Also, "not here and not eaten" thing is just...poor. Reavers use people as sport, not just food. Let's not forget that they rape and eat, and sew. And not always in that order. Maybe they don't always just commence to eating right away. Maybe they take back to the ship to enjoy for later. It's not any more implausible an assertion than the notion that they would just chow down where-so-ever they find the victim.

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But then no one is. Oh yeah. No one is. It takes three days for a human who takes no action to die. These withered people we see are everywhere, but eaten people are nowhere. Yet there are cannibals everywhere? Not now, but at the time of the video. We are told it, and then it's confirmed. Cannibals everywhere. Yet they don't touch the people who are just lying there. They wait around to eat some random reporter. Huh?

Two things on this.

First, you're assuming that the transformation took place instantaneously ("psycho ON!") rather than over a period of time. Perhaps the people who eventually became Reavers watched their friends and family just lay down and die, and they couldn't do anything about it. That just might be a little push toward insanity. Perhaps as the people got more and more lethargic, the proto-Reavers bec

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, October 22, 2005 2:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Add a scene to the Haven scene, that needed something extra, where Book and Wash and some other characters are making a video recording, for some reason pertinant to our story. Then our characters could watch it at the end.

That is exactly the kind of scene we would have gotten in the show. Oh, but the "mass audience" has the attention span of a flea, so we have to "make changes."

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Instead we had a scene very reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons the movie, and if that ever happens to you, you've made a mistake somewhere.

Owwwwuch! You are sooo right! And again, what was up with the gorram holographic greeting card crap? Who did not cringe at that? And not one of the survivors has a thing to say??? The prostitute in Heart of Gold got a better funeral! This is based on one of the best written shows ever aired, right?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

SIMONWHO

Saturday, October 22, 2005 3:16 AM

I much preferred the funeral scene in the rough cut. It was longer for a start, had a wonderful long shot of Zoe walking along with her flame and then went into a very cathartic firework display from the rocket that got lit. Then we went into all the repair stuff.

But that video recording idea would be a bit of a lift from Angel, no?

REXJAYNE

Saturday, October 22, 2005 3:40 AM

I think you're not letting yourself enjoy it. I realize that sometimes when there are obvious plot holes it's hard, but they're not as bad as you make them out to be.

The Reavers for example.. why would there be bodies?
other people have made good points that they probably took some time to develop, they didn't just change into Reavers in one second, but also, they're known for eating their victims, making clothes of their skins, and tying their bones to their ships. Exactly how much of the body does this leave behind?

Not enough Reavers? I was under the impression that new Reavers were occasionally born after having witnessed a Reaver attack. (i.e. Bushwacked)Maybe that one episode isn't enough to suggest they were reproducing in this manner, but it seems likely to me that if they purposely left a survivor and made him watch this time, there's no reason why they wouldn't do it again.

I can;t really argue with your technical points, not knowing much about signal tracing, I can just say that Mr. Universe worked for me, as did pretty much everything else. Maybe I was just so glad to see them all again I was willing to overlook anything.. or at least a little cheesiness here and there.

-----------

Inara: "As with most things, it seems, the trick is to give Jayne a heavy stick and stand back"

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, October 22, 2005 3:41 AM

Rough cut? What's a rought cut? Is there an alternate version of Serenity out there?

REXJAYNE

Saturday, October 22, 2005 3:47 AM

The rough cut is the version Joss showed in special sneek peaks before the official version came out. I would do anything to see it, but I don't live anywhere near the places he showed it.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, October 22, 2005 4:07 AM

Casual,

One of the jobs of the filmmaker is to convince the view that the illusion is real. It's not the job of the viewer to make excuses for the filmmaker. I think this film is awesome, overall. My favorite movie is Bladerunner, but if you want me to tear into that film, I'd be happy to. A perfect film would be something like "Gladiator." Perfect in that it takes no chances, and so takes no falls. Also Boring. Gladiators is maybe an 8 for me, but that's all filmmaking merit based. If it were on, I probably wouldn't watch it again.

That said:

1. We're given the planet's population, 30 million. There are (err. were) many large cities in Iraq, some a great deal larger than what we see, and Iraq has a total population is only 23 million. There's a fallacy in using America as a judge. American is huge. It's enourmously enormous. A planet is bigger sure. But a planet could also be much smaller than the Earth, by several orders of magnitude when you count surface area, or it could be just as much larger. But also, there's what % is land and what % of land is settled. Anyway, it's a given figure.

2. It doesn't have to be the same location, my point is reavers would be everywhere, and yet there is no sign anywhere that they were ever anywhere. The argument UMSUMAYYAH posted is more sound, but it still doesn't satisfy me. Reavers aren't fastidious. Some sign that they had been here and wrought havoc and destruction would remain.

3. I'm not assuming it's instant on, I posted on a different thread I thought it took months. It's possible that you're right that reaverization takes longer than pax lazy death. I gather that pax lazy death takes months, you get more and more lethargic, and three days after you stop you die. But again, it's not my job to convince you that it's a flaw. It's the filmmaker's job to convince me that it's not. Just a small reference to make me see that reaverization takes longer. Like "Small segments of society continue to run for almost a year, but then those people people go nuts"

4. Just generally, I think the perfectly clean world is set up for the shock of pax lazy death. Which is a twist. Reavers might look like war. But it's a major problem. Reavers disappearing without a trace isn't like Soviet spies disappearing without a trace. It's like pack of rabid wolves disappearing without a trace. It's just not going to happen.

5. If you think my complaints sound nitpicky, maybe you missed my opening where I said:

Quote:

I have some nitpincking to do.

But these are all minor story weaknesses that hurt the film. The trend that I noticed particularly was: When all of my friends who I begged to go to Serenity who were numberous, the worst reaction came from girls who were not regular firefly watchers. From the nitwits to the grad students they all reacted more or less the same: "It was cheesy and inconsistant."

These things don't really bug me that much, I'd rather have an awesome movie with minor flaws than a perfect film that was utterly uninteresting. But they do hurt the film.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, October 22, 2005 4:12 AM

I be aiming to nitpick here. Please no one take this as "Serenity Sucked" as someone posted. Nitpicks are constructive criticism for Joss and Co. should they be paying any attention. It's more useful to them then a thousand apologists.

BTW I think it's the duty of any browncoat who does have access to that rough cut to pirate it and post it somewhere in a high res divx or something so we can download it.

:)

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