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Serenity Trounces Star Wars
DogBotherer writes "The BBC is reporting that the film Serenity has been voted the number-one Sci Fi film of all time. Serenity is a followup to the series Firefly. The 2005 film beat out Star Wars better than two-to-one for the top honors. This result came in a poll of 3000 readers of SFX magazine.
I think if they were operating systems Serenity would be Linux (small market share in general, but popularised in geek circles by very loyal fans/users). Star Wars would be Windows (huge market share, almost no loyalty). This being a nerd poll, Serenity will win by a huge margin.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
How exactly is star wars somehow less scifi then firefly?
I'd wager that there is more theoretical technology and theoretical futuristic social structure in star wars then serenity and probably most of firefly.
So what do you define as science fiction?
I mean, it's fiction, about science.
Firefly barely had enough science to make it not qualify as a current fiction w/ spaceships.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Where is "Brazil"? Where is "12 Monkeys"?
"Serenity" was fun and all, but those are good films...
Serenity is a good movie, and i think their producers did a fine job of keeping the storyline as independent of the original series, Firefly, as possible. Having said that, yes, i felt the same as you did - it's too convoluted of a story. Sadly enough, a lot of things in the movie simply won't make much sense without having watched the series.
Now, let me give you some advice. If you wanted to like Serenity but felt it was lacking character developement and plot, i suggest you give the Firefly DVD boxset a try. Hell, just buy it. The movie is OK, but the series were mindblowing, IMHO, and some of the finest blend of sci-fi and adventure i witnesed on TV in quite a while. I know a lot of people who didn't think much about the movie but fell in love with the series after watching a few episodes.
weeellll... I saw Starwars in a theatre in Bakerfield, CA when it first came out. I saw it 6 times on opening weekend. Whenever anyone says "Star Wars", it takes me a minute to realize that they aren't talking about Episode IV. So to me, Star Wars is Episode IV, and blows the airlocks off of Serenity without even trying. However, if you consider "Star Wars" as everything put on film as being Star Wars "canon", and Serenity also including Firefly as "Canon", then serenity/firefly wins.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Does anyone think there would even *be* a Mal Reynolds if there hadn't been a Han Solo first?(and yes, they both shot first!)
Despite the depths of mediocrity that Lucas has since sunk to, give credit where credit is due. Star Wars and all the technology that ILM created during the making of the Star Wars films changed the industry forever. Blade Runner certainly changed the look of sci-fi films, but it still didn't have the impact that Star Wars did. I'm not sure that was the overriding criterion for making the list, though.
Serenity was great (GREAT! "I am a leaf on the wind!"), but c'mon, let's not get stupid here. While you don't have to have watched Firefly before Serenity to enjoy it, it certainly helps immensely. The whole Mal/Inara history has much more comedic impact if you have the Firefly backstory. The Rev? A complete throwaway character if you haven't watched Firefly!
The bigger surprise(s) of the list (for me) were what was included, that most fans have forgotten:
Planet of the Apes (the original) and Forbidden Planet. Right on.
Back to the Future? Uhm, I don't think so.
The Star Wars film that most fans seem to think was the best (Empire Strikes Back) wasn't even on the list? That seems a little odd.
This is one of the few topics I feel strongly compelled enough to comment on. For those who voted Serenity topping Star Wars, I understand completely. Let's be real here. Star Wars was a space opera, a caricature of science fiction. The SF genre, in my own opinion, is one that deals in honest ways with how science impacts our lives on a daily basis. Star Wars wasn't an original story to this genre. It was the same old good versus evil, take down the evil conglomerate story which could have easily been told in a Western. Serenity crossed boundaries in ways Star Wars did not. It relied on a political back story familiar to those of us not subject to "empires" even as it showed a human side to the struggle. What? Luke Skywalker lost his hand in a lightsaber battle to Darth Vader, only to have it replaced by seamless prosthetic? Malcolm Reynolds got the crap kicked out of him and LIMPED away from his LUCKY defeat of the bad guy. His crew fared no better. The story itself was more relevant to our society than Star Wars. The primary struggle in Star Wars was Luke not becoming his father and joining the monolithic religion his own version of which was opposed to. It was individualistic, properly suited for the coming 80s decade of similar attitudes of self-preservation. Serenity dealt with issues of survival of minority against a seemingly benevolent majority. It mirrored one man's issues of being on the losing side of a war and contrasted them to the why's and how's wars are won and lost. Given the 14 episodes of backstory from the single season it was on and one comes away with an even better understanding of this movie. In summary, Serenity trumps Star Wars as a sci-fi movie because it is actually more REAL and deals more specifically with real issues. It is not some fairytale fantasy story, able to be retold in any genre without losing anything.
Blade Runner - the plot was fairly straightforward.
Replicants (the bad guys) return to earth and they are hunted down by a cop (the good guy). Cop kills all the replicants, but falls for another one, and they do a runner.
The questions that the plot raised - what made the replicants not human? what makes humans human? Was the cop human or not? How do we know our memories are real? - are all pretty deep, complex, and ambigious. Add to that top quality acting from everyone, superb cinematography, good backstory (a dank, dreary, rainy world), a good script (once they ditched the noir voice-over), and all the little touches (like the photos on Deckard's piano, the owl and the snake) some memorable lines (which are not endlessly requoted by the office wit, keeping them freash) and you have a great movie.
Some of my favorites in no particular order:
:P
Brazil
Blade Runner
Altered States
The Fly
Solaris
Red Planet
Forbidden Planet
Metropolis
Alien/Aliens
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Tron
Dr. Strangelove
The Last Starfighter (cheesy I know, but what is cooler than a kid who becomes the hero of the universe by getting top score in an arcade game)
Logan's Run
THX1138
Alien Nation
Amazing Stories
The Black Hole
Westworld
Charly (film adaptation of Flowers for Algernon)
War Games
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Dark City
Dark Star
And the list could go on and on and on..... (really, I have tons more I love to watch now and again)
Notice, you don't see Serenity or Star Wars on there. Yes, I do like them, but do I consider them Sci-Fi? Maybe in the same way that I consider "The Terminator" or "The Transformers" to be Sci-Fi.
Serenity was a spaghetti-western in space, only not as good as the real spaghetti westerns such as "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Pale Rider". I didn't even think Firefly was that great either. Star Wars was entertaining, but I thought it just to be another action flick like Indiana Jones or whatnot, only set in space. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, but I just didn't see it like I guess some other people see it. The Empire Strikes Back was excellent, and one of the few in the series that Lucas didn't get to screw up the first time around, hence why it was better than the rest. Space opera definitely. I felt like I was watching a fancier Flash Gordon with a better plot.
BTW: Everyone needs to quit dwelling on the whole "Luke this" "Luke that" thing. The entire story arc of the movie series was about Darth Vader, not Luke. The whole Luke obsession thing is almost homo-erotic
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"They won't see this comin'."
As both a Star Wars and a Firefly fan, my first reaction to this news was disbelief, but as i read a bit and thought a bit, i realized that i agree - Serenity is better. Of course you have to realize that no matter what the poll actually said, both were judged on their entire series, not just on the individual movies. Star Wars includes episodes 1-6 and Serenity includes Firefly. Would you rather watch Episode 2 or any 4 episodes of Firefly? Star Wars was the phenomenon that it was because it was new and amazing. Serenity was better because the story and characters are better.
Plus, be honest, when the Serenity and her 'escorts' come flying out of that nebula, don't shivers just run down your spine? No scene comes close to that "whoa" factor in all of Star Wars, imo. (Blasphemous as it may be to say, the light saber fight between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jin probably comes the closest.)
Whether Serenity (+Firefly) is better than a lot of the others is a much tougher question.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
If you haven't seen FireFly, then I wouldn't expect you to think much of Serenity, because you don't have the correct context in which to place the film.
I guess I'll have to be the exception that proves the rule... I saw Serenity first and completely enjoyed it. I got enough from the dialogue and how everyone played off each other to figure enough to not be confused.
Did I understand everything? Probably not. But even after seeing Firefly I still don't, but on the other hand, I found the verse crafted well enough that I figure even if I don't know an exact reason for something, one exists that makes sense.