Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Well, what with nothing new on due to the writer’s strike, I might as well get caught up on some past sci-fi. So finally (ta-da) I am getting around to watching Firefly.

It’s a sticky thing to review Firefly after the fact; some fans can be a bit rabid about it and one took me to task for writing a negative review of the film Serenity and saying that it bombed in the box office. (It did bomb at the box office; see this thread on Whedonesque for a complete nitpicking of the issue and the etymology of “box office bomb.”)

But it’s hard to be objective sometimes when your beloved show comes back in film form. Much like Farscape’s finish by mini-series, Firefly’s resurrection in Serenity was just not as good as the original. But that’s easy to overlook when you are simply excited and relieved to see your show back.

Firefly’s premiere (also called Serenity) actually kicks the ass of the film in many ways. While it doesn’t necessarily have the epic feel of a major motion picture, it’s simply a better-paced, more interesting adventure.

It also became clear to me that, oh, this is meant to be a Western in space. I get it!

We have your usual rag-tag crew in a broken down old ship on the run from an oppressive regime (shades of Star Wars here), doing some smuggling and otherwise just trying to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. Along the way, they pick up a preacher and a man who is hiding his scientifically engineered (and valuable) little sister.

What makes this work is the gritty energy of the story. It’s a little dark, but has enough of that John Woo type of “wow” factor when it comes to gunslinging and action to make you sit up and yelp out an appreciative “hell yeah” at certain moments.

If I have a gripe with Firefly (and this was my issue with the movie as well), I’m not that crazy about the characters. The captain is a little too gruff; the women a bit too ditzy or hard-edged (with no in between). The other male characters are either bland and non-existent or arrogant assholes (with the exception of the preacher, who actually brings some good acting to the table).

The Women of Firefly
As for the women: As I stated in my earlier Firefly commentary, the marketing of Firefly in regards to women is what kept me from tuning in originally (the promos kept going on about a “prostitute” and a “girl in a box”).

The prostitute, aka companion, appears to be simply there for superfluous cheap titillation. If I were a straight guy or into women, I suppose I’d be all for the cheesecake. But for me personally, having the camera constantly lingering over her naked back and ass dimples is just annoying and beside the point. I also question whether in the future, they wouldn’t also need a male companion as well. (I mean, c’mon, how many senators and priests have been caught with their pants down around men or boys?)

This may sound like a petty gripe, but for me as a woman who watches sci-fi, it’s just another message to me that sci-fi is still very much a boys club.

Firefly’s Future
With my main gripes about Firefly being the likability of the main characters, I do feel that the show was otherwise well-written and executed. There’s also an interesting universe that has been created.

What truly boggles my mind is that SciFi never sought to pick this up. What on earth were they thinking?

While I feel it would be impossible, years later, to bring back the original cast and remake the show exactly as it was, that would be fine with me. (As I said, those characters weren’t that appealing to me personally.) There is so much more to explore however, with perhaps some of the old characters and some new ones.

Don’t plan on SciFi to have the smarts to do it anytime soon, as long as Bad Bonnie is at the helm. But you never know…

January 10th, 2008 | Category: Television | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL