Serenity Trounces Star Wars 710
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.
Re:Genre (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah! And I want to know why LOTR wasn't on the list?
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on (Score:3, Interesting)
Not even most active (Score:4, Interesting)
Now look at the last Serenity convention - the Flanvention. Even if it had not abruptly folded the day before it was to go off, it only had some 500 people attending - as did the one the year before that I attended. Now partly that was a limitation by choice of the event organizers, but I'm not sure they quite reached even 500 the first one.
I really, really like Firefly and Serenity - but they have no-where near the fan base that Star Wars does, in either size or bredth or sheer fanatisim. This was just a case of Browncoats gaming the polls before the Star Wars Bantha could wake to smite them.
Re:Damn Brits! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Concentration of Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
I really enjoy both the Firefly and Star Wars universes. That being said, there's a LOT more material to be found for the latter, orders of magnitude more.
In a way, I think this poll shows some disappointment with some of that vast collection of material for Star Wars. Some of it is very, very good (the original trilogy, KotOR, etc.), but some of it isn't quite so good... in fact, some of it's really quite ridiculously bad [wikipedia.org].
Firefly/Serenity, on the other hand, is:
a) relatively new and fresh in our minds
b) excitingly dynamic, humorous, sexy, etc. in a way that Star Wars failed to be in Episodes I-III
c) a fairly small collection of material. All of it quite good (imho).
There's something to be said for having such a high overall level of quality in such a concentrated amount of material.
However, I do agree that a similar poll 20 years from now might not have Firefly in the top 10. Then again, maybe Star Wars will decline over time?
All Hail Terry Gilliam (Score:5, Interesting)
"Serenity" was fun and all, but those are good films...
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:3, Interesting)
And while I thought the movie was okay, I didn't care nearly as much for the television series. In fact, I would say that if the television series had tried a little less to be Brisco County Junior and had been a little more like the movie, it would have at least made it a full season or two.
Re:"Serenity" has a vocal but minority following (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:5, Interesting)
puh-lease (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:2, Interesting)
I tried to get in to the series, but it kind of sucked, so I stopped.
Saw the movie, thought it was OK, mostly because it didn't seem much like the show. The plot was cookie-cutter to such a degree that it was almost impressive; you could drop that plot in to a movie with just about any set of characters and any sort of dialog and make it fit well enough to get a movie of roughly that same quality. Probably could have made a Trek movie out of it, for example, and it may well have been better than Insurrection (God that movie sucked). Point is, the fact that it was Firefly isn't why the movie was decent.
I'm willing to allow for differences in taste and admit that the show might be good, but the movie is the best sci-fi movie ever? Bullshit.
Alien/Aliens? 2001? Blade Runner? SW:ANH or ESB and a slew of other fantasy-ish stuff that seems to fall under the common definition of sci-fi? Actually, I'd class just about every sci-fi movie of ANY note WHATSOEVER from the last 30-40 years as being at or above (often very much above) the level of Serenity.
Brown-coats aside, I doubt that this show and movie will be widely remembered in 20 years. Those movies I listed have already endured that long, and shows like Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, The X-Files, Star Trek TNG and DS9, and the new Battlestar Galactica will almost certainly all outlive it (OK, maybe not Quantum Leap
Hell, I'd even say that Farscape has a better shot at enjoying some level of popularity 20 years from now than Firefly does.
Re:Rigging (Score:4, Interesting)
In 1999, the city of Paris organized an online poll in which we were asked to vote for the most important person of those two millenia and someone in my electronic school put his name, so we all voted for him, then another scholl put up its own champion against ours. shortly before closing the poll, they had to eject both of them because their poll, supposed to be based on notoriety, had two totally unkown winners above 40% each, with Jesus being a good third around 3% and everyone else below 0.5%.
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:2, Interesting)
Attack of the clones: 142 minutes
Revenge of the sith: 140 minutes
A new hope: 121 minutes
Empire strikes back: 124 minutes
Return of the Jedi: 134 minutes
For a total of 794 minutes.
Fellowship of the ring: 178 minutes
Two towers: 179 minutes
Return of the king: 201 minutes
For a total of 558 minutes
You don't have to force an entire story into 120 minutes. What would happen if they did that with the lord of the rings series? Star Wars? (I've watched them both at seperate times back to back, infact I prefer it that way, but im usually the exception and not the rule)
Different times, different appeals. (Score:4, Interesting)
FLAK (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Serenity was good... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way that I can see it being talked about is as an afterthought to the series, assuming it's good.
Agreed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Serenity passes my definition of SF because it does a couple things: explores what happens when technology is used properly and improperly; explores what it means to be human in light of technology showing that we're nothing much more than a chemical soup. The technology must be central somehow. It must be the sine qua non...
But that alone would make a really dry movie. It would be like reading "The Pilgrim's Progress" or some Sunday school homily. IMHO, Serenity rocks because the characters are so believable. They're foils certainly. Mal is the typical anti-hero, Jayne the none-too-bright tough guy, Zoe the hardened warrior with a soft side... Heck, they're all warriors in some way.... But you end up liking them and being concerned about their well-being. I couldn't say that about Harry Potter, or hell, even Anakin.
And perhaps lastly, Serenity didn't take itself too seriously. It was a Western shot in space by design. There was no pretense. It didn't preach about ideals and the Price of Humanity or The Dangers of War or We're Humans So We're Better. The Serenity crew were thieves and murderers by most laws moral and otherwise. But they were family. And that's nothing to sneeze at.
So yeah, it would get my vote too.
Sci-Fi Movies... (Score:5, Interesting)
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
But these are all so recent ... (Score:3, Interesting)
And while I know I'll get myself modded down here, I would argue that The Matrix is more about the special effects than the story -- I think anyone who ever got high with friends from their honors physics class has had discussions that go along the Matrix plot path. It was a pretty and cool-looking movie, but was certainly not innovative as far as the story went.
'Course, by that argument, the fact that Star Wars (IV) is just the hero myth revisited should get it taken off the list (though it clearly belongs there). So it could just be that I hate Keanu Reeves and that further colored my opinion.
Either way, it seems like some older classics were missed. Not surprising considering the likely target demographic of a sci-fi magazine, but still. It's like my saying that I'm the strongest man in my house -- true, and my wife and daughter and female cat would agree. But there's not a sufficient data set present to make that mean anything.
To quote Mal... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Serenity was NOT good... (Score:4, Interesting)
The plot was pedestrian, the characters who were so rich and multi-dimensional on the show were reduced to almost comic simplicity in the movie (and, in the case of Simon, COMPLETELY altered). Malcolm Reynolds, for example, was presented on the show as a decent, but harsh and practical, mercenary who felt a strong loyalty to his crew but had completely rejected juvenile notions of "changing the world" from his younger days. In the movie, he's presented as a stock reluctant hero, just waiting to save the world and make bombastic speeches at the slightest provocation (it was as if the old Mal had been replaced by a retired James T. Kirk). It was the kind of implausible and simplistic "redemption" story that would be perfectly at home in fan fiction written by an 6th grader.
The movie was also loaded with ridiculous "crowd pleaser" fight scenes and FX extravaganzas, with Whedon even ripping HIMSELF off with the cheeseball and ludicrous "River the Reaver Slayer" fight scene (at least Buffy's ability to defy all known physics could be explained by magic). This would have been bad enough had the FX in the movie looked even as good as the series. I don't know who they hired to do the special FX in this movie, but it's rare to see FX in a movie adaptation that look WORSE than in the TV series (was that landspeeder chase scene meant as some kind of JOKE, a la "Army of Darkness"?!?!?)
I could go on and on. But, suffice it to say that I wish they had simply left the series alone. The movie failed on virtually every front.
Firefly was really meant to be a series, and was ill-suited for the feature film form (even if they HAD done a better job of it).
I just hope Ronald Moore learned a lesson from Whedon's mistake. Don't do it, Ron.
Re:Serenity was good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not even most active (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll second the comment above that points out that this just shows Serenity has a fanatical fan-base. That is what make the whole Firefly/Serenity phenomenon worthy of note. Star Wars (ep IV) was a cultural phenomenon that has echoed through scifi movies ever since. I suspect that 20 years from now, Firefly/Serenity will be seen to have redefined how scifi fandom works.
Me? I'm a proud Browncoat.
Comment removed (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:But these are all so recent ... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Matrix wasn't exactly full of original ideas - though I was happily taken unaware by events in the theater. The Matrix's greatness is not its scientific foundation, or its originality - rather it's the opposite of originality: it's greatness comes in the refinement and purification of an existing societal impulse.
The quality in The Matrix comes from it's near-perfect exemplification of the story archetype I'll call "I'm A Secret Ninja." I personally hadn't even formally noted the existance of this archetype (though any would be familiar with it's implementation) until The Matrix. IASN is charecterized by events where any joe off the street is, unbeknownst to everyone including himself, the secret, supreme badass.
I think that The Matrix's perfect exemplification of this archetype and it's clean shearing away of everything that is not related, along with the way it makes you love it (sequal backlash notwithstanding) makes it a masterpiece of pop culture.
It's pretty easy to dislike Keanu Reeves, and it's pretty easy to dislike the subsequent Matrix movies. But The Matrix itself is the pure embodiment of every sullen 'I could kick his ass...' thought you, or anyone else, has ever had. And for that reason it's pretty cool.
BTW - I agree with your point about classic SF.
Re:Star Wars *was* the top (Score:3, Interesting)
More special effects makes the movie better? That is what you seem to be implying. The reason the original SW movies from the 70s are better is certainly not because of the special effects (even thought they do stand the test of time). The stories were better, and had less character and plot development geared to marketing. Except for those fucking Ewoks of course which is the point at which the fanchise started going downhill fast. As for the special effects of the second batch of movies, much of it was overdone. Jar Jar Dink, the 'Oh so cool' Darth Moll face paint, etc. All marketing CRAP!
I put your arguement in the same box with the Star Trek NG as being better than TOS because it had better special effects. When I believe the TOS was better because the writing was. They relied on the story more than the effects. Admittedely because they had to, but a lesson should be learned from that. Less is more.
Re:Serenity was good... (Score:3, Interesting)
But the fact that the movie can even provoke such a discussion is a sign of a classic.
Re:sorry! Better readable post here! (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh? I don't remember a computer talking at all. Almost all the characters, even the proper ones, swear in chinese. Some people with too much time on their hands even translated it all and it was by no means a small Website.
Well, one of them is supposed to be human, and I find it hard to swallow that an alien race would act alien in a way that just happens to resemble shallow writing and bad acting on Earth :)
I'm not so keen on categorizing things into neat little bundles. I don't care if someone calls something fantasy or action or drama or sci-fi, so long as it is good. I appreciate the sci-fi elements, but by themselves they are not enough to make for an interesting story.
I love the movie and the book it is based upon. It was very well done on many levels.
I tried, but even drinking myself into a stupor was not enough to get me through more than about 6 of them.
I actually entered "99BottlesOfBeerInMyFridge" but slashdot truncated it :) Nice chatting with you.
Re:I hate Star Wars (Score:3, Interesting)
And I was truly amazed.
So I did it again, and again, and again. Then I counted the days until the DVD came out and came up off my hip for a movie for the first time in almost a half-decade. I had to have more, so I did a little research and discovered that there existed a whole whopping season of Serenity (Firefly, I know). In an unheard-of twice-in-a-year, I shelled out my coveted clams for the series.
I made myself watch no more than one episode a day. This took an incredible amount of willpower I must admit. When the curtain came down on the last episode, I felt all hollow inside, like a friend had died. This was both similar and yet distinctly different from the black-hole feeling I got at the end of Blake's 7 - which left me feeling more betrayed than anything else.
The movie is truly eclipsed by the series, yet it serves a vital role in providing closure on many issues.
That being said, my firstborn daughter is named Leah Skye Walker, so you can imagine that I regard Star Wars with more that a little nostalgia. In terms of movie milestones, Star Wars (ep. 4-6) leads Serenity by far IMHO, but if you held a gun to my DVD collection and told me to choose, I'd take Serenity/Firefly in an instant.
I'm already getting the shakes...must....go
And p.s. Once I actually saw the movie, I replaced my screen saver with Jewel Staite