h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was just wondering if anyone here has seen 'Serenity' and if so what you thought of it?

I visit WHEDONesque on a regular basis and sometimes post messages over there. It's an excellent site, full of interesting and illuminating discussion. I am well aware what the regulars think of the film (many of them genuinely believe it is quite possibly one of the greatest films ever made). I've not shared my views about the film with them, simply because I don't think it would be very appropriate to do so. To be honest, I was rather disappointed.

I went to see it with my wife on the first Saturday after release. I came away thinking it was quite poor, little more than a sequence of pedestrian and poorly executed action and fight scenes, interspersed with some rather two-dimensional characterisation and below-par Whedon dialogue. My wife, who probably likes ‘Firefly’ more than I do, had an equally low opinion of the film.

I was aware that it has received some really glowing reviews and I began to suspect my initial judgement was somehow unduly hyper-critical. I went to see it again, on my own this time, on the Tuesday. I certainly enjoyed it a lot more this second time around, but I still came away thinking the film was rather derivative of several other sci-fi films. In itself, this is not a problem, but it is rather at odds with some of the very enthusiastic reviews I have read.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s a really bad film. In fact, based on watching it for a second time I would say it’s probably a very good film. If anyone is thinking about going to see it, you should do. It's definitely worth checking out.

I like some sci-fi, but (as an example) I really don’t have any interest in ‘Star Wars’, and I think ‘Serenity’ perhaps falls within that category. In other words, I’m probably not the target audience.

I watched ‘Firefly’ three times without ever growing to really like it, although it was quite clearly a good show. It just didn’t capture my imagination. I was disappointed by the characterisation, especially the female characters, and nothing has changed here. Maybe the fact that the characters I found most interesting in the TV show tended to get sidelined in the film (Shepherd Book, for example) didn’t help.

Anyway, what did you think?

I saw it, very excited by all the good reviews and I quite enjoyed it.

It is quite derivative, there are some scenes that are exact steals (or should that be pastiches?) from others, particularly when Mal tells River to listen to him or shoot him and she points the gun at him, the exact same scene was in The Fifth Element (one of the best sci-fi films ever imho)

However this didn't detract from the enjoyment of the film for me, most sci-fi is quite derivative anyway. I enjoyed the opening exposition piece which explained the Firefly/Serenity universe, I thought it was a very clever way of introducing people who never saw Firefly (like me) to the universe. It also linked quite nicely into the introduction of River. The opening shot of Serenity was beautifully done, the music was just perfect and it gave me a warm glow early on, because of that shot I started to care about the characters.

The pace kept going the entire time and the action was great, though some of the fight scenes were a little iffy, but then fight scenes were never Joss' forte.

I loved the exploration of what makes someone a hero, it was always one of my favourite things about Buffy and something Joss does very well. Starting from the denunciation of heroism with the line: "A hero is someone who gets other people killed" to the heroism later displayed, it was pretty well done and unusually deep for a sci-fi film.

Final good thing was the big space battle, it was beautifully set up and just great to watch, Star Wars 3 truly had nothing on Serenity

Gripes: I don't see why Mal's ex was brought in, it wasn't really explained and seemed a bit forced. Some of the events seemed a little random or sudden, and not very well explained.

Iago

Inara isn't really Mal's ex - it's like Simon and Kaylee (or for that matter Angel and Cordy) were a couple who needed to get over themselves enough to get together. I enjoyed the film although even considering what they did to my favourite character. BTW - did anyone else spot that the geek in it had a love bot which looked a bit like Buffy (in joke anyone).

Some interesting thoughts. Thanks for these. When the film comes out on DVD I'll have the chance to see it again if I want to and reassess if I like it or not, although I somehow doubt it will ever become a favourite.

I'd noticed the love-bot and assumed it was intended to be be some kind of little in-joke (a good humoured one, hopefully).

As to Inara, I know she is very popular amongst the 'browncoats', but I always thought this was a rather poorly realised character in 'Firefly' (possibly inspired by the Angie Dickinson character, Feathers, in 'Rio Bravo') and she seems to have become even more two-dimensional and superfluous in the film. I guess things would have developed had the TV show continued.

[Green with ]

Three more weeks, three more weeks, three more weeks...

[Translation: "The film's not out yet in Holland."
Please, please, please indicate spoilerage!]

Night Owl, sorry! I hadn't even occurred to me about spoilers and stuff! I hope you enjoy the film.

...Two more weeks, two more weeks...

No problem, Larry. It wasn't that much by way of spoilering, I just thought it better to ask before someone posted a really big one!

So Nite Owl, have you seen it yet?

No, but I plan to go see it either tomorrow or Thursday night. If you want to go spoilering, go ahead. I'll just avoid this thread until then.

No, I just remember you saying that it came out in the Netherlands last Friday and I wondered what your opinions were. I'll just have to wait a couple more days
*waits patiently*

Iago, you need wait no more. I've been to see it tonight and...


Anyone who hasn't seen the film yet, beware: spoilers ahead!



Well, I liked it, sort of, but I wasn't impressed. It looked good (I especially liked the shot of Serenity landing, in the beginning of the film, where she moved like an insect), but I agree with the comments several people already made here. Too many fight scenes, too little characterisation, and sidelining of several interesting characters. Reasonably dialogue, good jokes at times, but nothing that hadn't been done as good or better in the TV-series. Good production values (visuals, sets, loaded with nice little details that provided their own bit of humor). I thought the lovebot was an in-joke, too. The plotline concerning the origin of the Reavers was quite clever, but the Reavers themselves weren't half as scary as in 'Firefly'. Just another breed of zombies. And I know regulars aren't safe in the Whedonverse, but there won't be many left if he *is* going to make a Serenity trilogy. It's a way to cut back on actor's salaries, but still...

It seemed to me Joss went for the bums-on-seats approach, but if tonight's attendance was anything to judge by, he failed miserably. There were no more than 25 (!) people. Okay, it's a Wednesday night and there was Champions League football on TV, but you'd expect a few more people. I mean, this was the last day of the movie's first week. It will run for another week, but whether it gets a third... I have my doubts. Does anyone know (Carlyle perhaps?) how the film has been doing until now? Is it still playing in theatres in the UK?

Nevertheless, I do hope JW gets a chance to make two more Serenity films. But I also hope they will be a lot better than this one.

Night Owl, I can answer the question about the box office performance of 'Serenity' and it's not particularly good news.

The film had a $39 million production budget. On top of that will come the cost of marketing and distribution. I believe the marketing budget for the domestic release in America was something around $15 million, but I don't have a worldwide total. The rule of thumb is that a Hollywood film needs to gross twice its production budget at the box office to break even (not taking into account DVD and video revenue, which is where profits often come into the equation).

I do have to say that 'Serenity' was released into American cinemas at a time when several films under-performed and the box office was generally quite flat. This does not, however, apply to all the films released recently. For example, 'Flightplan', 'Wallace & Gromit', 'Saw II' and 'Harry Potter' have all done as well as (or better than) expected.

'Serenity' grossed $25.4 million in America and (so far) $10.9 million in the rest of the world, giving a total of $36.3 million. At this late stage, it won't rise above $40 million. This is not a disaster, but it is not a good result. The film did reasonably well in Australia and the UK, but nothing special. Elsewhere, it has failed to perform and the scheduled cinema release has now been cancelled in several countries.

Sci-fi films (other than the huge franchise films like 'Star Wars') do tend to struggle to find an audience and largely rely on the U.S. box office. Quite simply, the existing 'Firefly' fanbase wasn't big enough and 'Serenity' failed to find a wider 'genre' audience (the "browncoats" came in for a lot of criticism for their sometimes over-zelous efforts to promote the film - which some people felt veered towards arrogance on occasions and possibly turn a few people against the film). Realistically, it was never going to crossover to the mainstream.

To put the box office performance into some kind of perspective, 'Saw II' came out just after it. The production budget of this film was just $4 million. The American box office gross is $80.8 million so far, with a further $11.1 million elsewhere. Another example would be SMG's late 2004 film 'The Grudge'. The production budget was $10 million. The American box office gross was $110.4 million, with a further $76.5 million elsewhere. I believe the subsequent worldwide DVD and video revenue is something in the region of $180 million!

Thanks for that, Larry. Very informative.



Well, that may be the last we'll see of Firefly, then...

The thing is though that don't a lot of films make back about half their costs on the DVD's sales these days. They reckon "Godzilla" did that. Also "Serenity" can't have been that expensive to make compared to the average Hollywood Blockbuster - I can't see Joss being given the same budget. "Serenity"'s had good reviews in the press and it may be that the word of mouth will build DVD sales beyond the original viewership of the film as happened with the "Firefly" tv series. I don't think we can say "all is doomed yet".

This is very true and something I forget to mention in any detail in my previous post. $39 million is not an enormous budget for a film of this type but it is still quite high, especially when the box office has fallen short of expectations. Comparatively few films are afforded the kind of budgets given over to the likes of 'War Of The Worlds' (something over $130 million - although we must not forget that it had a worldwide box office gross of $589 million – thanks largely to the massive drawing power of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, coupled to the fact it was a very good film).

There is now an expectation that due to the nature of the film, 'Serenity' will perform better on DVD than it did at the cinema. I would imagine this might be difficult to quantify because exact details of DVD sales and revenue are not often made public. Having said that, there is no reason to assume it will not do well. By all accounts, the 'Firefly' DVD box set has been very successful (one estimate is that sales now approach 500,000 copies).

I think the film distributor could usually expect a 30-40% gross cut of the box office receipts, but something closer to 50-60% from DVD and video revenue. I'm not entirely sure how accurate these figures are, but it's what has been quoted at various places I've visited. Of course, it would vary from country to country and these figures are probably those applicable in America.

'Serenity' is released on DVD in America on 20 December, initially just as a "standard" release. Fans had hoped for a 2-disc deluxe edition, but possibly this is due to be released later on. There has been a lot of concern expressed about the DVD sleeve artwork, which I must admit isn't very good. It has been suggested this will drive away the casual buyers and renters. I don't know how much difference it would make, but there has been a considerable amount of discussion about it and an on-line petition was started to make the feelings of fans known to the Universal's "home entertainment" division.

A 2-disc edition has been announced for Australia and Benelux (with a completely different sleeve design). I think the Australian release date is 8 February 2006. I'm not sure about Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Night Owl, you might be interested to know that the second disc is presently exclusive to these territories and contains the following:

Joss Whedon Q&A session filmed at Fox Studio, Sydney
Extended scenes
Take a walk on Serenity: Cast and Crew take us on a special tour of the Serenity ship
The Green Clan: Feature on Cinematographer Jack Green and his team

The link for the source of that information is here:

http://serenitymovie.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=1850&sid=1efaca7fa79a1d55568bca76aee38057

I have absolutely no idea if there is still any chance of the sequels. Based on box office alone, I think the answer would have to be no. However, all sorts of other factors would need to be taken into consideration and the revenue generated by the DVD will be one of these. I am no expert, but although I think the DVD will perform well, I am not convinced it will necessarily be a huge success.

Having said that, it is possible that Whedon's next film 'Wonder Woman' might prove to be a box office blockbuster. If that were to happen, everything would change again because his “bargaining power” would increase.

For instance, 'Pitch Black' got a sequel four years later, even though the original film had not been a spectacular box office success (it achieved a gross just over $53 million worldwide against a $23 million production budget). In the meantime, the film had become a cult favourite and performed very well on DVD. Also, Vin Diesel had enjoyed considerable subsequent box office success in 'The Fast and the Furious' and 'xXx'. All of these things played a part in the decision to greenlight 'The Chronicles of Riddick'.

As things stand at the moment, I would be surprised to see a sequel to 'Serenity'. I think Universal took a chance with it and attempted a "grass roots" marketing campaign very much geared to the existing fanbase, hoping to create "word of mouth". I think with the benefit of hindsight, the marketing campaign was misguided and ultimately it didn't work despite the very good reviews the film received in general. But, who knows what might happen?

I think that the problem with Serenity is its very concept. The American market has one of the most fundamentally un-adventurous audiences that it is possible to find. Startreck was a sci-fi interpretation of the American dream with liberal doses of American ideology thrown in. The US of A is terrified of reality and to put before them characters whe behave more like real people than superheros is way too challenging for the American psychi. They can handle a reformed terminator, they believe that Martin Sheen really is their president, they believe that church absolves them of their sins and that only the misguided doubt their international motives. To put before them a criminal gang, however lovable and expect them to react favourably is optimistic to say the least. Remember, the Enterprise had a great big American flag on the front! Can you really see Malcolm Reynolds buying an "I (heart) the US of A." tee-shirt. I think not!

I think it could be more fundamental than that - the world of Firefly and Serenity portrays a group of people fighting for the rights of the individual and individuals in the face of a government that use the most draconian means it can think of to get people to conform to its way of thinking. Looked at closely it can be read as an allegory for the way in which the American government both externally and internally is imposing its will on what it doesn't agree with using some pretty dubious means to do so - Guatemano Bay anyone??? - and like the agent in the film they believe that right is on their side. I don't think that's going to go down well with 'my country right or wrong' thinking hicks in the sticks.

Thanks, all. I'll try and find out more about the Benelux DVD release. Heck, with a bit of luck they may let me subtitle parts of it.

Will have to mull over the rest of your points. I'll get back to you!

I always think it strange that Fox television start a series like Firefly as it is so at odds with their incredibly right wing middle American ethos. They are renowned in the USA for their bias and pedantry, yet they start a series like Firefly which is an indirect assault on Bushism. No wonder anything good is rapidly cancelled by the powers in Fox. They have such a reputation that even the Simpsons cracked a joke about it last night.

I've heard it increasingly said lately that DVD rentals and sales are becoming more important. Oliver Stone said he didn't care about the ticket sales for Alexander as the unbutchered DVD version would make a lot more money. He was right.

Box office receipts at cinemas are falling (last weekend was an unusual exception) while DVD sales and rentals are sky-rocketing. Family Guy was ressurected simply because of its staggering DVD sales. While this has never happened with a film, a sequel purely on DVD sales, there's always the possibility.

Finally, Serenity didn't do badly, it just didn't do exceptionally well. It held the top position in the UK charts for two weeks, unprecedented for a sci-fi film (not including Star Wars) I'm slightly optimistic that we'll see a sequel (though Nite Owl will have to wait 6 weeks after the Brits have seen it ) and if not, well the Firefly boxset is at the top of my Xmas wish list