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Features
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Piloting the Good Ship Serenity
What do The Golden Girls and Joss Whedon’s belated feature film follow-up to his TV series Firefly have in common? More than you might think.
Friday, September 30, 2005
By Brett Buckalew
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Universal Pictures
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A poster child for fandom
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Success in the competitive world of network television can never be guaranteed, but even so, the cancellation of the sci-fi series Firefly in the fall of 2002, after just 11 of the 14 produced episodes of the first season had aired, came as a major shock.
Springing from the fertile creative mind of Joss Whedon, who previously struck TV gold with cult phenomenon Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly inventively mixed the science-fiction and western genres in its premise of a ragtag group of former soldiers pulling off thieving and transporting gigs on their rusty spaceship Serenity. Better yet, it infused the genre mix with the saucy wit and precise dialogue that have become Whedon’s trademark. But, for whatever reason, ratings were low, and FOX pulled the plug.
All was not dire, however, because Firefly acquired a rabid fan base, one that snapped up enough copies of the series’ DVD set to convince Universal that giving the characters of Firefly a new lease on life on the big screen would be a risk worth taking. Beginning today, Serenity gives eager, chomping-at-the-bit fans a chance to revisit the show’s unconventional heroes, including tough, sarcastic ship captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion); no-nonsense second-in-command Zoe (Gina Torres); and cynical, perpetually cranky mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin).
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Albert Ortega/Wireimage.com
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Whedon at 2004 Comic-Con
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Based on a series of recent interviews with FilmStew, it’s apparent that Whedon and his cast are even more grateful for Serenity’s existence than the most faithful Firefly nuts. And to hear Fillion tell it, the miracle of this second chance felt far from certain upon the series’ cancellation.
“Joss had that plan, of finding another home [for the show],” the actor explains. “He said, ‘I’ll find another home!’ And I said, ‘That sounds great, that’s really wonderful! But it’s really dead, isn’t it?’ I wasn’t prepared to fall in love with Firefly the way I did, and I wasn’t prepared for Firefly to dump me the way it did. So I was pretty depressed.”
“I wasn’t prepared to have that hope and say, ‘Maybe, maybe…’ I didn’t wanna set myself up for another depression, and gain ten pounds sittin’ at my house not going out.”
Baldwin, whose enthusiasm in person is a notable contrast from Jayne’s surliness, believes it was Whedon’s perseverance that made Serenity a reality. “Joss never gave up,” Baldwin claims. “He never stopped – quote, unquote - ‘fighting for the future.’ While it was very hard for all of us [actors] and devastating emotionally, I never felt that Joss gave up, and I always kind of felt that this was where we would end up until he said, ‘you know, I can’t do it anymore.’ And he never did.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Grateful star Fillion
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Another way in which Serenity represents a big step for Whedon is that it’s his feature directorial debut, following several helming stints on Buffy and Firefly. But Whedon’s no stranger to the movie world, having written or co-written fantasy sci-fi hits as varied as Toy Story and Alien: Resurrection.
“I’ve actually said when pressed that the difference between TV and movies is that TV shows are a question, and movies are an answer,” Whedon analyzes. “And so in [Serenity], we had to have a definitive statement about freedom and humanity, and what we need, and what we should be allowed to have as people, which is all our flaws. And then I answer that. I put a period of hopefulness - an exclamation point - on that, as opposed to just sort of pursuing the question for years, which is the way a TV show would do it.”
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Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com
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Co-star Summer Glau
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How Serenity puts an exclamation point on themes of freedom and humanity is through the character of River (Summer Glau), whose role on Firefly was that of a stowaway on the ship who is gradually accepted as part of the crew’s surrogate family. A fugitive on the run from the Universal Alliance, an oppressive governing body that Captain Reynolds once led a failed rebellion against, River is of genius intellect but hobbled by a near-autistic muteness caused by mysterious experiments performed on her by the Alliance. The film reveals the secret of why Alliance foes, like the movie’s villain The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), are after River, and also emphasizes the firmly held moral code that has always lied beneath Captain Reynolds’ braggadocio.
Describing the film’s story further, Whedon refers to it as “deliberately an epic filled with small people. And that’s the kind of story I like to tell, is the story of when people who have no business being in an epic get caught up in one. How do they react? Do they fold, or what do they do?”
Torres, who plays the weapons-savvy Zoe, agrees that the rough-around-the-edges nature of the protagonists is what distinguishes the film. As Serenity is aiming for the same shockwave effect that fan-favorite sci-fi franchises like the Star Wars and Matrix films had, this is a key distinction, and one that may help the film lure in audiences unfamiliar with Firefly.
“I think unlike the Matrix and Star Wars trilogies, where you have a very heightened reality, and black-and-white is really clear, and you wanna aspire to the grandness of these heroes that are put in front of you, we’re just regular people in extraordinary circumstances,” Torres elaborates. “And that in turn can be more inspiring, because you think, ‘Well, if these people, as jacked-up as they are in these circumstances, with all their issues and unpreparedness, can meet these tasks and actually survive them and learn something from them…then I can too.’”
On a similar note, Fillion says what draws him to the material “is the people, these characters. I am invested. I’ve spent time with them, I’ve hung out with them, I’ve learned about them through their choices and the decisions they make.”
Unable to resist a mockingly self-absorbed joke, the actor adds, “they’re not all perfect, except for Malcolm Reynolds. But I’m invested, and I think people are - that’s Joss’ gift.”
Though Whedon is too humble to speak of himself in such gushing terms, he is free with ideas on why his writing has become so respected in the fields of film and TV. “In terms of advice, or my dark secrets, the most important thing to me is finding everybody’s voice very specifically,” he explains of his writing, “and I build shows and movies on what I refer to as ‘The Golden Girls Model,’ which is very simply, everybody’s gotta come from a different place.”
| Continuing to lay out this character-building blueprint, Whedon emphasizes, “that’s the biggest thing for me is that everybody - and that includes ‘Second thug from left’ - has perspective that they bring with them to the piece. And they all don’t have to be eloquent about it, in a sort of obnoxious, proto-Tarantino way of everybody-speaks-volumes kind of thing. I think [Tarantino’s] done that very well, but I’ve seen the bad version.”
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If Whedon becomes as much of a household name as the Pulp Fiction auteur or for that matter his Lost/Alias counterpart J.J. Abrams, you can expect future cinematic adventures with Mal Reynolds and his misfit crew. “You know, it’s sweet to mention the word ‘sequel,’” the writer-director admits. “Obviously, that’s the way my brain works; it continues to tell stories.”
“I’ve written sequels in my head for movies that other people made, all the time,” adds Whedon with a laugh. I had a great idea for The Fly 2, before they made The Fly 2. And I never told anybody about it, but it was really cool! So it’s inevitable with me that I do that, and of course I love this universe, and I love these people, and I would jump at the chance to do it again.”
| More pragmatically, Whedon clarifies, “but I couldn’t think about [sequels] while I was making [Serenity]. Everyone kept saying, ‘So, you making a trilogy?’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s a film.’ It’s a trilogy if you make two that are so good there’s a third, and that was how I feel I had to think about it.”
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While the cancellation of Firefly no doubt contributes to this cautious state of mind, it is tempting to entertain thoughts of Serenity clicking with audiences. That way, studios will learn that giving a second chance to a property cut short before its time can reap considerable benefits.
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