Too Serene

A good book has no ending ~R.D. Cumming.

I was recently sucked into watching all thirteen episodes of Firefly again. This is only the third or fourth time I’ve watched the entire series despite being a huge fan. Honestly, I had forgotten how great the writing and acting was. I finished off the marathon viewing session by watching Serenity. This is where things take a wrong turn. I’ve never actually watched Firefly followed by Serenity before so I’ve never been forced to recognize the disconnect between the show and the movie. More importantly I didn’t realize how my feeling of Firefly was negatively affected by Serenity.

To be honest, I’ve never truly loved Serenity. I’ve wanted to. I was lucky enough to go see one of those private screenings for fans before the movie was released. I, of course, went to the theater after it was released and saw it again (hoping I’d like it better the second time). I always thought the issue was the plot and the special effects (which do carry some of the fault). The fact is though, Serenity lost what made Firefly special. It doesn’t have any heart. Characters who we love in Firefly die without my tugging at the heart. The sad part is that even looking back it would have been difficult to make Serenity with the same heart.