Tell Me Why I Should Care, I Really Want To

The trailer for Joss Whedon's (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) film, Serenity, a big screen story involving the concepts and characters from his short lived science fiction show Firefly, arrived on apple.com today. A lot of people on the internet that I know love this show, and so I was excited to take a look at the trailer. Really, it looks interesting, but not the groundbreaking piece of science fiction storytelling I was looking forward to seeing (especially the Han Solo-wanna-be captain). Perhaps this is unfair. I've only seen the trailer and pieces of the television show. And it does have Alan Tudyk. And the special effects look nifty, but it seems to me almost all recent science fiction shows have the same look. Blocky ships (nabbing Lucas's idea of a "used universe"), psuedo-futuristic clothing, and desert planets. The last science fiction film (non-Star Wars) that really made me say "WOW!" was Luc Besson's The 5th Element. That said, I enjoyed both Buffy and Angel. I'm really liking Whedon's Astonishing X-men run in the comics right now. But I don't think he's a sci fi god (he did write the script for Alien Resurrection unfortunately).

It seems whenever there is a new sci fi, action-adventure show people love to throw out the line "This is the one Star Wars fans have been waiting for." Sorry, that doesn't wash with me. I remember the tagline on the Titan A.E. DVD says that - which funny enough Joss Whedon also worked on the screenplay for that film as well - and I enjoyed Titan A.E. probably a lot more than most people, but sorry, it's just not Star Wars. Serenity isn't the film that Star Wars fans have been waiting for. That one's called Revenge of the Sith. And you know what, it's cool if you're not looking forward to it. You're just more of a generic sci fi adventure fan, and you may have moved past being a Star Wars fan. Whatever. Enjoy Serenity. But don't tell me that it's really "the new Star Wars."