Serenity

You can’t stop the signal.

Released three years after Joss Whedon’s short-lived but wildly adored television series FIREFLY left its devoted fans wanting more SERENITY, the show’s big screen follow up, failed to make much of an impact at the box office. Ten years later this film and series are as strong as they ever were.

Serenity is a spaceship full of perpetually on the run renegades lead by the roguish Captain Malcolm Reynolds (the spectacularly charming Nathan Fillion) who will do anything for cash. After being on the losing side of a civil war, Reynolds and his crew will smuggle, cheat and steal to keep their lives simple and off the grid. That is until one day when a routine transport of a brother and his sister turn the crew of Serenity into the most sought after folks in the galaxy.

Joss Whedon’s directorial feature debut is an absolute marvel. It gave fans everything they had ever wanted after the abrupt end to FIREFLY and the approachable story allowed newcomers to be indoctrinated into the world of browncoats by having a story that was independently approachable. Working on an extremely scaled back sci-fi budget, Whedon and his team managed to create the same fully realized sci-fi western world we had fallen in love with on television.

All the original cast came back without missing a step and the world was a better place for having the snappy dialogue and whacky characters back on a screen. Sadly SERENITY didn’t take flight when it was originally released but we can still band together, console each other and celebrate the triumph that this film exists.

“You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people…better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.” (Greg MacLennan)