Why Serenity is one the best films ever made

Shiny...
OK, something different today. Why Serenity is one of the best films ever made. For me, it is. It's one of my favourite films of all time and my favourite sci-fi film of all time, as well as being a sequel to one of my favourite TV programmes of all time (Firefly). Here are my 10 reasons:

  1. The trailers for this film are awesome! I watched the trailer for Serenity the night I finished watching Firefly and it had me hooked with it being one of the most engaging film trailers ever made! It builds up the tension with the story-line and then goes into all-out action which looks brilliant and awe-inspiring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY3u7bB7dZk
  2. The soundtrack by David Newman is brilliant and memorable. While it certainly does not sound like Firefly's score, it works for the film and works in every scene it features in. If one day a sequel is made, I would like to see the soundtrack at least take cues from this as it really is brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi29tS1jaGQ
  3. The cast are brilliant. I haven't seen a cast so engaged in a film before or since. It's clear they are loving every second of the witty and fantastic script from Joss Whedon, and they truly shine. Why Nathan Fillion did not win an award for this film is a crime, but with such a great and memorable supporting cast, It's not just Fillion who impresses.
  4. The script is brilliant. Joss Whedon goes from witty dialogue to the true horror of the Alliance's actions in a snap of a finger but so it doesn't feel out of place or badly-structured. The humour offsets the horror and vice-versa. 
  5. The visual FX are brilliant. I haven't seen such fantasticly-designed visual FX in a film since the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. They do age brilliantly almost ten years later and certainly stand up to some of the 'meh' CGI work of The Amazing Spider-Man.
  6. The set design is brilliant. While, yes, Serenity shares sets and design concepts with Firefly, they are still are brilliant and with plenty of detail. I watched the behind the scenes to this film and the amount of work that had been put into the (all-in-one) Serenity set itself is stunning! 
  7. The action is brilliant. Each fight scene is spectacularly well-choreographed, with some little elements your won't notice on first viewing, such as Inara's explosives against the Operative, and by the end you feel completely satisfied with the action. It builds, but it doesn't come across as too over-the-top, especially when Mal looks almost dead after his fight with the Operative but still clinging on.
  8. The resolution is brilliant. Whether you've seen Firefly or not, the resolution to the mysteries really is satisfying, and there are some that will genuinely shock you or you will see coming because of where the plot is going. This is evidence of a fantastic screenplay from Whedon, when you realize what happened and then the characters confirm it on screen. If there is anything, Mal and Inara never admit their feelings about each other, but somehow its just something that isn't a flaw in the film at all.
  9. The villain is brilliant. While there is no black-and-white heroes and villains in this story, its clear in the end who really is fighting for justice and who is fighting the people to get their own way. Its well made, with some uncertain elements. At the end of the day, no character is pure good or pure evil, they just stand for what they believe in.
  10. The quotes / slogans are brilliant. You can't stop the signal. I aim to misbehave. These are two slogans that represent the film and are thinks that I connect automatically with Serenity. It can be very rare that you get such memorable quotes in one film.
Overall, Serenity is a masterpiece of film-making. I can't fault it to save my life but it is such a shame it didn't take off in 2005 like it should have done. I live in hope that one day the story will continue, as this is such a fantastic franchise that really deserved an army of fans and ten million sequels, prequels and spin-offs. There are so many different directions you can go but it is such a shame it just stopped here. It is still a masterpiece though.

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