Spoilers will be clearly delineated

Incredible movie. If you haven’t seen Firefly, you really should see that first. And honestly, you should see it, whether you intend to watch Serenity or not. It’s one of the best television shows ever made. Great dialogue, incredible plotting, a fully-realized, deeply envisioned world… There’s really nothing to like. I don’t know *anyone* who’s seen more than a few episodes that hasn’t gotten hooked.
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*spoilers contained within*
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Serenity, the movie, confounds me somewhat… not really, I suppose – it really just makes me sort of sit in awe of Joss Whedon. Had he simply made a longer episode, one in which fundamentally nothing happens, but the fans get to spend another two hours with their favorite cast of characters, I think it’d have been a movie I’d have seen three times in its opening weekend. Instead, Whedon’s chosen to tell the story he wanted to tell – rather than pandering to the audience, guaranteeing a higher return, he’s made *art* – something that challenges the viewer, that is a genuinely affecting emotional rollercoaster – funny, intense, and heartbreaking.

The twists and turns of the narrative are *so* jarring that when I left the film, I was simply aghast – I didn’t know what to think, what to feel. I wanted to want to watch the movie again and again, but instead, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Ei-Nyung read some little bits about a deleted scene, and when she told me about it, I completely inadvertently teared up. When she mentioned it to a friend of ours two days later, I teared up again. Now, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing, but it was really just devastating to watch, given how attached I’d become to the characters on the show. I didn’t want to watch it again. I’m still not sure I do. But I will – probably by the weekend. And the combination of both respect, admiration, and … love, for the universe and characters Whedon’s created are more strongly solidified by his narrative decisions in the film than before.

A lot of fans seem to feel betrayed – that events in the film were “pointless” or needlessly cruel. I certainly don’t feel the same. To me, this is the universe that Joss Whedon *intended* Firefly to be – a day to day existance, where actions have consequence, and lives are ever-changing – dynamic, and the characters are forced to evolve in response to the events of their lives. In Serenity, this happens on numerous levels. Would a new series of Firefly be the *same* as it was before? Absolutely not – the events of the film are significant, they have consequences, and there’s fundamentally no way to return to what was. To me, this is a large part of what the show is about. It is, for instance, one of the defining features of Mal’s character – and something you almost never see elsewhere in TV.

I can’t put into words my respect for Joss Whedon – the story he’s written – the universe he’s created has substance. It has feeling – it has *life*. The world evolves, the characters change, and we are given the chance to watch how these events unfold.
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* End Spoilers*
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To me, Joss Whedon is TV’s Charlie Chaplin – someone who embraces the medium with such ferocity that he literally alters everyone’s perceptions of what is possible. While Half Life and Ico have begun to show the potential of the medium, I cannot wait until gaming gets a storyteller of the caliber of someone like Chaplin, or Joss Whedon. In some meager respect, I hope to be a part of the movement.