Jewel Staite Brings Serenity to Colorado

The cast of Serenity recently attended a photo shoot for a magazine. Nathan Fillion (Captain Malcolm Reynolds) chuckled and reminded his costars, "We got canceled."

But you can't stop the signal.

There were our Big Damn Heroes on the movie screen. Again. Happily, I was wrong in predicting I'd have to wait till September 30 to see the movie a second time. Following the May 5 screening, they (whoever "they" are) scheduled another one for last night (May 26)! Both screenings were held at the Highlands Ranch AMC (south of Denver).

And this time, Jewel Staite, who plays Kaylee, watched with us. Kaylee, as in, on the screen flirting with the Doctor fighting off the Reavers melting our hearts Kaylee. Staite was sitting just a few rows down from me.

I figured something was up when they started testing microphones and a camera crew came into the theater. That didn't happen last time. So a woman went to the front of the theater with a microphone and managed to get out as much as, "You know her as Kaylee..."

Staite walked in to sustained applause. And a standing ovation. Last time, I described the crowd as "excited but not rowdy." This time we got a little bit rowdy. Staite spoke for a few minutes before the film. Then the tape rolled with Joss's comments (which were just as funny and touching the second time), and then the crowd erupted first when Staite's name appeared and then when Kaylee came on the screen.

Kaylee anchors my favorite scene, near the end when she's talking with Simon (Dr. Tam, played by Sean Maher). At risk of belaboring the point, it's pretty darn cool to watch the best scene of a favorite movie with the actress who brings the scene to life.

After the movie finished, Staite answered questions for around half an hour. Then she stayed till about one in the morning signing little posters brought in for the occasion. And, like Kaylee, Staite is warm and personable, and great with the fans.

Staite isn't taking the movie for granted. She said the making of the movie was a longshot -- but there it was! She confirmed that two more movies are planned, if the first one meets with some success. Obviously the Firefly crew is thinking out of the usual marketing box and doing whatever it can to get the word out. Staite said members of the crew will attend sci-fi events whenever their schedules allow the time.

Staite shared the story of the recent photo shoot. She mentioned her favorite part of the filming was when the crew lands in a large port town and Kaylee, Simon, and River (Simon's sister, played by Summer Glau) interact with the Captain. And lots of fans stood in as extras. She said (while signing posters) that her favorite episode of the TV show is "Objects in Space." Somebody asked her what she'd like to see happen with Kaylee. Staite drew a large belly in the air with her hand. Who would Staite like to see as a villain in the next movie? Maybe Ralph Fiennes. Staite also said the final cut of the movie will include a finished score and better-processed images.

Somebody asked about the difficult turns Whedon took with the story. (Please skip to the next paragraph if you want no hints about this.) Staite said Joss likes to keep it real. This comports with what Whedon has said. One interviewer asked, "I won't give anything away when I print this, but the shocking moments in the movie, how did you decide on them?" Here's how Whedon responded: "That's a process. There are some upsetting things in the movie, and it's very simple: if nothing is at stake, then I'm making Oceans 12. Or a movie for my friends that I expect people to pay to attend. And that's not what I want to do. So you have to knock people for a loop every now and then to remind them that this is real and that the stakes are high, and that nothing is sacred and nobody is safe. If you believe those things then at the end of the movie, it's exciting. If you don't, then it's just a bunch of noise."

One member of the audience discussed Star Wars, and the fact that everybody already knew how it was going to turn out. What do sci-fi fans have to look forward to after the long-running Star Wars franchise, the person asked? Staite answered simply, "Us." And I do hope sci-fi fans flock to Serenity (which is much richer than Wars on many levels). But I also hope people who don't normally like sci-fi give Serenity a chance, because it's not fundamentally a science-fiction movie, it's fundamentally a movie about human values and relationships.

I loved the movie the first time I watched it, yet the second time it seemed to flow a lot better at the beginning. I think the reason for this is that, the first time, I had such great expectations that I brought a certain amount of nervousness (even fear) to the screening. The second time, I was able to watch the movie just as a movie, and it seemed to build very well on its own terms. However, it also seemed to me a natural progression of the television series. Mal's relationship with Simon had taken a new turn, but this seemed totally understandable to me the second time. So now I think Whedon did an ever better job than I first realized at writing a compelling, self-contained movie that is also a logical progression of the series. Some time passes between the series and the movie, though (a gap that's supposed to be filled by comic books), so it's important to understand the characters aren't all precisely where they were the moment the television series ended.

Serenity's Tripartite Theme

I'm not going to give away specific plot developments in the discussion that follows. However, I am going to discuss the movie's theme, and thus I'll provide a fair amount of background information that you may not wish to know prior to viewing the movie.

The theme of many movies feels strained, because the ideas are force-fed and the plot doesn't carry them out. But Whedon's writing is integrated. That is, he writes about important ideas, and the ideas are inseparable from the plot. Whedon's themes arise naturally from the plot and sustain the plot.

In his book Total Freedom, Chris Matthew Sciabarra discusses three levels of social analysis: the structural, which deals with economic and political institutions; the cultural, which pertains to shared ideas; and the personal (see pages 379-383). Sciabarra explains, "Each of these levels entails mutual implications; relations of power are both manifested on and perpetuated by personal, cultural, and structural dynamics."

While I doubt Whedon has ever read Sciabarra's interesting book, Whedon's themes for Serenity follow the same pattern Sciabarra describes.

On the individual level, Whedon's theme is "belief." But Whedon's language (as expressed by various characters) only approximates what's really going on. The theme really is the exaltation of values. When Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) tells Mal he has to believe in something, the idea Book is trying to convey is that Mal needs to take his values seriously, and not become cold-hearted or cynical. This is played out through the budding romances between Mal and Inara (Morena Baccarin) and between Simon and Kaylee. It's also played out between Mal and the two fugitives, Simon and River. Mal lets Inara go (in the time between the series and the movie) because "none of it means a damn thing" (or so River interprets). And Mal is coming out of a very dark place, having been on the losing side of a devastating war. So Firefly/Serenity, at its core, is about reestablishing a life filled with values after suffering horrific losses. That's the TV theme song: "Take my love / take my land / take me where I cannot stand / I don't care / I'm still free / you can't take the sky from me."

The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the villain of the movie, also plays off this theme of "belief." But there is one big problem with the Operative's beliefs: they are utopian. That is, the Operative wants a world without sin, a world that requires people to be remade, a world that requires a powerful state to "meddle" (again in River's words). Mal wants a human world in which people necessarily struggle to achieve their goals, even if sometimes this struggle spills over into unsavory behavior. A human world is one guided by liberty. A utopian world requires coercion. This is why River became the subject of government experiments. The way Whedon ties in the story of River with the story of the Reavers and the story of the war is excellent, I'm tempted to say genius.

Mr. Universe (David Krumholtz) offers the structural element in the creation of a mass, decentralized media (i.e., an internet). So watch Serenity, and then review what's been happening in the Ukraine and in countries throughout the Middle East and Asia, including China. The rapid spread of ideas and information is threatening authoritarianism across the globe.

So a personal life laden with values requires a culture of freedom and an institutional system that encourages the free flow of ideas. And these things are mutually reciprocal, meaning that each one impacts the creation and maintenance of the other two.

Honestly, I cannot think of another movie with such a sophisticated integration of advanced themes and story lines. Equilibrium may compete. Serenity is an extraordinary achievement. Even on a superficial level, it's an edge-of-the-seat action movie punctuated by very funny moments and very sensual ones. But you can keep pushing the story to find broader themes. And it's not just tortured pop-philosophical bunk thrown in to artificially make a movie feel "deep" (think Wars or Matrix.) Serenity is real. I mean, it keeps its humanity, whereas some other films get lost in new-agey mumbo jumbo. There's a difference between stuffing a story with high-sounding platitudes and integrating a story with important truths. Whedon achieves the latter.

So go see this gem of a movie. (By the way, here are Ben Cantrick's notes about the Denver showing.) And thanks, Jewel, for coming to Colorado!