SPOILER ALERT!!! This article will spoil the movie for you. If you have not seen the movie and you don’t want to know what happens before you see it, hit the “BACK” button NOW. Or the “HOME” button. Or go to another part of HMC. Just don’t keep reading.

You do, and you’ll learn bad things…

I mean it, last warning here…

Okay, it’s now all your fault if you read something here you didn’t want to know.

DAMMIT JOSS, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME??? You tease me with past relationships, get me interested in characters, and then you not only not let anyone get laid (well, almost) but you kill people! And now I have to go buy a new set of DVDs. Now I have to go back and find out what happened in the last ten months on that ship to figure out the movie. Why wasn’t the lady-for-hire chick on the ship at the beginning? Since when was the doctor guy (who is quite hot, I might add) not a part of the crew? And why does everyone have both their ears?

What am I blathering on about? Let me shed some light on this: I have never seen “Firefly.”

Before you all start throwing everything at me from words to rotten tomatoes, let me explain! (ouch! This is not the time for the Spuffy ladies to get back at me for all my snide remarks!) I’ve never been one who liked westerns and I was never able to keep up with a Star Trek series for more than three seasons before getting bored. Add to that the fact that when “Firefly” was on the air, I lived in an apartment that had no cable hookup capabilities and a set of rabbit ears that would only let me get about five channels and you can see why I never saw it. So all I know about the show is a set of names and actors and what I gleaned from catching the last ten minutes of one episode while at a friend’s house. (Hence the ear comment.)

Still, I couldn’t resist the lure of seeing “Serenity” on opening day. The crowd at the movie theater had me rethinking my decision, though – it was a bunch of guys (teenager, 20’s, totally to be expected), a TON of Silicon Valley rednecks (yeah, we have them), and oddly enough, a decent number of 50+ year olds. What the hell am I in for? But this is Joss, and I’m conditioned to have a curiosity about anything Joss touches. So I try to get into the spirit and cough up another $7 for a Vanilla Coke and hot dog.

The movie starts. I don’t know who’s who so I couldn’t tell who was a new character, who was old, or what was being new and revealed. At least now I know that River Tam is a person and not a place or thing and that she has a brother. Then I see Serenity herself – my first thought is “Damn, that’s cool!” immediately followed by “Wait a sec, how is that piece of junk still flying?” I started to get scared that I was going to get stuck in something that just wasn’t up my alley. Was this really a show about intergalactic cowboys?

My fears were quickly alleviated. Like Joss’ other two TV series, the characters got under my skin real quick. I was actually having fun piecing together what little bit I knew about the show from talking to fans. The characters also kept me guessing. I couldn’t decide for half the show if I liked Mal. Just when I had Jayne pegged, he would say or do something smart and/or serious. For not being very coherent, River’s expressions could say quite a bit.

My comfort zone didn’t stay comfortable for long. Joss has a habit of grabbing us by the collar and shaking the hell out of us until we’re pissed, disoriented, or both and he doesn’t disappoint us this time. Shepherd and Inara finally show up and I have to wonder whose side they’re on. Then there’s the violence. It’s not unnecessary, but it was gripping and while futuristic, very real. As in the kind that hits you in the gut and almost makes you wish for the Disney version of fairy tales. River flips out at one point and it’s just “holy shit, what movie have I fallen into, a Nam war flick?” The guns personally got to me. I don’t like guns, and to see people shooting and getting shot so casually was a bit jarring. Then there’s the brutality of the Reevers – a race of men who brutally attack and eat anyone they come across. It’s even creepier cuz it’s mostly done off-screen and through sounds. Even though this takes place something like 500 years in the future, it feels as if it isn’t that far off.

And the deaths – Joss doesn’t know how to do a kind death. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to. Shepherd’s was bad enough cuz even though I didn’t know what his place was in the whole scheme of things, I could tell that his dying words to Mal were important. But the worst was yet to come – Wash. Wash navigated Serenity through hell, had a great line (which I bet is something he says often in the series), and then senselessly and completely impersonally got SKEWERED. Yeah, Wash is dead and I was soooooooooooooo upset. I can’t imagine what people who followed and loved the show feel when they see that. And then there’s a bit later, almost at the end, that is a tribute to the main characters who died. Again, dammit Joss, why are you so good at writing these things?? I was in tears you sadistic man!! Seven put it best in his blog – the scene is full of pain.

Now don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t all serious. (Please, this is Joss we’re talking about.) His ability to throw in light-hearted moments, one-liners, and other bits of comedy is one of the things I love about his writing. This is the part where I think I was missing out as a newbie. I found some things hysterically funny – especially if they came out of Jayne’s or Kaylee’s mouth – but there were other things that got a grin out of me and huge laughs from others. (I have to wonder, though: does Kaylee talk about sex like that all the time?) If you thought the couple of jokes on the TV commercials were funny, wait til you see the rest of it!

I might be way late and sadly out of touch on this, but I finally get it – I have GOT to see this series. My goal is to now see the entire TV series and then go back to see the movie again in the theater. By itself, it was a good movie. Knowing Joss’ work made it a pretty damned good movie. But I think seeing the series and then watching the movie again will prove to me that it is in fact a great movie.

So congratulations, Joss – you have earned yourself one more Browncoat. (At least, I think that’s what I am. I’ll let you know once I figure out exactly what that means.) *wink*