And, as someone who *really* disliked the Chinese slang in the series, because I don't think there were enough external markers to show a strong Asian influence on the world they existed in -- I thought the movie did a bang-up job of giving the various settings an Asian influence.

And all without showing anyone of actual Asian descent.

River is totally the Slayer. She was created by a mysterious council to fight creatures that feed on living humans. I thought the axe she was holding looked a lot like Fray's axe, too.

The science just bugs. Solar systems, even terraformed ones, just can't fit that many planets in the the habitable zone. And even if you could, the ones out near the very edge of the system like, say, Miranda, would be a lot colder than the core planets. They have to be. They're farther from the sun. They wouldn't be that bright either.

As to nitpicking about sound in space, that didn't used to be a problem with Firefly. The vacuum was sound free in the series. NSM in the movie.

That said, I did like the movie quite a lot. I'm sad to see Wash go, especially since it's sort of like his death was sort of shorthand for "no one is safe."

I maybe was making stuff up but I thought they said they found new solar systems, not just one. But I am probably wrong.

Also, re: sound in space, maybe I was just inattentive but the only time I noticed it was when they were entering atmo.

I'd like some examples of that too, because as far as I know, the only sounds from space were the ones that were coming from the gun they'd mounted on Serenity, which was only causing sound because its vibrations were going through the ship. You could hear how muffled it was, even. I thought that was particularly well done.

There were sounds of explosions in the space battle.

Although I suppose you could argue that the explosions would be heard on the ships that suffered them....

The setup was "A new solar system with dozens of worlds and hundreds of moons." I suppose a yellow giant star would have a much wider habitable temperature belt (albiet much further than 1 A.U from the star), and it's possible that terraforming could generate greenhouse effect conditions on the further worlds and moons.

Really, you can't overestimate the usefulness of being psychic in combat. Long as you're the least bit athletic, you will not get hit.

But River did get hit, on more than one occasion. It's just her opponents weren't superhumanly strong, so she could shake it off and continue. Buffy's punches can deform metal and shatter bricks, and just as importantly she can stand up to similarly strong blows. I think one solid hit would put River down—the questions would be "is she armed?" and "can she get in a lethal cut before Buffy realizes she has to fight in earnest?"

The only time there was "sound in space" was during the final space battle, which I'm sure was Universal going "No, you can't have all these things shooting and blowing up with no sound effects". The rest of time there was only noise in atmo, breaking atmo or entering atmo.

As Mr. Broom said, we heard dull thumps when the cannon was being fired in space, but one could argue the audiences' "vantage point" was either from within Serenity or with the person firing the cannon (I can't remember if it was Jayne or Mal.) during that scene.

Honestly, I think it worked well as a compromise, because most of the space scenes are properly soundless and carried by the music, but the masses get their SFX-happy space battle.

See, I'm still hoping for Asian former browncoats in the next movie.

And now, I must buy the Serenity tpb in spite of my plan to own the comics.

The setup was "A new solar system with dozens of worlds and hundreds of moons."

They also showed a diagram of the entire system early on.

I suppose a yellow giant star would have a much wider habitable temperature belt (albiet much further than 1 A.U from the star), and it's possible that terraforming could generate greenhouse effect conditions on the further worlds and moons.

Color and temperature have to do with size of the star. All yellow stars are pretty much the same size and temp. A blue giant (like Rigel in Orion) is very hot, and would have a very large habitable zone, except it also puts out way more of the nastier forms of EM radiation than humans could really deal with.

The problem with greenhouse effect is that as you get farther away from the star, the amount of solar energy reaching the planet drops off as a function of the square of the distance, so the effect doesn't work nearly well. Titan, which has a slightly thicker atmosphere than Earth, and is only about midway to the edge of our solar system, has a surface temperature of -178°C. That's colder than Minneapolis in the dead of winter. And you can't add a lot more in the way of greenhouse gases without killing the people.

You guys are clearly forgetting that they are using science.

My tendency with sci fi is to go, "Anything can be explained if we assume super-advanced technology exists."