Whedon has become the first filmmaker in history to require an audience to watch a 13 hour DVD set prequel in order to understand what the fuck is going on in his film.

There were two people in our group Tuesday night who'd never seen the series. They both understood and enjoyed the film.

I think that trying to come at the movie from the perspective of a person who's never seen the show is difficult, at best. It's like the man says "You watched it! You can't UNWATCH it!" Maybe judging the movie on its own merits is easier when you come at it with no backstory whatsoever. Of course, maybe it's not and I'm talking out of my ass.

ETA: Ok, just to be sure: is that you, Allyson?

Nope.

I sat next to two young girls in my screening. They asked me about the film and I gave my Joss fangurl pat answer. But they got up halfway through the film and left. I didn't feel the need to chase them down and ask them why they didn't like the movie.

I just assumed it didn't do anything for them. I was ok with that.

When I got home, DH asked me how it was--I told him I liked it but I had a few nits to pick. He said, "Ah, you'd have loved it even if it was a steaming pile of shit." But he said it in a nice way--which is good because he expects to sleep with me.

He doesn't share my Joss love but he appreciates his talent when it works for him. I can live with that.

There's precedent. Consider the Chelsea fan navigating the Underground to get to the soccer game. Add futuristic drugs, and lo! Reaver.

Oh. My. God. (Iced) coffee on my monitor.

When I got home, DH asked me how it was--I told him I liked it but I had a few nits to pick. He said, "Ah, you'd have loved it even if it was a steaming pile of shit." But he said it in a nice way--which is good because he expects to sleep with me.

Hee.

Scott did not have the same level of Firefly interest I had. He enjoyed Buffy and Angel nearly as much as I did, and looked forward to Ff. But it failed to grab him. He was finally grabbed by the last aired episode--the pilot. He was probably grabbed here and there along the way. He has the same level of respect for ME folks--that is to say, if he knows Tim, Joss, etc., are part of a show's creative team, he's inclined to give it a shot. Our devotion is unequal though, and I think that--in part--is because of fandom. He's on the fringe of it. He is a fan, and is married to someone who is in fandom, but his primary fandom and fannish interaction is with me.

Hec, was that little snark aimed at me? Because I prefer to be addressed by name if someone's trying to snark me.

I should state up front that I want the film to succeed for purely work-related reasons. I do a lot of thinking at my job about new media distribution patterns and methods, and if this film is a huge hit, it's a hell of a Powerpoint slide for us. And I will probably buy a ticket this weekend, though I'm still not sure I'm going to actually see it again.

I'm also a Firefly fan, and I spent the week before the screening rewatching it, going "wow, I'd forgotten how good this got," and reveling in the universe. Which made my sense that the movie wasn't up to its predecessor's' standards all the more acute, and made the Kool-Aid drinking in the crowd all the more disjunctive. (I went to the film with a co-worker who'd loaned half the office her DVDs. She was embarrassed by the people in costume.)

ETA: Ok, just to be sure: is that you, Allyson?

Nope.

Oops. I'm very sorry for directing my rant towards you, then. More evidence that making assumptions is a really bad idea, and I should be more careful about it.

My only excuse is that I was just a little bit drunk. But that's a very stupid excuse that should be ignored.

Oh, there was a plot. The plot is that while crated up in the evil government lab, River, who we learn is both psychic and psychotic, heard the thoughts of some Parliamentary official who was on a tour of the lab. We never learn who he was, so from here on in, we'll call him Dick Cheney (or Hillary, for our Swift Boat readers). Apparently, Hillary Cheney was thinking about a Lame Secret Conspiracy in a moment of quiet reflection on the Secret Government Laboratory tour bus.

You know, I knew the plot revolved around River being hunted, and I knew that the movie told us *why* (and I saw the movie), but as soon as I left the theatre, I couldn't remember the *why.* It wasn't a strong enough point to create a plot around.

And I agree with all the points in the review about the characterization within the movie not being strong enough. Too many of the significant plot points -- Wash's death, Book's death, Simon & Kaylee's gratuitous sex, who the hell is Inara? -- require a pre-existing knowledge of the characters from the TV show for those plot points to really have any impact.

Serenity proved that Whedon is for now best suited for television, needing at least five or six hours of screentime to develop characters, a plot... basically anything that would make watching the movie more interesting than sending text messages to my friends two rows over.

I agree with this, too. And there's nothing *wrong* with Joss being more suited to arc-y, episodic stories. The stories he writes, the worlds he creates, need more time than you get in a feature-length film. And that's cool. We need good arc-y, episodic teevee.

My only excuse is that I was just a little bit drunk.

FWIW, I thought Allyson wrote it too. She posted asking if we wanted to read her eye-rolling thoughts on the film, and then later posted a link to a reviewer whose eyes are permanently stuck looking at the inside of her (his?) forehead. Seemed like a reasonable assumption, but we all know what happens when you assume...