As for the costume thing, I think costumes are fine for special, fan-oriented events: cons, the pre-screenings and midnight showings. Red Carpet strikes me as very inappropriate because IMO it's a classier sort of deal.

Wearing costumes for regular showings is also not of the good, because that level of obsessiveness is going to alienate the casual fans and people just looking to spend two hours in a fun sci-fi adventure, and those are the people that are going to determine how much of a success Serenity is in the box office. You can show your love of Firefly with a t-shirt or a button or a brown coat without scaring off the rest of the viewing public.

When the Red Sox play the Yankees and Schilling tosses a 13 strikeout 3 hit performances not to many people are saying, "gotta give it to him he pitched well." More likely they are letting him have it.

Depending whom you mean by "people." (Way to out yourself as a Yankees fan, dude!)

Not that he could get 13K, without giving up and equal number of HRs, this year. It's been a bad year.

Budget on a movie certainly can contribute to quality, but only (to me) in superficial ways. Do I care if the Batsuit is actually just lycra? No, I do not. And all the money in the world can't buy a good script, as Michael Bay can attest.

If Batman is prowling Winnipeg because he can't afford New York, I don't really care. If Batman spends more time learning how to balance a spoon on his nose than he does fighting crime? There are issues.

There is no spoon.

(Has that joke gotten tired yet?)

I'm sure plot was as equally important as the character reintroduction and translating the show to film. The first draft comes in at 190 pages and I'm pretty sure that version has enough of whatever anyone feels was lacking. From what I understand Joss basically condensed the arcs he had planned for the show so they are TV plots. Playing devil's advocate, Firefly was set up for TV. The day to day struggles work better week to week. They needed a bigger story, a story that makes them effect the universe in which they live. I think this plot does that.

I haven't seen too many specific examples. 1) Zoe/Wash is now ruined. Wash/Book died. No Book backstory. I don't think it's a coincidence that Alan and Ron were the last to sign. I think it's possible that outside stuff effected story. Salary, future comittment, could be any number of things who knows? Those deaths do pay off in the short term. Even at my second viewing I felt like anyone could die at anytime at the end. 2) No Mal/Inara payoff. I don't think there will ever be one. Don't necessarily believe there should be. 3) Mal not killing the Operative is out of character. Mal is supposed to have undergone a change. In a blatant on-the-nose statement he believes the truth is worth dying for. His friends have died for it. At the time for him, having the Operative know the truth is more important then killing him. In addition, it becomes personal between Mal and the Operative. Mal is imposing his will like he always does. He is right and the Operative is wrong and he wants him to know it, almost as if to one up him. 4) When the dialogue is good it's really good and plays just as well the second time through. There might be a few missteps but nothing that significantly bothered me. I'm hoping "really don't" is just Serenity's "I have a bad feeling about this."

I would have been pissed if there'd been a Mal/Inara payoff. I think the Kaylee/Simon was enough, but I also think it wasn't well written.

Depending whom you mean by "people." (Way to out yourself as a Yankees fan, dude!)

I'm Met fan and you've hurt me more than you'll ever know. But yeah, I make allowances for home team mentality.

I would have been pissed if there'd been a Mal/Inara payoff. I think the Kaylee/Simon was enough, but I also think it wasn't well written.

Just speculation on my part but I don't think you'll see more than one couple at a time on that ship. I think that was more of a payoff for the fan as opposed to the non fan. At first I thought Wash and Book's deaths left a huge hole in that they almost represented parts of Mal's conscience. They were the angel on his left shoulder. Wash always with the non-violent solution and Book with right, just and Christian approach. In many ways I think we see Simon bring what Wash has brought. In the show, he didn't do much. He never really participated in the galley table chats. Now he's apart of the ship's on board couple and I can see him as the one offering the civil solution to problems.

I thought the Simon/Kaylee romance was the most poorly-written and poorly-integrated plot thread. As a 'shipper, I was disappointed in the resolution--such as it was--of all their flirting and sexual tension on the show. I liked the Mal/Inara interactions and was glad that nothing was resolved for them.

Mal not killing the Operative is out of character.

I disagree. I think it would have been consistent with his characterization if he had killed him, but I don't think it's inconsistent that he didn't. (Although I confess that I don't quite understand the school of thought that equates "staying in character" with the character doing the same thing every time he or she encounters a similar situation.) I think Mal has been written with enough compassion and righteousness (tempered with vengeful and ruthless tendencies, to be sure, but I observe in him a struggle to maintain a balance between the two) that I understand why he made the decision to leave the Operative alive. Possibly he saw something of Book in him, and that was enough to justify not killing him.

Also, because the fight between the Operative and himself was in many ways an ideological one, I understand why it was more important to him that the Operative see the message than that the Operative be removed entirely as a threat.

I just checked rottentomatoes.com - Serenity is up to 77% fresh; 35 total reviews so far, 22 counting toward the tomatometer, with the good reviews mostly by Firefly fans but with a few total newcomers to the 'verse saying nice things as well.

I would have been pissed if there'd been a Mal/Inara payoff. I think the Kaylee/Simon was enough, but I also think it wasn't well written.

ITA

I'm Met fan and you've hurt me more than you'll ever know.

I apologize deeply. You are only reciting the propaganda plastered all over your city's back pages. Pages which the Mets would surely like to grace for reasons other than their mediocrity, poor souls. Still, the team's got potential.

I found the Simon/Kaylee stuff pretty predictable, but not especially bothersome for all that. Inara was 100% waste of skin. Book wasn't much of a character -- shades of the magical negro -- especially when he got to have Martyrsome Last Words for Our Hero.

I liked No-Name the operative a lot, in part because I like Chiwetel Ejiofor a lot. He's got a humane intelligence to him, which juxtaposes nicely to the character's actions. I do recall thinking it was kind of strange that he be left, at the end like that. I can imagine scenarios, where it's a "race to the upload button" situation, where, the button being pressed, he recognizes that his job can't be done, and, like, invites himself over to Serenity for breakfast. But that wasn't what was scripted.