***This review contains SPOILERS***

Firefly, a variation on Han Solo and like Han itself, it lost its edge as it went along. Compare the abrasive character Mal is in the pilot (the actual pilot) to how he behaves later in the series. He goes from giving zero fucks and killing a "Fed" with one shot without mincing words to letting Saffron/Yolanda live at the end of “Our Mrs. Reynolds” episode, then a second time at the beginning of "Trash” and finally a 3rd time at the end of the same episode. Also, it seems unlikely that the guy in the pilot episode would had let Jayne to live after betraying them in “Ariel”. This is a series that was meddle by the suits from the very beginning, probably requiring to smooth Mal’s rough edges and steering the series towards a more action-comedy direction. Plus, for all the open-mindedness of the series, a protagonist straight up killing a woman character on screen was probably a bridge too far for broadcast television.

Serenity had a $39 million budget and it shows, the practical effects/vehicles are spectacular. Just imagine, if the series was conceived in 2020 in Netflix or at Disney, it would look more like the movie instead of the original series. It is just a treat to see the ship, Serenity, fully realized with considerable resources put up for the production design.

Mal’s character also goes back to its roots, as cocky and confident as ever, more like in the TV pilot than in the rest of the series. Pushing that poor guy from the rover at the beginning and then mercy-shooting him before the Reavers took him away, quickly dispatching an Alliance survivor from the attack on Shepard with one shot and that fast shot on Chiwetel Ejiofor after he shoots Mal in the back. That last one seems to be a “Han shot first” reference.

With all that said, that its turnout to be that the movie, and really the whole series’ motivation was for the Alliance to silence River because she knew about the “Pax” killing all those peoples and creating the Reavers felt ugh, anti-climactic. I dislike it on two levels: first, we never got to explore why was River “created/modified”, how the actual mechanics of her psychic abilities combined with her weapons worked and who “the men in the suit with blue gloves” that appeared in more than one episode of the series were. I thought there was more to them, but it seems they were just some government lackeys. Second, this origin story for the Reavers is so underwhelming. Why couldn’t they just be humans that went to the edge of the universe and then went over the edge? The “Pax” feels like a device to make us feel sorry for them at some level. Like, villains are allowed just to be evil, we don’t need to lessen the load. Whatever; at least the movie leaves the door open for more adventures.

Firefly: 6/10, Serenity: 6/10