Serenity Now!

Our trip to Seattle to see Serenity started on Wednesday, when we sailed to Vancouver. Our escape from Victoria was hindered by a condo fire. A ladder truck fighting the fire took up two lanes of the north bound Pat Bay highway, and traffic was backed way up. We though we weren't going to make it, but BC Ferries has put up a sign that shows how full the ferry is just after Sidney, and it was only 37% at about 4:45, so it wasn't a problem getting on. Seattle is normally a fairly rainy city, but of course the day we go we get a heat wave. Five people in a small car with no air conditioning... adventure! Traffic was also quite backed up on the I5 due to a rather nasty accident, but we qualified for the HOV lane and made good use of it, squeezing by most of the traffic.

After finding the theater, we went to the Space Needle and took a few pictures. The admission to go up was $13 USD or something silly, which we decided was not worth the view. We wandered around and stumbled across the Science Fiction Museum and hall of fame, which is housed in a really crazy looking building. Being a bunch of sci-fi nerds, we decided that it was much more worthy of our $13 USD than the space needle, and we were not disappointed! There was a lot of exhibits on old sci-fi books, and newer ones like Neal Stephenson's baroque cycle. They actually had the hand written manuscripts, pens, and ink bottles Stephenson used. There were a lot of cool props, costumes, and so on.

After the super cool sci-fi museum, we drove over to the theater to see how big the line up was. This was about 5 o'clock, and since there were already people there, we decided to line up as well. There were lots of cunning t-shirts in evidence, and a few people even dress up as characters. After 4 hours of waiting, they slowly let us into the theater. They searched bags for recording devices, and took away one guy's batteries. Some people tried to just the queue, but some angry people near the front of the line yelled at them to go to the back. There could have been a riot if they had gotten in first, when everybody else stood in line all that time!

Finally seated, we found that lining up early paid off, as we ended up with five seats together in the middle about half way back, which is almost ideal. I immediately spilled greasy popcorn all over my blue sun t-shirt... argh!

The movie itself was awesome! There was only one bit of dialog that I didn't like. The film needed a little work, in terms of grain and colour, but I think that was just because it was a one-off print. Other people who know more about film than I know the finishing steps that have to happen. I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn't notice any special effects blunders or the filler music. Others noticed music from movies like The Fifth Element, but it worked fine for me.

This was not a two hour episode either. It's a self standing movie that contains enough information about the characters that people who haven't seen the TV show should have no problem following who's who. The story works well, and explains a lot of really interesting things. The dialog and acting is just awesome. So very, very funny in places, sad in others, subtle and nuanced.

It had less western elements than the TV show did, but I think to a degree there just wasn't enough time to go in to that. It may also help keep things on more of a sci-fi track, for those who think the idea of a space-western is silly, when in fact, it's awesome.

Marli and Walter both have some notes about Serenity, and some photos too.

I look forward to seeing it a few more times when it comes out in September.