Serenity: 'Now it's my turn...'

I just finished rewatching Serenity again for the umpteenth time. This is the 2005 American space Western film written and directed by Joss Whedon in his feature directorial debut. It’s a continuation of Whedon's short-lived 2002 Fox television series Firefly, of which I have never seen an episode - but that doesn’t matter. Serenity immediately returns to my (ever-shifting) list of top ten films.

Set in 2517, the story follows the crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship, whose captain and first mate are veterans of the Unification War, having fought on the losing Independent side against the Alliance. A psychic passenger harbours a dangerous secret - not just for them but for the whole society in which they live.

Actually, the basic plot was stolen from an episode of Blake’s 7, the British sci-fi series from the ‘70s. But that aside, it’s a brilliant film: spectacular action, witty and unpredictable dialogue, multi-dimensional characters and a deep moral - it has just about everything. 

River Tam’s key moment - when, speaking to her wounded brother, she says ‘You have always looked after me. Now it’s my turn…’ before turning to defeat a horde of bloodthirsty monsters single-handedly, always gets goosebumps from me.

The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, the Prometheus Special Award and the Nebula Award for Best Script, but underperformed at the box office for some reason. It became a cult success later, though (helped by my multiple rewatchings, no doubt). 

Needless to say, its success partly rests on the fact that it has almost all of the archetypes described in my book, How Stories Really Work: the Wise Old Figure who dies (Ron Glass as Shepherd Book), the Comic Companion(s) (Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb and Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye), the embattled warrior-leader (Nathan Fillon as Captain Mal Reynolds) who also serves as the protagonist, the Submerged Female Companion (Summer Glau as River Tam), the Shadow Protagonist (Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Operative) and the faceless Parliament as the Antagonist. All are superb, all have great lines. All follow their character arcs splendidly, proving once more that if you follow a template exactly you can achieve heights unobtainable by ‘originality’.

I have no doubt that I’ll be rewatching it again, but for now I’ll be on my merry…