Serenity is a 2005 American space Western film written and directed by Joss Whedon in his feature directorial debut. The film is a continuation of Whedon's short-lived 2002 Fox television series Firefly, taking place after the events of the final episode, with all of the main cast reprising their roles, including Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, and Summer Glau, while Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as a new character. 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. Their lives of smuggling and cargo-running are interrupted by a psychic passenger who harbors a dangerous secret.
Serenity was released in North America on September 30, 2005, by Universal Pictures to generally positive reviews and several accolades, including the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, the Prometheus Special Award and the Nebula Award for Best Script, but underperformed at the box office.
Plot In the 26th century, humanity has colonized a new solar system. The central planets formed the Alliance and won a war against the outer planet Independents who resisted joining the Alliance. Child genius River Tam is conditioned by Alliance scientists into becoming a psychic and an assassin but is rescued as a teenager by her brother Dr. Simon Tam. During her training, River inadvertently read the minds of several top government officials and learned their secrets. Consequently, an Alliance agent known only as the Operative is tasked with recapturing her.
The siblings have found refuge aboard the transport spaceship Serenity with Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds; first mate Zoe Washburne; her husband, pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne; mercenary Jayne Cobb; and mechanic Kaylee Frye. Despite Simon's objections, Mal brings River on a bank robbery. River warns them that savage and cannibalistic Reavers are coming. They escape, but Simon decides he and River will leave Serenity at the next port. Once there, however, a subliminal message in a television commercial causes River to attack numerous bar patrons, and Mal takes the siblings back aboard the ship. The crew contacts reclusive hacker Mr. Universe, who discovers the message designed to trigger River's mental conditioning. He notes River whispered "Miranda" before attacking and warns that someone else has viewed the footage.
Mal receives an invitation from courtesan Inara Serra. Realising it is a trap, Mal goes to confront the Operative who promises to let him go free if he hands over River. Mal barely escapes. Miranda is discovered to be a planet located beyond a region of space swarming with Reavers. The crew flies to the planet Haven but find it devastated and their old friend Shepherd Book mortally wounded. They realize the Operative has killed anyone who gave them safe harbor and will continue until he gets River.
Mal has the crew disguise Serenity as a Reaver ship and they travel to Miranda undetected. They find its 30 million colonists dead, and a recording that explains an experimental chemical to suppress aggression had been added into Miranda's atmosphere. The population became so docile they stopped performing all activities of daily living and placidly died. A small proportion of them had the opposite reaction and became insanely aggressive and violent. The Alliance's actions created the Reavers and this was the secret in River's subconscious.
Mr. Universe agrees to broadcast the recording, but has secretly betrayed the crew to the Alliance. However, rather than pay him, the Operative kills him and prepares an ambush. Knowing this, the crew provoke the Reaver fleet into chasing them toward the Alliance armada. The Reavers and Alliance battle while Wash pilots Serenity through the crossfire. He crash lands near the broadcast tower before being fatally impaled by a Reaver spear.
The crew make a last stand against the Reavers to buy Mal time to broadcast the recording. The crew retreats behind a set of blast doors that fail to properly close. Simon is shot, and River dives through the doors to throw back Simon's medical kit and close the doors before the Reavers drag her away. At the transmitter, Mal fights the Operative, finally subduing him and forcing him to watch as the recording is broadcast. Mal returns to the crew. The blast doors open to reveal that River has killed all the Reavers. The Operative orders the Alliance troops to stand down.
The Operative provides medical aid and resources to repair Serenity. He tells Mal the broadcast has weakened the Alliance government, but while he will try to convince the Parliament that River and Simon are no longer threats, he warns that they may continue their pursuit in retribution for getting the word out. Serenity takes off, with River as Mal's new pilot.
Cast
Production Development The film is based on Firefly, a television series canceled by the Fox Broadcasting Company in December 2002, after 11 of its 14 produced episodes had aired. Attempts to have other networks acquire the series failed, and creator Joss Whedon started to sell it as a film. He had been working on a film script since the show's cancellation. Shortly after the cancellation, he contacted Barry Mendel, who was working with Universal Studios, and "flat-out asked him" for a way to continue the series as a film, including as a low-budget television film. Mendel introduced Whedon to then Universal executive Mary Parent. She had seen Firefly and immediately signed on to the project, even though Whedon had yet to create a story. Whedon remarked: In July 2003, Whedon said that though there was interest in the project, "I won't know really until I finish a draft whether or not it's genuine." He felt that any film deal was contingent on keeping the show's original cast, though he later stated that retaining the cast was "never an issue" as Universal executives believed the cast suitable after watching every episode of the series.
In early September 2004, a film deal with Universal was publicly confirmed. Universal acquired the rights to Firefly shortly before the confirmation. Whedon felt that the strong sales of the Firefly DVD, which sold out in less than 24 hours after the pre-order announcement, "definitely helped light a fire and make them [Universal] go, 'Okay, we've really got something here.' It definitely helped them just be comfortable with the decisions they were making, but they really had been supporting us for quite some time already." Whedon felt it was "important people understand that the movie isn't the series", and so the project was titled Serenity.
Writing After Universal acquired the film rights from Fox, Whedon began writing the screenplay. His task was to explain the premise of a television series that few had seen without boring new viewers or longtime fans. He based his story on original story ideas for Fireflys un-filmed second season.Serenity Collector's Edition DVD cast commentary Whedon's original script was 190 pages, and attempted to address all major plot points introduced in the series. After presenting the script to Barry Mendel under the title "The Kitchen Sink", Whedon and Mendel collaborated on cutting down the script to a size film-able under his budget constraints. All nine principal cast members from the television series were scheduled to return for the movie, but Glass and Tudyk could not commit to sequels, leading to the death of their characters in the second draft of the script. The tightened script and a budget Mendel and Whedon prepared were submitted to Universal on a Friday and on the following Monday morning, Stacey Snider, then head of Universal, called Mendel to officially greenlight the movie."Serenity Collector's Edition DVD Special Features
Universal planned to begin shooting in October 2003, but delays in finishing the script postponed the start of shooting to June 2004.
Filming
Principal photography for Serenity was originally estimated to require 80 days, lasting a typical 12 to 14 hours each, with a budget of over $100 million. Unwilling to approve of such a large budget, Universal Studios wished to shoot abroad to minimize production costs. However, Whedon, reluctant to uproot his family, insisted that filming take place locally and maintained that it was possible for a local production to cost fewer days and less than half the expected budget. On March 2, 2004, the film was greenlit for production with a budget of under $40 million. At the project's completion, the film spent $39 million, considered low for a science fiction action film featuring heavy special effects.
Serenity was filmed over a period of 50 ten-hour days, beginning June 3, 2004, and ending September 17, 2004. The film was primarily shot on Universal Studio sound stages with locations throughout Los Angeles. The sequence where the crew is pursued by Reavers after a bank robbery was filmed along the Templin Highway north of Santa Clarita. The shoot typically would have lasted 30 days, but the production completed filming the sequence in five days. Pyrotechnics were shot at Mystery Mesa, near Santa Clarita, over a period of three days rather than a typical two weeks. The scenes on the planet Miranda were filmed at Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona.
The production expected to save money by reusing the Serenity ship interior set from the Firefly television series, but the set was not available. Instead the ship was rebuilt, using DVD images of the television series as a guide. Construction was completed over 14 weeks on Universal Studios' Stage 12 by 23 supervised crews working independently but in coordination with one another. Universal was concerned about the extra cost but were satisfied when it was completed in just 14 weeks, according to executive producer David Lester.
Visual effects As the budget for the film was considerably smaller than for the TV series, practical special effects were used as much as possible: if a computer-generated imagery (CGI) composite was required, as many tangible sets and props as possible were constructed to minimize the use of computer effects.Whedon, Serenity: Director's Commentary, "What's In A Firefly" The most technically challenging scene was the mule skiff chase. For budgetary reasons, a gimbal and CGI, much like those used in the pod race in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, were quickly ruled out. Instead, the crew fashioned a trailer with a cantilevered arm attached to the "hovercraft" and shot the scene while riding up Templin Highway north of Santa Clarita. Zoic Studios, the company that produced the graphics for the series, had to perform a complete overhaul of their computer model of Serenity, as the television model would not stand up to the high-definition scrutiny of cinema screens.
Musical score