Serenity

Finally saw Serenity last night, at the second run theater.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. And yes, it did indeed stand alone–the three of us seeing it had never seen Firefly, and followed everything just the same. Could tell a few bits were somehow playing to people who already knew the series (you could hear the audience draw its breath when Inara first showed up, though I’d no clue who she was), but that didn’t really get in the way.

The gender and power balance of the universe, as in much space opera, is still skewed toward the guys, but much more subtly so than it once was. And the script managed often to honor the cliches without indulging in them in a way tyhat really worked.

And hey, we can tell said script wasn’t written by the number because usually, if I’m drawn to one of the male characters in a story, he’s inevitably the one who dies–this has been true ever since I read L’Engle’s Arm of the Starfish many years ago. But this time, much to my surprise, that wasn’t the character who died.

Someone else was.

Also saw a trailer for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and am now cautiously optimistic about same.