Show Serenity crew flies down a unique path Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times t i i i Its It's fitting and sweetly v l h tt Ai i tele dl s ow born of 1 Te eJ sn ni z zeal al for frontier life is now itself conquering new bord bor bor- d ders rs Serenity the new incarnation of the futuristic tic space western Firefly which briefly aired in 2002 on Fox will premiere as a Universal Pi Pictures Pictures tures feature on Sept 30 with the TV cast intact So how has writer tor-writer Joss Whedon been able to take his failed te television series from the small screen to the big That's simple says Whedon also the creator of the cult hits Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel ngel Z h Probably more than any project that I can think of the fans made their voices vices heard Whedon said For a major motion picture that's a little bit unprecedented I give them giant props because they have earned them After Fox yanked the show off its schedule the loyal fans launched Web sites and bought more thanUa than Ua tI r lT crl ilg I r V fea d df m episodes It was enough to convince Universal in 2004 that the story of the ragtag crew of the starship Serenity was worth telling I always thought the show would catch on slowly slowly slowly slow slow- ly and its it's done exactly that Whedon n s said 1 I IThe The crew of mercenaries and misfits aboard Serenity is led by Capt Mal Mai Nathan Fillion Pillion who has ended up on the wrong side of a galactic civil war against ominous forces known as the Alliance Whedon's challenge was to take his episodic tale of people living aboard a transport ship years in inthe inthe inthe the future and flesh it out into a two-hour two film that would satisfy the devoted as well as audiences who never saw his TV series Luckily I did have an overreaching arc a grand c e I I r I l r i X ry w wt t I 1 a rj t 4 lq t M wE r a Nathan Fillion Pillion heads up the crew of the Firefly class spaceship in Joss new film Serenity The film is based on the cancelled TV series FireFly The series sold well on DVD prompting the storys story's revival on the big screen conspiratorial story of adventure that they were going to get caught up in Whedon said The basis of the movie was Lets take the most mundane a r r e j f s i r wr r. r y tr h w Joss Whedon's Whedon s film Serenity Is based on an extraterrestrial western that flickered flickered flick- flick ered briefly e y on TV W Firefly But hes he's known striking success on the small screen wl with h Buffy the Vampire Slayer for example I i. i L Jd people in the universe and lets let's stick them in a truly epic situation and see how they react Whedon conceived the pilot for Firefly after he finished reading The Killer Angels an account of the Battle of Gettysburg one night in London when he was jet- jet lagged Reading that kind of book just flipped the switch and made me realize realize realize real real- ize that I have a deep love for this particular frontier story he said When youre you're dealing with science fiction if it has any kind of history in it everything is interesting and everything is useful Frontier stories are always so unique and secluded and harsh and interesting and I just thought that's what it must be like to be aboard a spaceship when youre you're trying to make a living and youre you're living hand to mouth flying between planets r 1 |