I'm making my way through the show for the first time now, and I actually think you're partly wrong on the "instand recovery" thing. They haven't made a big deal about it, but the episodes have an average of one month between each one (at least up to episode 11, Trash, where I am now). Even the two seemingly-closely consecutive eps, Shindig and Safe, are three weeks apart.

But yeah, people are getting seriously wounded a LOT. :)

He's talking about the movie, not the series.

Actually I was talking about both, but it's much more pronounced in the movie (Jayne running around for the rest of the movie after getting a spear through his calf, etc.).

I'm perfectly willing to suspend disbelief, just don't rub my face in it...

The thing is, you can't let realism get in the way of a good story. Having half the crew laid up in the infirmary for most of the movie doesn't exactly make for an exciting screenplay, so you're left with two alternatives. Either nobody ever gets hit in a fight, or you gloss over the effects of their injuries when they do. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages, and good storytelling will use a little of both so that (hopefully) neither one gets bad enough to annoy the audience.

Nevertheless, no matter how good the storytelling, any action story is going to have to bend the rules of reality a bit because in reality exciting action sequences of the sort we like to see on the movie screen usually get their participants nominated for Darwin awards. It's possible to go too far, to require too much suspension of disbelief, but I find that line is more often crossed with intangible things, like how much stupidity in a plan a reasonable person should be willing to tolerate. When it comes to injury I'm relatively forgiving because when you get right down to it, the human body's capacity to absorb damage is generally reached far before an audience's capacity to absorb excitement. In other words, "Repeat to yourself, `it's just a show. I should really just relax...'"

On the other hand, while watching the show I did often wonder just what they did before the doctor joined the crew.

-rpl

Flaunt it in my face that you guys got to see it 3 days early.

Bastards.

I'm willing to give the show a pass on the injury recovery because:
1. They have a gifted trauma surgeon on board
2. Something like 500 years of medical advances that they haven't defined very well.

Considering the medical advances I've seen in the last 40 years, I wouldn't be surprised to see much faster recovery times in the far future.

I just saw it with a theatre full of people who definitely didn't seem like they were all filled in on the backstory - self selected bloggers on the one hand, and people who won tickets from radio stations and other free distributors on the other hand. And judging from the positive audience reaction, the sound of inhaled breath, clapping at the end, etc, they really seemed into it.

Joss also made a point of saying in recent interviews, that he learned a lot from the earlier showings they gave in the late spring, and changed the story based on the reaction of audience members unfamiliar with the story before hand.

Good thing I have read the blogsphere reviews of this film. When I saw the movie poster displayed over at Powerline I was unimpressed. I was reminded of the Dungeons and Dragons movie. I would go see "Serenity", if it is still in the theaters when I get back from Iraq next year, sigh.
I really wanted to see "The Great Raid" in the theater too. I wonder why it has done so poorly? Is it the generic title, the lack of promotion, Iraq war weariness, a topic few people have heard of; after all people "know" the Pacific War in WW II was all about Marines invading islands....?

I could've gone, but I didn't want to deal with the Universal BS, and alone at that. I'll go this weekend.

the film industry needs to realize that two kinds of people see a movie version of a story that already exists in the public mind: familiar fans and newbies.

for this reason alone, you should drop any sort of backstory or "creation" ideas. the fans already know it, the newbies don't care.

like with "spiderman," take 10 minutes, bite peter parker with a radioactive spider and then get on with swingin'-and-fightin'.

same thing is true here, you can make references and allusions to the show that fans can like -- but don't set up the fundamental story such that you need to know anything about it ... it bores (or tiny inaccuracies disturb) the hardcores and leaves the noobs without enough information. it's a solution which pleases none.

b1

Was going to go on at length regarding the innumerable failings of "Firefly" and the resulting question of why see movie length version?
I've been reading (Heinlein and Asimov since the early 50's) and watching SciFi since long before most of you drew your first breath and, IMHO, but I'm certain unrespected,
you'd be much better off buying the DVD's of "Destination Moon" and "Forbidden Planet"
Of course you'll miss Serenity's combination of WWII submarine's with Kubrick's B-52's as interior shots. Everybody knows 26th Century FTL craft will have miles of exposed plumbing.
Oh, and let's not fortget the angst ridden, & hidden horrors not to be spoken of, the crew members and "passengers" suffer from. Days of Our Lives meets Deep Station Nine.
However, on the plus side, not near as bad as Farscape and Battlestar Galactica.
mike

Just wanted to add, Will, that I'm a total Joss Whedon illiterate and never been a big sci-fi kind of girl, but I loved the movie. The characters and writing were so much more solid than the average action or sci-fi flick. In that respect, I really thought Whedon raised the bar, as most of his fans probably already knew he would. It got rave reviews from another non-sci-fi fan in our office, too. I didn't have any trouble understanding the plot, though I was a little confused about Mal and Inara's relationship. In the end, the movie left me wanting to see these characters again, so I'm going to be DVRing the Sci-Fi Channel for the first time ever, if I can find Firefly.

Mary Kat, they're on Friday nights at 7 pm Eastern.