What a crock, especially considering that Joss Whedon, the TV series author (and writer-director of "Serenity") earlier created "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," and so deserved the benefit of the doubt. Science fiction fans will recognize the plot line and most of the characters from a short-lived Fox series named "Firefly," which (I learn in a letter from Stephen McNeil of Sydney, Nova Scotia), was canceled in mid-season, but not before the episodes were carelessly shown out of proper order. On their trail is the most competent and feared of the Alliance's agents, The Operative ( Chiwetel Ejiofor). Malcolm ( Nathan Fillion) is the captain, and his crew includes the pilot Wash ( Alan Tudyk), his wife, Zoe ( Gina Torres), the engineer Kaylee ( Jewel Staite) and the tough guy Jayne ( Adam Baldwin). River and Simon are soon enough allied with a team of free-lance smugglers on a banged-up old ship named Serenity. Because she can read minds, she knows their secrets. As the film opens, a psychic named River Tam ( Summer Glau) is rescued from Alliance mind-washers by her brother Simon ( Sean Maher), and then we learn that River was unwisely exhibited to a roomful of important Alliance parliamentarians. It takes place in a solar system of a dozen terraformed planets and "hundreds of moons," and there is a war going on between the Alliance, which runs things and wants everybody to be happy, and a group of rebels who begin to make disturbing discoveries. "Serenity" is an old-fashioned space opera, and differs from a horse opera mostly in that it involves space, not horses. I say this not with disapproval, but with affection.
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