Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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139 of 142 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An overly-straightforward adaptation of the screenplay, September 14, 2005
A decent, but almost blandly faithful, rendition of the screenplay in novel form. For three-quarters of the book, the only differences between the two are the insertion here of scenes (from the TV show) of the Battle of Serenity Valley, and Simon trying to convince his parents that something is wrong with River, and even that is played with very straightforwardly.
The problem is, with an adaptation of a movie like this, what the fans (or even the interested) want is something that provides some extra depth, added details, background from Joss translated into novel form, whatever. Instead, we get something that neither adds to nor detracts from the movie -- the screenplay without the visuals, which ends up making it fairly ho-hum. Even in the last quarter, when we begin to get some perspective work, the book remains fairly unilluminating.
My recommendation? Purchase "Serenity: The Official Visual Guide" -- and get both the screenplay *and* copious photos *and* notes from Joss.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Tragic, January 3, 2006
DeCandido ignores characters' depth from the series and makes their motivations seem juvenile. He takes us into River's mind only to tell us she's bored. Bored of what? Bored of the ever-present Alliance threat? Bored of the guilt that her brother gave up his life to save hers? River the bored school girl that's way ahead of her classmates is understandable. But, River the bored psychic fugitive privy to a secret that can change the 'Verse is not understandable. I flung the book when River repeatedly kept thinking that Simon is "too stupid to live."
He makes Inara seem like a school girl. Her decision to leave Serenity at the end of Firefly was something I would consider character defining; something she did despite of and because of her feelings for Mal. But, in the book, she just remembers leaving as doing something stupid -- there is no hint of WHY she left and what it meant for her. There is no depth.
To have a script that oozes personality with every word turned into a mind-numbing slog is a tragedy.
It's like reading a lazy adaptation of the script with some padding thrown in to make it long enough to be a novel. There is just no subtlety. Everything is either laid out bare or made dramatically mysterious. The script's stage directions offer more insight than this novel. I don't recommend purchasing it except to re-fuel your "holy crap, someone got paid to write this?" reserves.
Maybe it's not entirely his fault, though. Just as book-to-movie adaptations are usually bad, maybe the reverse is also true. The actors and the script really spoiled me.
By the way, if you want indepth essays on the series, lookup _Finding Serenity_.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strange reflections on a masterpiece, September 30, 2006
Need to emphasize that I LOVE the Serenity/Firefly 'verse. One of the biggest tragedies of modern television is how a unique, fresh and special series got cancelled by Fox, and then (in my opinion) the movie gets launched with an unfounded belief that underground "buzz" would launch this movie to huge sales. So, with that said - what I didn't like about this book was the author's interpretations on how the characters on Firefly think and are perceived. For example, in the book everyone hates Jayne. But, being a fan, I don't think it's that straight-forward. Like this, there's something or the other that I just don't believe was Whedon's intent when he created the characters. All in all, this is a pretty good movie novelization, with great detail and nice job relating incidents in the movie with the TV series. But, really should have been co-written with Josh Whedon to be 5 stars.
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