{"id":9002,"date":"2008-03-15T02:37:57","date_gmt":"2008-03-15T06:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=9002"},"modified":"2008-03-15T02:37:57","modified_gmt":"2008-03-15T06:37:57","slug":"serenity-better-days-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/15\/serenity-better-days-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Serenity: Better Days #1 (of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"15190\"<\/a>I’ll tell you what the fundamental problem with “Serenity: Better Days” is, so far. There’s too much fore-shadowing to “Serenity.” There’s so much it became pretty irritating to read at times. Wash makes a hint at the possible getting together of Kaylee and the Doc, and heck even the cover has Wash and Zoe holding hands. We know what happens in “Serenity,” there’s no need to keep connecting the dots to remind us this is a sequel to “Those Left Behind,” and the second part of the comic book prequel… you follow?<\/p>\n

But like the comic series “Buffy Season Eight,” this second part of the lead in to “Serenity” is supposed to do the job that Whedon couldn’t do in the live action format. This comic allows him to keep the entire cast of characters without reflecting on the deaths of the few majors in the movie, and that’s just fine. Because not only am I not ready to see what Serenity is like with the people who died during the movie, but the comic almost feels like the series 95 percent of the time. And that’s good enough for this Browncoat. Because incidentally, “Better Days” succeeds in being quite entertaining with the prospect of a larger arc ahead, and some definite gun play. After the pretty good “Those Left Behind,” we’re again on the crew of Serenity who are on the hunt for a Buddha statue in lieu of a big pay off.<\/p>\n

Just the same, now there’s a mysterious scientist who has enlisted an incredible killing machine that’s giving the crew a difficult time during heists, and is out for blood when Kaylee makes quick work of it. Is he connected to the Alliance? What lengths will he go through to get the war machine back? And is Mal certain what he has on his hands?
\nLike the aforementioned miniseries, “Betters Days” is sadly not up to par with the live action series. For one thing the chemistry and basic witty repartee is anemic. Mal acts out of character some of the times, while the often humble Simon is now much more outspoken. And the allusion to Inara killing a client just doesn’t stick true to the mythos of the series, sadly. I really wanted to laugh during the first issue and really got nothing.<\/p>\n

As for the art, it’s utterly sub-par with character designs that could afford much more fluidity in movement, and better resemblance to the characters, and alas, we don’t receive too much of it with Will Conrad’s work. As for what works, the heist is classic “Firefly” with the group signing up for one crime and falling into a knee deep pile of trouble that they have to battle to get out of, and the hilarious cut away’s also give it the comedic flair with the villain giving a speech about morons with the immediate switch over to Jayne drooling over priceless art that happens to be an ashtray. So far “Betters Days” looks like a damn good take on “Firefly” and I’m very willing to give it another issue to find its berrings, but it really has to pick up the slack and find some semblance of the series soon, in spite of the definite thrills and sharp dialogue.<\/p>\n

Now finally, I have to ask: When are we going to see a gorram full fledged comic series for “Firefly”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll tell you what the fundamental problem with “Serenity: Better Days” is, so far. There’s too much fore-shadowing to “Serenity.” There’s so much it became pretty irritating to read at times. Wash makes a hint at the possible getting together of Kaylee and the Doc, and heck even the cover has Wash and Zoe holding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[58,71,240,362,562,906,923,1185],"class_list":["post-9002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rot-your-brain","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-crime","tag-firefly","tag-joss-whedon","tag-science-fiction","tag-serenity","tag-western"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}