Serenity

Hi, I'm Joss Whedon. I wrote and directed this mess, this film.

And so I'm going to provide you with an exciting commentary on it...

if you have in fact turned on this commentary track.

If you've done it by accident, I recommend that you turn it off right away.

Well, here we begin.

And we begin with doing something funky with the company logo...

which is, of course, everybody's favourite thing to do.

They did it in Waterworld and...

my personal favourite, Edward Scissorhands.

They did it to the 20th Century Fox logo.

We were so many.

I suppose I should talk a little bit about the genesis of this film.

I will interrupt it though to admire some of the architecture coming up.

The mission statement of the film was to take what had been a TVseries...

that very few people saw...

This is the architecture I was talking about.

We looked at some structures in Germany and Holland that were very contemporary...

and tried to make a utopia that actually looked utopian instead of just tall.

I was excited by that.

In building this story, I had a very difficult task...

because I had a TVshow that I had already done...

that I didn't want to have to repeat or contradict.

So I had a lot of explaining to do.

Nine characters who already knew each other...

an established world with a lot of different layers...

and a lot of different conflicts and a lot of history.

But if you sit people down and explain things like that for 20 minutes...

and on the 21st minute they go away, or possibly on the 14th.

So the idea was to get a lot of exposition out...

without making it dull.

Part of that became the idea of constantly shifting...

our expectations of where we were.

So what seemed like...

typical beginning-of-a-science-fiction-movie narration turns out to be...

a simple classroom scene.

In a moment, will turn out to be...

that the classroom scene is actually just a dream sequence.

And we are, in fact, in a scary lab sequence with some action.

And that will, in turn, turn out to be...

a holographic sort of flashback watched by the villain.

All of this is done to keep feeding information to the viewer...

while still unsettling and keeping them interested.

...implant suggestions.

It's a little startling to see at first...

but the results are spectacular.

Especially in this case. River Tam is our star pupil.

It works thematically, of course, because of River.

Because it all comes through the mind of River.

River became the narrator for this film.

I've described it at the beginning as Mal's story as told by River.

And since her mind is somewhat fractured, the idea that the whole prologue...

of this movie is somewhat distended in time...

is thematic and relates to her state of being.

Once we get to Serenity, you'll see we have not only...

a very clear idea of where we are, but a very long take...

where we never cut. And it's done not to show off...

but, in fact, to establish a sense of safety in space.

Talk a little about this scene. First of all, this location...

happens to be where the blue-hand man...

chased Simon and River in "Ariel."

They added some walls and obviously some machines.

But they were very excited about the location. They took me to it...

"and I said, " Yes, it is lovely. It's just like one of the central planets.

"In fact, it's so much like one of the central planets..."

"that we used it in Episode 8 of the show."

So I made sure that they hid any resemblance.

It's Simon.

Please, it's Simon.

The doctor, I will speak about in a second, played by Michael Hitchcock.

A big favourite of mine, from...

the Christopher Guest movies, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show.

Simon.

They know you've come.

And it's Picard and the guy from the Fine Young Cannibals.

That means they're in trouble.

This hallway is actually right outside that room.

One of the walls we had to build in order to do the next stunt.

Unfortunately, they built it wrong. It was six inches too long.

So the thing on the right that her foot is on was added...

and the paint was still drying when she put her foot on it.

Because we had a little mismeasurement.

Now this set, this shot here, that's every inch of the set.

That's CGI.

Interesting thing, you know, we didn't have that much money for sets...

and so we built them up through CGI...

but we did have a little bit more money than...

This, what happened was...

they built it on a four-foot platform and I never really found out why.

They showed me a little foam-core model of it...

and said, "See, it's on this four-foot platform."

I said, "Well, we don't need the platform.

"Let's just build it all the way straight to the ground..."

"so we can enjoy a little more set to work with."

And they said, "No, we've already built it."

And I said, "Next time, can we build the little foam-core model...

"before we build the actual set?"

Little odd thing to do actually.

Excuse me.

So, I've taken us now finally into the...

last part of the cold open, the introduction of the villain.

One of the first images that occurred to me...

was the idea of him coming through the holograph...

and we matched it up digitally, so that his eyes come right through hers.

His connexion to her is something that...

is very important to me, thematically.

Also, although we don't stress it as much as I did in the first draught...

where everybody talked forever...

I sort of trimmed some of that, but I was always interested...

in their connexion because he is so intuitive...

as to be almost psychic himself.

He has a lot in common with River.

He's a perfect product of the Alliance...

or rather what's wrong with the Alliance.

- It's not quite so simple. - I'm well aware of that.

This is the character that I added for the movie.

Obviously, the nine regulars from the show were all in it...

and they all were going to be on the same side.

And so the studio insisted that I needed a villain who would really register.

And what I decided I needed was a fellow who was...

so kind and so decent...

and so caring that you actually would start to root for him...

right before he was going to massacre everybody.

Because the situation is even less simple...

Somebody who believed so strongly in what he was doing...

that he would do anything. The exact opposite, of course, of the hero.

And in casting Chiwetel Ejiofor...

we found, you know the perfect person...

because he brings such depth and soulfulness...

and regret to everything he does.

You understand this is not a moustache twirler. This is a guy...

with an agenda that he considers perfectly legitimate, although...

it does include a certain amount of genocide.

And he's, in fact, not entirely well.

He is nevertheless reasonable, understanding...

and in his own way very honourable.

Which to me, it makes for a much more interesting villain.

As I said, Michael Hitchcock, from the Guffman movie and many others.

I tend to cast comedians, where I can, in dramatic roles...

because, obviously, comedy is the hard one.

And if somebody can do that, it's common that they can do the other.

He gave a great read and I loved working this scene out with him...

because the difference between...

what he was in the scene with Simon and what he is now...

is very nicely done by him. Some very subtle tics.

He was a dream to work with...

and very fun and really embodies this fellow.

...throw themselves on their swords.

Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword.

The sword moment.

When I was trying to figure out this villain, the sword moment is what did it for me.

The idea... I literally had him say...

they would throw themselves on their swords...

before I realised he was gonna pull that sword out.

Once he did, I said, "Okay, now I understand this guy."

He needs to do it personally. He needs to do it up close.

He needs to do it in a gentlemanly fashion.

That is what separates him from other people.

He has such a strong code of honour...

that he would literally make this guy fall on his sword.

Then, and this is both the sweetest and creepiest thing he could possibly do...

he'll try to comfort him as he kills him.

Once I had that moment figured out in this prologue...

I had no more trouble writing this character.

That kind of belief is just so scary.

All of them...

This hall was designed to have a kind of...

Kafkaesque feel to it, you know.

Endless bits of information stored in all those things.

And this one shot is the one that really... Because we used a wider lens...

it made it seem longer than it was. Really gave you that feeling.

This whole set was kind of difficult to design...

because we had to work around the fact that we couldn't...

show this holograph that often.

In fact, you'll see this set again rebuilt as the ship...

where the hologram of Dr. Caron appears.

This title treatment, by the way, was added at the last minute.

Originally it was just going to fade up.

And I had always imagined that he would speak and there would be silence...

and then it would fade up and...

But then we had a title company do something...

that we thought was a little more dramatic and blended in well to this.

One of the hardest things, not just this shot, but...

We're listening now to the Serenity theme, by David Newman.

And I had very specific instructions about what I wanted...

which I don't think really helped, because of course I didn't...

have the music, I just had the instructions.

He went through a lot of concepts for themes, but...

he did an amazing job of finding something very mournful and very homemade.

That was really my intent.

That spoke of Serenity. All the music before...

was supposed to be kind of a little electronic and a little distancing.

And this was the first time...

When you hear that solo cello, and then the other cellos come in...

this is when you know you're home.

And that homemade feel has a lot to do with my vision of the future in this movie...

which is that, you know, everybody has what they can carry and nothing more.

They are pioneers.

But, he did it, David, that is, without getting into any kind of, sort of...

hokey version of Americana, which I love very much.

- Define "interesting." - "Oh, God, we're all gonna die?"