Ok, firstly, I thought your comments were a little unfair. The fact that elements of Serenity reminded you of other stuff doesn't mean it was lifted from that other stuff.
Where did I say it was?!
Fair enough, I'm sure a film connoiseur can find things within the film interesting, and knowing the director's other work gives you some benchmarks etc, but purely from the point of view of someone looking for an entertaining (tick) credible (nah-ahh) film, it only scored half marks with me.
When I'm watching something like Red Dwarf, the bits that are blatantly in a studio add to the fact that it's a comedy/spoof, and anyway the script would be funny enough to carry it. Serenity seemed to me to attempt to pass itself off as a 'serious' (in so far as sci-fi can be serious) film, but then just had these completely silly things going on. I thought it was shite, to be honest, at the same time as having a laugh.
The vast majority of the time, though granted not always, when I sit down to watch a film I'm looking to be entertained, amused, shocked, informed,
convinced and I honestly couldn't care less about the strong female roles. I'm not a film buff and I never will be because I just don't care about that side of it, for the same reason as I never know which bands are on which label and who manages what. Just let me play the record.
Maybe that strikes you as unbelievably narrow-minded and ignorant. There are other people who react like this to things I regard as infinitely fascinating, and sometimes I feel a bit frustrated that they can't see what I do - if you're like that with films, then fair play to you, but I'm not. When I express an opinion about a film, it's nothing personal about its makers or fans, it's a straightforward summary of how I reacted to it.
The musically silent episode of Buffy sounded interesting though, will keep an eye out for a chance to see that.
