_Intro: Picked a little too late to open that can of Celsius and now my sleep schedule’s fucked so I figured I may as well do some writing. Today I finished watching Serenity again for the first time in 10 years and it still holds up as a childhood favorite. Funnily enough I watched the movie before I even cracked open the show so I had to put pieces of the lore together on my own. But there’s something visceral about watching a cult classic show up, run its course, and let the world move on, the story leaving behind a legacy of being one of the best sci-fi series there was.
_Elegy of the Space Western: This isn’t a comprehensive history of titles that fall under the category. Instead I wanted to go into depth on how Serenity (and by extension Firefly) influenced my work alongside other titles from that decade. A lot of images come together when I think of the direction of sci-fi from that time. Starting with Alien in the 1970s, science-fiction was growing out of its utopian predictions for the future and moved into what felt like the realistic outcome. Spaceships were grungy, industrial, and characters weren’t messianic leaders but homegrown heroes. It was a new portrayal of the working class man and woman reframed for the center stage.
The space western was no different. If anything it was a natural progression for how stories reflected cultural sentiments from that time. Whereas you have the idyllic presentation of mankind in the future, everything’s clean and chrome and the hero’s cause is just. But authors from that time still had to abide by conventions of white middle-class America. The hero could never be a rogue, worked within the law, and always upheld authority. However, the counter-culture movement influences the genre beginning around the same time as Star Wars. Yes, Star Trek set a new bar with its progressive themes and egalitarianism, but you don’t really see the rogue or the rebel shine like they do in the space western where it’s all about the outlaw.
Then we get into the early 00’s where Firefly makes a name for itself. One element of the show that it does excellently is the hybridization of eastern and western cultural influences; I’m talking Chinese and American specifically. Makes for a pretty good combo when you think about it, like chocolate and peanut butter, different in many ways but that only enhances the flavor. Same is true of the Alien franchise and its blend of both America and Japan, Weyland-Yutani.
_Millennial Sci-Fi: I’m not talking about ear gauges or $20 cheeseburgers but rather the prevalence of sci-fi titles from the early to late 2000’s. For all the grotesqueries of Lucas’ prequel trilogy a lot of good came from that melodrama. Without Revenge of the Sith there’d be no Republic Commando, no Bad Batch. Furthermore the 00’s were the birth of Dead Space and Halo. Enough said. Starship Troopers came out a few years before the turn of the new millennium but think of what that did for Helldivers later on.
What I’m trying to say is that this stretch of time became a renaissance of sorts spanning from the early 1990’s to early 2010’s. Yeah, I contradicted my earlier timeframe but I’m operating on two hours of sleep here.
Still though, I mainly have Firefly to thank when it comes to how I write my stories these days. The crew of adventurers, outlaws, rogues, all living together aboard a ship that becomes iconic to their journey. Long before I came up with the idea for Deep Space Sorority there was still that flavor of spacefaring cool-guys, kicking ass and taking names throughout the galaxy and that’s been a favorite of mine going as far back as middle school.
_Firefly and Serenity: Call me biased but, as a southwesterner, I love a story set in a desert. Sure, they’re easy to film in, cheap even, and the ecosystem’s sturdy. I remember tagging along with my aunt to Walmart when I saw the DVD for Serenity on our way to the grocery section. As a six-year old at that time I fell in love with the box art that combined two of my favorite themes: action-adventure and pretty girls. I went home with a copy and watched it beginning to end and on repeat. It sticks with me because there are mysteries in box art that excite the imagination about a larger world enveloping the story. Nowadays, such promotional material is algorithmic, generic, and following trends to stay familiar and therefore profitable.
Like I said, I didn’t even know there was a show until a few years later and that’s why the movie stays with me more. I wanna say it has to do with child-like ignorance, those formative years when you don’t really know how anything works but abide by the mystery regardless. I didn’t know how gauss technology worked or how solar systems spun. There’s a time in childhood when stuff just is what it is and it’s fine that way.
I look back on those times because it’s the days before the brain chatter, before ideas started competing whenever they conflicted. But that shit doesn’t matter to a little kid because they only focus on the rule of cool. Simpler days are happier days.
Space adventures, thrilling heroics, a traveling band of cool-guys (and girls). That’s what mattered then, it can still matter now. Though I’d never consider Firefly or Serenity to be the type of story that feels the need to justify itself. No, Joss Whedon was very confident in his vision for what an effective space western should be and I laud him for it.
It could also be my acoustic brain but I fucking love moving parts. I wanna see the bits and how they function. I wanna see wear and tear and settings that look as they should smell like a garage. That type of scenery is honest to me. Both the movie and show delivered on that and another thing I enjoy about space westerns (and the industrial look overall) is how detailed it is. Star Trek and its clean, chrome ships don’t really do it for me even though I recognize the importance that franchise has on fiction and even astronomy. But seeing rust and welds and evidence of machine tooling is what I know, it’s what I’ve seen.
Again, that mystery, I didn’t know how machines worked but I knew they looked cool as hell.
_More Firefly Glazing: I always appreciate it when a story stays true to its emotional core and resonates with audiences long after its denouement. Firefly does just that. Like a gift that kept on giving, I fell in love with the movie then learned there was a show, then after that I learned there were comics. Same thing happened with me and Dead Space though the expanded universe there is less than impressive.
A good story is like a good friend, it’s there for you when you need it.
I like to think I’ll be able to do the same thing one day. Even though my works shift hard towards NSFW I don’t think that means it should diminish the emotional impact of my characters and their journey. Maybe I’ll never achieve the same household recognition as Joss Whedon’s titles but I’m fine with that. I only need to stay true to my vision and if an audience picks up, no matter how niche, then I’ll call it a job well done.
Errant out