This is a combination of two interviews conducted in Edinburgh and London. Nathan Fillion kept interjecting, and because of his exuberant and mischievous sense of humour, I’ve left some of them in. There are also some major spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film, go back.
What were the inspirations and influences for Firefly and thus Serenity?
NF: Tell the truth this time.
JW: Japanese anime porn. Needless to say westerns had a great influence, but not just western movies particularly, but stories of American frontier life fascinate me very much. I was reading an account of the Battle of Gettysburg, called Killer Angels, that was very detailed and the minutiae of how people lived in an age before everything was completely convenient and could be delivered or beamed to your house fascinated me. So, I thought I should do something about a spaceship, because one should always do something about spaceships, if one can. So I imagined what life would be like on some spaceship if things had been really hard and unstructured and what sort of civilisation people would make. That was the inspiration for the TV series, and the film was about taking these tiny people, in this tiny space, who meant nothing or were not really part of this history, and putting them in the most epic situation I could and seeing if they folded.
Firefly fans have really been behind the show, even though it was cancelled, knowing how great it was and still could be. What do you think about the networks cancelling shows like yours, in spite of public support?
JW: I think it’s disgusting. The networks are mummy and daddy and they know what’s best for us. Ultimately it says what happened with Star Trek is now more concentrated, because of the internet community, because of the extraordinary amount of feedback, back and forth between the fans and the people in power, because of the ability to connect. I have friends who were writing Starsky and Hutch fan stories, back when you copied it on the mimeograph and sent it to five of your friends. Something like that is now read by millions of people, if they want to, but it’s something that’s always been there. The fans have spoken, to an extent, because the people have decided what movies they like. Ultimately they always do. In situations like this it just shows that things are breaking apart a little bit, which frightens the networks, and therefore pleases me. It’s happening in the music industry and it’s happening in film as well. This is kind of a stepping-stone, it’s an unprecedented thing that happened with this film. Others went back to the TV medium they were in, even Farscape was ultimately a TV movie, whereas this became a big budget movie, which is a different animal. Some of that has to do with the fact of the show itself. Universal stepped in before they realised how big the fan base was, but the fan base really made themselves known. They affected the marketing, they affected the greenlight. They sort of kept it going throughout because we were plugged in to an extent that we never have before. I think it is one of the great things about it. There are some negative things about it but…
The system is becoming more monopolistic and gargantuan and there will be just three companies in ten years time. That is something that’s in the show, and also in the movie, that no matter how progressive its intentions it is going to start damaging the people around it because it is going to start overreaching and eventually it is going to decide that everyone has to think the way it does, even if it’s just to sell a product. Or even if it’s out of genuine idealism, it’s going to cause some horrible harm. I think it’s more timely a movie than I wish it to be.
For the movie, was it your intention to cover a story that was to have been in the series, and create what would essentially be an extended episode, or did you have to almost start from scratch with a new idea?
JW: You’ve just opened the greatest can of worms in the history of this film, which was structuring that story without making it an extended episode, because I’ve seen films of TV shows that were extended episodes and they left me unsatisfied, even if I was a fan of the show. The whole point of the movie was to make something someone who had never seen the show could appreciate, which meant I had nine characters which had already met, so structuring it was very difficult. I did get to use a storyline I had planned for the series, which was the mystery behind the Alliance pursuit of River but I did have to jettison a great number of things. Obviously, when you have two years, or God willing seven, to investigate something it’s different to when you have two hours. Not just in terms of sub-plots, but even in terms of props and things people used and touched. What an audience saw in the movie you have to assume they saw for the first time, every piece of information, visual or oral, they are getting for the first time, and you have to make sure they believed it and it’s integral. Every now and then we would do something on the show and we’d go, “Well maybe that was too western, or too campy or too Star Trek or just too big.” Whatever. You go a little bit in the wrong direction and the audience, who doesn’t know the show or doesn’t know you, aren’t going to give you that luxury and so crafting the script took an incredibly long time. Then having filmed it and put it together, realising I’d crafted it really poorly, took a lot of time. Shaving and fixing and getting the emotions so the people could go from the different experiences and the different worlds, the different genres, all the different things that are in there. The different characters and the people could feel comfortable and understand what was going on, as I am now going on. It was just the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Was it always your dream to make a movie?
JW: In this particular case, it started off as a series, but I’ve always wanted to make a big science fiction movie. That’s always been a dream since I was old enough to dream. I had not expected to get an opportunity to make this movie. It was kinda low rent, and deliberately so. Then Universal stepped in and said, “Here’s a lot of rent money” so it was a question of taking something low rent and putting it in something much bigger, and I think that’s what makes it work, because instead of people going, “Destiny, destiny, destiny” we have these schmucks and they’re the people that people like to see.
Did Universal accept your unknown cast, or did they want bigger names?
JW: They didn’t want bigger names; they wanted longer names. We tried to change some of them. They never ever said cast famous people such as, “Let’s have Tom Cruise play River,” and he was lobbying for it, by the way. Not a lot of you know that. He’s good, but he’s no Summer. They knew that the package was this world, this cast. They did talk about getting a name for the villain, but the more they thought about it they came back and said get the best actor we could find.
What would you have done if Universal had asked someone else to direct, given you’ve never done a feature film before?
JW: I would have set the script to flame in the very lobby of Universal. However, I have been directed by other people – it hasn’t always gone very well. There was never any question that I was to be the director, in fact Universal and the executive who preceded the film had been talking to me about directing something before, just in general. I spent many, many, many years getting to the point where they would consider me as a director, because when I was just a screenwriter, nothing was further from their minds, but after years of directing television, some of them at least got it in their heads that I’d be able to helm a film. It never crossed their minds that someone else should handle this material. It certainly never crossed mine. Had it come up I wouldn’t have actually set anything on fire, I would, however, have left and laughed. If I had been struck down with a terminal illness, I would have been happy to hand the reins over to Tim Minear, who ran the show with me and is responsible for much of what made it great. There is no other living person who I would say that about.
Do you think your experience of making Firefly helped?
JW: I loved Firefly. I love Serenity, but they are two completely different things. But I think what really helped the movie have texture and a lot of life, was the fifteen episode workshop that we got to do before we started filming. It also saved us a lot of time.
What it was like walking back onto Serenity for the first time, after the new sets were built?
JW: It was boring. Not really. I got emotional. Particularly because we were filming Summer’s scenes in the locker, which were very emotional scenes. and when Nathan came on for the first time, when we walked on together he said, “Captain on deck”. I still don’t know if he was talking about him or me. But it really moved me, either way. For me it was extraordinary. The one part of filming I remember the best was when we were actually on the ship again.
The production values on Firefly were very high to begin with. What was the difference with making a feature length version, apart from having a bit more time to play with.
JW: The production values on the show appeared a lot higher than the actual budget, which was something we were very proud of. For the film we had a great deal more money than we had for the TV show, but by film standards it was a similar situation where we had a certain amount of money and we had to make it look like we had twice as much. Perhaps by building half a set and never looking behind us and never trying to hide that fact, and also by having Jack Green, the cinematographer, who’s probably the most underrated in Hollywood, and one of the fastest. He made the movie look like a great deal more than we actually had. But it was a great big difference, just to have the freedom. It really was more than anything just about the time. Not just with the characters but to really work the scenes, and the scenery and the props and the briefing and get it exact and the way you dreamed it. And to get it right now. And also a big space battle, otherwise by the end it would have been to tiny models in my hand doing pshoo, pshoo.
There doesn’t seem to be a huge reliance on CGI in the film. Was that a budgetary or creative choice?
JW: Luckily both. I’m a very great believer in things that are actually there. Two of the problems with the prevalence of CGI are; one, people don’t do things that look real because they can almost do them but the technology isn’t quite there, so they throw everything on the screen and they loose their filmmaking skills. Instead of showing things filmicly or hinting at things or letting the audience in they just – “Look, we can do everything.” The other thing is there is a certain airlessness to CGI, particularly in the mule chase, when they’re in the hovercraft, it was important to me to have a practical mule, we had five actually, that they could be riding in so that, particularly because of these two and their hair, interacting with the background, if that was CGI you would feel it, even if we had all the money in the world, which we didn’t. Budgetarilly we had to choose our battles, literally, and we chose a big space battle, but it was important to me that it felt real. The whole idea was to put the people in the place with these people, that’s sort of the way I like to films and particularly for television and especially Firefly. The idea was that you were on that ship with these people and to do that you had to build the ship and you had to build the worlds and feel the air around them, and feel all the reality of it. In the end it’s about the people, there’s explosions and all that joy, but we never planned for it to be a wall-to-wall actionfest, we wanted the people to come through, because that’s what the movie’s about.
It’s clear why you, the cast and the fans are passionate about it, but even the critics seem to love it, giving it very positive reviews. Why do you think that is?
JW: I think Nathan has an answer for that, and it’s going to be Nathan. And Summer has an answer for that and it’s Adam. But mine is really them, all of them. I think I make movies for everybody and what’s interesting to me about science fiction is fiction. Ultimately, everything I do, no matter how many monsters or spaceships might be in it, it’s going to be a story about people and people we can identify with. There’s going to be humour where you don’t expect it, and romance where you don’t expect it. I have to admit that I get very surprised. I was very surprised with Buffy, not only that people enjoyed it, but critically understood what we were trying to do with the metaphor. With Serenity I’ve been incredibly gratified by the reviews because they have come from people who tend to discount sci-fi as a silly genre. While I love sci-fi in particular, as a genre, I am trying to make something that speaks to people. It’s just a story about people and whatever the surroundings are, whether it’s a period piece and they’ve all got parasols, that’s great; or if it’s a sci-fi movie and they’ve all got space ships, that’s great. It doesn’t matter, it’s the same basic stuff; you care about these characters. It comes from the humour and it comes from the attention to detail and most of all it comes from those guys.
Was the death of two of the characters something you planned early on in the scripting process?
JW: To speak as vaguely as humanly possible, it’s something that came later. I realised, again and again, that the message was driven home to me in different ways, was that I was not continuing with series and I would hate for anybody to be thinking of the film like that, because that strikes a lot of people from wanting to see it. The idea was to take that world, these characters and these actors and tell a new story and not one that contradicted or repeated what had been done on the show. It had to be something completely new for people that had never experienced that world, and in order to make the thing mean something I had to make the stakes very high, and on the series there’s a comfort factor that I couldn’t allow people to have in a film, or ultimately it would not have worked, especially as it has a siege in a sequence, in a situation like that it’s impossible that everyone gets away scott free, without any harm – except in Zulu. For some reason, none of the major characters in Zulu get hurt and it’s still really exciting. And Michael Caine’s eye shadow is terrific.
Was it difficult to kill off the characters?
JW: It is true that it is a rough ride for some of the people, and no, it just amuses me. Ultimately it is actually fun, and sometimes it’s not, but the fact of the matter is I was in the service of the narrative, and the narrative said, if we don’t make this hard on people then by the time we get to the big fight at the end no one’s going to care. No one’s going to believe anyone can be hurt and if they don’t believe that, going into that fight then it’s just so much noise. These people are willing to lay their lives on the line, and when you’re saying that you have to mean it. So, besides the inevitable, I do find it kinda funny, and it is necessary.
Towards the end of the film, the fans get the big pay off with Kaylee and Simon, is this giving any indications that we might see Mal and Inara hitting it off?
JW: Yes. I can’t stress this enough, there will be sex scenes in the sequel. I’m sorry, I left them out of this one…
NF: And I’m method…
JW: Rhythm? Morena just got very frightened, and she doesn’t know why?
The last line of the movie is, “What keep this ship afloat is love”. I get the feeling it was a statement about yourself.
JW: No. It’s revenge.
NF: It takes a big man.
JW: Thank you. It’s true. It’s an odd way to end what is ostensibly an action movie, but I found myself writing it down that he would say this. Sometimes Mal does that to me. He talks and I don’t know what he is going to say and I find out after I’ve read what I’ve written. I’m actually being more literal than I have been, he has literally said things I didn’t expect him to say. I went, “I’ve written this speech about love. That’s odd”. It seemed perfect for the film because it is so much his journey towards accepting that in himself and River is sort of the catalyst for him admitting that he is a human being. I think you can take it beyond the film and say that what I went through from the conception of the series, which was years and years ago, to making it, to having it be cancelled, to trying to revive it, to deciding it would be a film on to having that film accepted and embraced by Universal, to then realising I had to write it; to all the battles I’d been through. It wasn’t really actually about revenge. There wasn’t even any grieving period, the moment when I came on stage and actually had to announce it, because I remember you guys were staring me right in the face, wishing I could be anywhere else. Four of the biggest eyeballs ever going, “You going to tell us good news?” From that moment all I ever thought about was finding a way to be with these people again. So, love is pretty much the only thing that can go that strong for that long, even when rage does come in. And it does, I’m a writer and I have rage. We’re all about rage. It’s indigestible and ultimately it’s not a very efficient fuel. Love is the only thing that can really, really keep you on your toes for that long without burning you out. Love that I had was for those characters and I have to hide while I say it for these people.
NF: We love you too. I remember that day when you told us it was cancelled and I remember looking at you and thinking, “Boy, you really let us down.” But you made up for it buddy. Finally.
Your next project is Wonder Woman. Is it going to be based on the original Charles Moulton feminist model or will se be the more domesticated 60’s version?
JW: She’ll be doing chores and baking, because that’s box-office. Actually, what attracted me to the character is that Wonder Woman is the feminine feminist, she’s strong and she’s beautiful, she’s fascinating and she’s flawed. She’s bigger than life and that applies to everyone that I write, both men and women. She’s perfect for me. I’m not sure if she’ll feel the same way about me.
Apart from lots of Serenity sequels, are there any other projects you’d like to work on? I hear they’re still looking for a decent new Indiana Jones script.
JW: Oooh.
NF: And an actor?
JW: We’ve had Young Indiana Jones, but we haven’t had early middle-age Indiana Jones.
NF: I smell niche.
JW: Then of course they’re doing that Star Wars TV show. What’s that all about? There’s a million things, and there’s also a bunch of original stuff I want to do with comic books. My problem is there’s almost nothing that I don’t like. I love stories, I just eat them up. My family used to make fun of me for years because I never saw a movie I didn’t like. Eventually I developed something called critical judgement, and I think it happened while I was watching Bad Boys 2. I just love all these stories. Just pick any one of those franchises and I’ll be like, “Oh just let me do a Batman, I have a thing. Let me do a Star Trek, I have a thing”. Any of them, they just fascinate me. Right now I’d pick Serenity like fifth or sixth among them, maybe even fourth.