Serenity Chronicles I: Firefly

I'm going to use the same review for all three parts of the Serenity Chronicles, because in my opinion, they need to be viewed as a complete package for maximum effect.

MusicEd921 does an outstanding job of tying together the entire series, plus the feature film Serenity, and condensing the essence of the show into 3 feature length DVDs. When I originally contacted MusicEd921 regarding these edits, I mentioned that I was planning a weekend binge-watch of the entire series plus Serenity, something that I do every year or so...

From now on, I'll be binging on these DVDs instead--they're THAT good.

I give a 9 rating on A/V quality solely because of the quality of some of the deleted scenes that were incorporated into the edits. As mentioned previously in other reviews, the quality of these scenes was lower simply because they were not remastered for the DVD release. Not MusicEd921's fault at all.

If you are a Firefly fan, you need to see these edits. :)

I love FIREFLY, and I love its first episode "Serenity." Strangely enough, though, I know a lot of people who just couldn't get into that pilot episode. Many found it inaccessible.

Maybe if they had been able to start with Musiced's wonderful edit, they would have liked it better.

Musiced wisely puts the flashbacks from the episode "Out of Gas" near the beginning of the story, in their proper place in the timeline. These flashbacks do a great job of establishing the characters and setting up the world in which they live.

The episodes are edited together as a feature-length movie, and Musiced makes the transitions pretty flawless. I knew where the commercial breaks originally came from having watched the original episode many times, but Musiced seamlessly makes the scenes flow. There was a slightly lower audio/video quality in some of the deleted scenes that were added in, but as he explains in the opening, the scenes were not restored for the DVD release. The scenes were very worthwhile; they answered how Mal and Zoe finally got out of Serenity Valley, and why Mal would name his ship after the place where he and the others lost the war.

There was one moment at about 1 hour and 5 minutes in where the audio transition seemed a bit abrupt, but other than that, the audio was handled flawlessly.

I enjoyed the rearranging of the scenes so much that I almost wish that the Simon/River flashbacks from later episodes and the movie were also moved forward into the timeline here. But for new viewers, the connection of these scenes to the overall story would have been baffling, and the surprise reveal of who these two turned out to be would have been ruined if they had been put in the aforementioned order. Musiced made the right call.

A couple of very small, nitpicky things: The scene where Wash plays with the dinosaurs (a hilarious scene that's one of my favorites in the series) no longer feels right when placed in the middle of the movie. It's clearly an intro scene when Wash has already been introduced. (And, as Zoe notes, he *is* kind of annoying when that's the first time we meet him.) And the Mal/Inara flashback loses a joke through the reordering of the material (Mal promises not to call Inara a certain nasty name ever again, which is funny in a later episode when we know that he constantly calls her that. But the gag doesn't work anymore by putting this scene first).

Mind you, I love the dinosaur scene so much myself, I don't know if I could bring myself to cut it either. And I don't have a solution for the Mal/Inara scene; it pretty much has to be placed where it is. I talk about these minor niggling points because so much else works about this edit that it leaves me with little to say.

The use of the theme (for the first time in this version of the story) over the end credits is beautifully handled.

A large portion of this edit is simply the "Serenity" pilot episode running in a straightforward fashion (as it should be). I imagine that the third part will be mainly the 2005 SERENITY feature film running in a fairly straightforward fashion. But what I really look forward to is seeing how Musiced sums up the middle section of the story in the one movie that comes in between them! That will probably require the most inventiveness and repurposing of footage on this part.

But after seeing this edit, I know that he's got the skills to pull it off. :)

First of all, it is difficult to improve upon a nearly perfect series, but MusicEd921 managed to do it. I say nearly perfect because it ended too early. This series is one that I can re-watch and enjoy completely each time, and now I have another way to enjoy it.
The rearranged and additional footage added to the overall experience and provided a better character introduction for Mal and Zoe than the original. Its a shame that the deleted scenes are not available in higher resolution, but they helped tell a more complete story, especially those of River at school in Part 2.
I look forward to future fanedits by MusicEd921.

Fantastic. To take a series, so beloved, and place it into a new perspective is ballsy. To take a series, a decade past its unfortunate cancellation, and make it seem new and fresh? Some would say "impossible"... I say, FANTASTIC.

I was one of the late bloomers, I didn't see the series in it's initial run, and discovered it, in a one day marathon run, on an upper channel cable TV station, on a Sunday, when NOTHING else was on. I fell in LOVE with Firefly, and since that day I've watched all the episodes on multiple occasions, so to be able to look at it in a whole new light, was exciting to me. I really enjoyed this, and I can't wait for part II...

xZx

THIS REVIEW IS FOR PART 1 AND 2
i am a massive fan of firefly, it is a TV show that ended way to soon.
when i found out this fanedit was coming out i had to see it.
i so glad i did, it is perfect i have no problems with these edits, it is perfectly cut keeping all the right scenes to make the perfect movies.
every one who liked firefly or serenity has to see these edits they are perfect.

well done musicED921 cant wait for part 3.

editing: perfect 10/10
Story: perfect 10/10
Audio: perfect 1010

experience: perfect some of the best hours of entertainment i've had for a while 15/10
Thank you musicED921