Serenity Blu-ray Review

Serenity

Blu-ray Review
Universal Home Entertainment
Released: December 30, 2008

Serenity is a film which comes from the man who brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is based on his TV series Firefly.  This spin-off of the Firefly series is now ready to storm onto the Blu-ray format, and this is a release fans will not want to miss.

Unfortunately, the film did not fare that well at the box office, but that hasn’t stopped the fanbase from yearning for more from the franchise.

I cannot lie one bit, I never watched one single episode of Firefly when I went in to watch the film Serenity.  That has to be known right up-front, but that did not detract from my entertainment of the flick one bit.

This is one exciting film that has a set of characters that all have great attributes and will really draw you in, the highly-imaginative worlds and such also help the cause a great deal.

The whole story plot really had me on the edge of my seat as everything developed in such a way that I was never really able to predict how things were going to end.  Serenity was a pleasant surprise for me, and even though I probably didn’t do as good as I should have in describing it above, just know that it is one which sci-fi fans will enjoy.  As a fan of Star Wars, I had a blast watching this one!

Serenity originally was released on the HD-DVD format back in 2006 and has now been brought over to Blu-ray.  The video transfer is in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and looks superb.  The entire presentation is done in such a way that everything has a natural feel to it, with some nice colors, solid black levels, etc.  I would not say it is up there as one of the premiere video transfers, due mainly to the style of the film, but it is very well-done.

The audio is presented in a DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 mix and really impressed me, as the sound is set up to engross you in everything going on with the dialogue, special effects and score blowing you away.  Demo-quality audio to say the least here.

The highlight of this release is definitely the immense amount of extras Universal has added onto the Blu-ray release of Serenity.

Things get started out with some awesome Blu-ray exclusive stuff including the U-Control picture-in-picture track.  This track features Joss Whedon, along with the cast who worked on the film.  This is a great thing to watch as you learn about how it was made, and is definitely better than checking out the audio commentary on its own.

You also get a nice digital tour of the ship Serenity itself, as well as some extra detail about the universe, characters, etc in Mr. Universe’s Compendium.

From there, you also get a feature commentary with Joss Whedon and the cast, as well as deleted scenes with optional commentary from Whedon as well.

Next up are three short featurettes starting out with Future History: The Story of Earth That Was, which looks at how Whedon took things to create the world that he did.  Along with this is ReLighting the Firefly as well as What’s in a Firefly, which looks at some of the special effects, and more on the show the film was based on.

There are also a set of extended scenes, outtakes, and the theatrical trailer tat is presented in full HD.

The final extra is BD-Live functionality which allows you to share your favorite scenes and such online.

Serenity is a fantastic release on the Blu-ray format and one which fans of Whedon should definitely appreciate, as Universal went above and beyond what they needed to do in order to give this a quality release.  A must-buy for sci-fi fans!

Film: 8.8 A very enjoyable sci-fi film that will have you on the edge of your seat!

Video: 9.0 The video quality is as good as you will get with the style of the film.

Audio: 9.5 Demo-quality stuff!

Extras: 9.5 Absolutely stacked with tons of great stuff, including many Blu-ray exclusives!

Final Score: 9.5

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