While a reboot isn’t guaranteed, Disney+ obtained the rights toFireflywhen they acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019 as part of a multi-billion dollar merger.
Since early 2021, when initial reports of Disney+ doing aFireflyrevival first surfaced, fans and enthusiasts have speculated what the crew of Serenity could look like twenty years later.
What Made Firefly Unique
The primary relationships onboard the Serenity were more like siblings or friends, pairs linked by bonds of guilt, yearning, and mutual betrayal. Joss Whedon surrounded these crazy friends with drama involving a measure of mutual parenting, or at least the sense of needing to rescue one another from the diabolical emptiness of cold space. This may be typical of the difference between the post-boomer generation of which Whedon was a part, and Joss’s own – the Generation X-ers, who were detached from their ‘Boomer’Star Trekpredecessors.
With the prevalence of ‘false leaks’ from studios, not many put much stock in the Disney+ rumor of restarting the entire series on a more family-friendly note. This would immediately dissuade many long-time fans and do a disservice to the spirit of the original series.
Would anyone return? Still involved in promoting theDeadpool 3release, Morena Baccarin(Inara) hasn’t been contacted. Fillion and Tudyk (Mal and Wash, respectively), currently busy with other projects, are likely unavailable, and the new series would be a clean slate. And worst of all,Joss Whedon has been all but summarily shunnedfrom Hollywood due to the recent allegations, meaning his involvement is a non-starter.
Related:Disney+’s Firefly: Breaking Down the Best Theories For an Eventual Reboot
Characters Fans Can’t Live Without
The series was initially introduced through the perspective of the good doctor Simon Tam who boarded the Serenity under pretenses to escape the benign but out-of-their-depth Alliance. A refugee surgeon with extremely advanced intelligence, Simon was unable to pull a fast one over on the captain. He smuggled aboard his sister, River Tam.
If ever a character was designed to haunt viewers with complexity, strength, and darkness, it was River Tam, as portrayed by Summer Glau. At first glance, the ninety-pound lunatic would seem to be complicated but surely nothing to worry about. The crew laughs while the poor girl can’t figure out how to use a fork, and the gang tolerates her wild and random outbursts with stoic acceptance. The Serenity family tries to understand her seemingly uncontrollable psychic abilities, but all this was for naught because they can’t figure out the underlying cause.
Why would the Alliance have done this to anyone, nonetheless a 17-year-old girl? Such was the impetus for the ongoing plot thread thatran through the first seasonalongside the follow-up film. Although portraying trauma (if not mental instability) nobly, the show still suffered from the fact that River and Simon Tam were upper class, wealthy, and white. Disney+ could appeal to a more inclusive audience by having central characters represent more diversity.
The roster continued with Wash (Alan Tudyk), a genius pilot and unwitting punchline to many jokes. Here a more progressive relationship portrayed his mixed-race marriage to Zoe (Gina Torres), where she, the second in command, obviously wore the pants.
A moral compass to compliment the crew, Shepherd Book represented the ‘everyman’ fish-out-of-water. A wizened man of God trying to bring hope to a lawless universe, Book was a lone voice, shouting in the wilderness, and no one could hear. The character’s wisdom never penetrated the gruff exterior of the members of Serenity as much as Book would have liked. However, this strong Black character provided a feasible ethical center to the core of the crew and the series itself.
Revival, reboot, remake, or re-envisioning – whatever fans call it – they want it. As demonstrated, the characters and the complexity are there. But Disney+ could use some help. Despite mainstream media portraying American ethics as predominately white, Christian, heterosexual, and wealthy, that is not the case.
The real America is rich, poor, and somewhere in between. The real America is Asian, Black, Gay, or Queer, alongside Muslim, Jewish, Wiccan, and Gnostic. Logically, space would feature such diversity as well – if not more. Much of the success of Disney in recent years has been the trend toward realistic inclusion andrepresentation of diversity. Should the trend continue and fans receive a remake with this in mind – they’ll be in for a treat.
Captain Malcolm Reynolds
The unspoken turbulent emotional core ofFirefly’screw, Nathan Fillion’s Malcolm Reynolds, presented a divided soul. An angry, confused, overwhelmed, sensitive, and yearning little man who felt at the mercy of this unpredictable future that was coming, Reynolds was himself helpless and poured this vulnerability onto the screen time and again.
Related:Firefly: Will Disney+ Revive the Series?
The captain was, at other times, a powerful but unsteady father figure, both bullying and charismatic, generous and treacherous. Whedon fooled with this motif in his other works, most notablytheBuffy the Vampire Slayerseriesspinoff,Angel. In this new vision ofFirefly, fans can expect minority leads – and that’s welcome.
Whether a newly cast woman of color or any other minority in the lead, it’s the heart of the captain that matters. Regardless of race, sex, color, or creed – Captain Reynolds, much like the series Firefly itself, was a brilliant older brother whose brave and often half-assed forays charted new paths to the future for other trailblazers to follow. Fans expect that Disney+ will continue that tradition.
