Gorram Idiots!

(Note: I haven't seen Serenity yet. I'm hoping to see it this weekend. If you have the chance, go see the movie, and watch the series. It is brilliant.)

The following is from the Wired.com review of Serenity:

Serenity's verbal fireworks help compensate for its clumsy special effects. The chases, explosions and battles are choppy and confusing and look a bit cheap. Using Hollywood's warped abacus, it's pretty clear that $45 million -- Serenity's reported budget -- isn't enough money to create blockbuster visuals.

Up until this point I had thought the review was pretty good, but it's obvious that someone at Wired has been watching too much Star Wars/Trek and not paying attention.

As outlined in the Here's How it Was: The making of Firefly, the creators intentionally employ a series of zooms, focus changes, and visual blurs to create a more chaotic, 'rustic' look at space travel and combat. They used visual tricks that very few people in the industry still use to turn back the clock and create a retro-space opera that defies the current standard in a way that, while quirky, worked well for the series once you adjusted to it.

They did not do it that way because they didn't have enough cash, they hit the exact mark they were going for in the series. I expect that they hit that same mark here, and Mr. High-and-Mighty Reviewer is just too accustomed to long, clean, clinical shots of space ships to know that he's looking at something valuable and unique.