Serenity the Best of Science Fiction?

MaryAnn Johanson,  Apr 03, 2007

So say the readers of British magazine SFX, who named the 2005 film above Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien, and The Matrix in the just-published results of a recent poll.

And, aha! There's the secret of how a little-seen cult film could take the top spot over far better known and older cult films: it was a poll. And not one of those rigorously conducted scientific polls -- it was an Internet poll, which means that folks could vote as often as they wanted, and could tell their friends to vote early and often, too.

That's exactly what happened, it seems: the devotees at Fireflyfans.net organized a voting drive, and ensured their favorite movie won. Now, some of the commenters at SFX aren't happy about this, are outraged, in fact, that The Matrix or Blade Runner didn't win, and actually think that the Serenity win should be discounted and Star Wars, the No. 2 film, should be considered the "real" winner, because those darn Serenity fans are so nutso.

That's unfair. Granted, I am a huge fan of Serenity and I love Firefly, the criminally short-lived Joss Whedon TV series that spawned it, but this isn't about me defending the film against Star Wars fans. The real value of this poll is that it tells us what SF fans are most passionate about these days, and no matter the artistic merits of Star Wars or The Matrix, or how influential they have been or will continue to be, fans simply aren't as passionate about those stories at the moment. Star Wars fans could have organized the same voting drive the Firefly fans did ... but they didn't. That tells us something important, at least within SF fandom.

Probably only within SF fandom. No one else cares what movies we're obsessing over at the moment.

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MaryAnn Johanson
author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride
minder of FlickFilosopher.com