Serenity

Certainly the cast of Firefly has been described as Libertarian or Burkean conservative, and act with strong principles. Since most bloggers and fans tend to be libertarian-leaning, they may be biased to this point of view. Because of this bias, someone needs to serve as an apologist for the Alliance.

The Alliance does often get "in the way", but not significantly more than our own big governments. For a government that just fought a unification war, it does not seen to be especially repressive. Our own Union government during our Civil War was not a bastion of freedom. Also, groups that resist joining a new government are not usually the good guys. Just look at Iraq and Afghanistan. The biggest injustice by the Alliance government would seem to be how they treat psychics, notably River. But real psychics can be a big problem for any government to handle. In Babylon 5, psychics had to either join and be regulated by the Psy Corps or have their abilities suppressed by drugs. This was not widely considered as evil by B5 fans. There are also no known free psychics in America, Since there are no real psychics, as far as we know. The Alliance wanting to restrict and track down people with extra powers is not completely unjust. Also, all of the details about River and the program she was in are provided by her brother. But many "moonbats" are family members of people harmed by the government, and their information has often been very unreliable. We do not know enough about their psychics program to call it evil.

The Alliance does, after all, allow Mal, a soldier who fought against them, to own his own spaceship and the freedom that it provides. The Alliance would probably leave him alone but for the fugitives who are his passengers. Except for psychics, people in the Alliance seem to be mostly free.

But by the trailer, we will probably see many questions about the Alliance and River answered in the new movie, Serenity, opening this Friday.

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family -- squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.