My friend Chris got me out to see Serenity last night. After being skeptical for the first half hour, it grabbed me and made me gasp that this was it, truly good science fiction. The strong characters, the cultural pastiche, the incongruous technology, all cast for telling basic morality tales about the real conflicts between people struggling to believe they are doing the right thing. Everything was complex and multi-faceted, and yet there was still the thrill of Buck Rogers, the wild west and kung-fu fighting. All from a movie based on the failed TV series Firefly. But it was written and directed by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, who is a very smart guy. He just finished up an excellent year-long on X-Men and is now poised to bring Wonder Woman to the silver screen. And after seeing Serenity, I can't think of a better person to do it. He writes good, strong, and complex women that can kick some ass.