I came to Joss Whedon’s world late.  My brother-in-law had been chiding me for not watching Buffy, the Vampire Slayer for a while until, toward the end of its sixth season, I finally relented.  He loaned me a whole box load of tapes of the early seasons for me to watch and by the time I got to episode two I was hooked.  Witty dialogue, interesting characters and a premise that did not appear as hokey in execution as it had seemed in description got me into it and then its spin-off Angel just a season or two before they each were canceled.

And then, about that time, Whedon debuted his sci-fi/western show Firefly, set 500 years in the future.  While I tried valiantly to keep up with it the goofy out-of-order airing of the episodes (a decision by Fox Television) and played the “what night will it be on this week” game I only saw about four episodes out of the 11 they aired before pulling it.  The show seemed really good but I couldn’t get in the groove with it until it came out on DVD and was able to watch it in order.  Now I believe it’s actually a better show than either of Whedon’s “Buffyverse” shows.

Serenity, the movie based on the short-lived show, takes its name from the ship manned by Malcolm Reynolds and his crew of outlaws.  The movie takes place shortly after the show ended and follows Reynolds and the crew of Serenity as they make their place in the universe while carrying a young woman, River Tam, whom the Galactic Alliance has a vested interest in recapturing.

The Poster

There were two posters released, one teaser and one theatrical.  The teaser version just contained a Chinese glyph and the name of the movie.  It was very cool, especially if you were familiar with the show’s conceit of having Chinese mixed in with English as part of the everyday language.  It was on this one we also saw for the first time the “Can’t Stop the Signal” tagline, though what that meant was unknown.

The theatrical poster is much more graphically crowded but also more interesting.  As it says in the tag at the end of this column one of my favorite posters is the one for Unforgiven.  The reason for that is the way dark and light contrast against each other while the graphic elements are arranged in a way allows the eye to very easily move from one point to another, creating a sort of circle.  This poster works in that same way, with the three main images all balanced very well.  We see Capt. Reynolds scowling in the upper-right at River, who stands enigmatically to his right and then as we follow her dress down (and who wouldn’t want to do that) we come to the Firefly-class cargo ship Serenity herself.  The blueish hue to the one-sheet lends it a cool feeling and at the bottom we’re told “The Future Is Worth Fighting For.”

The Trailers

It’s well known that Joss Whedon’s primary strength is dialogue.  He has a voice that is unique and which leads to strong character definition and development.  So the trailer is the perfect outlet for this strength since it’s there that what he has actually done shine through.

When I first saw the teaser trailer my jaw literally hit the floor.  It’s fast-paced, contains a ton of humor, a good amount of action and does a nice job of accomplishing the main goal of this campaign: to attract an audience outside of the already existing fanbase.  There’s nothing bad about this, or the theatrical trailer with which it shares a good deal of footage.  Instead of describing it, let’s just look at some of my favorite lines from either one:

Wash: This is going to get plenty interesting.

Mal: Define interesting.

Wash: (driest possible delivery) Oh God, oh God, we’re all going to die?

—-

Zoë: Do you really think any of us are getting out of here alive?

Jayne: Well, I might.

—-

Mal: Do you want to be Captain?

Jayne: Yeah, I do.

Mal: (after a moment) Well, you can’t!

—-

Mal: This is the captain speaking.  We may experience some slight turbulence and then…exploding.

The Website

When the website for the movie was first launched it didn’t contain much.  Just an image of the teaser poster, a link to “Join the Browncoats” – where fans could join a community of others and earn points to get free swag, and a blog.  Now I’m a big supporter of studios incorporating blogs and such in their online offerings but this was poorly executed.  It was updated I think a total of four times over the course of six or eight months and was eventually abandoned in lieu of the message board.

The site was relaunched a couple months ago and was now stocked with all sorts of goodies that play to both those coming to the universe for the first time and those who have been waiting for this flick since Firefly was cancelled.  There is the option to go either Flash or HTML on the site.  Much of the actual information is duplicated so let’s cover that first.

“Story” sets up the, well, story of this band of galactic fringe-dwellers and their struggles as they find themselves caught between the Alliance and The Reavers, a group of cannibalistic savages.  “Notes” goes over just what Whedon and his crew went through to turn this small screen (ratings-wise but not creatively) failure into a motion picture.  There are about a dozen images under the “Images” heading.  The usual selection of wallpapers, AIM icons and a screensaver are lumped under “Downloads” and the bios of the cast and crew, along with a special message from Whedon are under “Bios”.  Finally “Video” not only contains both trailers and three TV spots but also six clips from the movie.  Most of these are extensions of scenes found in the trailers but they’re great if you’re looking for a taste of the movie.

The Flash-based site differs mainly in the “Explore Serenity” feature.  You click on one of the navigation links for the different ship compartments and not only do you get a character profile of the person most likely to be found there (Wash in the cockpit, etc) but also some other fun stuff.  Here’s a quick list: Cockpit: Wallpaper creator; Dining Room: Recipe book; Crew Quarters: Weapons explorer; Engine Room: Ship profile; Airlock: Horseshoe game (a lot of fun if you’ve played horseshoes for real); Cargo Bay: Browncoat trivia and finally Shuttle: Know Your Enemy.  It’s these little things that make visiting the site fun.

Screenings

Serenity was supposed to be released in early 2005, right around the same time as Star Wars: Episode III.  Probably because they didn’t want to get lost in the wake of that film’s opening and marketing it was pushed back until now.  To tide fans over until then, and to build buzz, Universal held a number of screenings of Serenity across the country.  The gamble seemed to have worked since reviews were almost all glowing and the fanbase was really enthused to have seen a sneak peak of the movie they were so looking forward to.

Then just a week or so before opening Universal enlisted a number of A-list blog writers in the effort by giving them passes to screenings across the country.  Various blogs created contests of any sort allowing people to win tickets to see the movie a couple days early.  From the amount of buzz the giveaways generated the volume of traffic it created to these blogs it seems the studio really tapped into the grassroots by doing this.  It was really remarkable to read all the stories on this and see how some blog-runners had to close their contests early because of overwhelming submission volume.  Good on Universal.

Overall

I’m looking forward to this movie more than I was anticipating Episode III.  I am this movie’s target audience and it doesn’t fail at all in building my excitement for it.  The true test will ultimately come when the weekend numbers are analyzed and executives figure out if more people went to the movie than bought the DVD boxset.  If so, that means it’s reached out into the general population and it can then be called a success.  I love the grassroots effort via the blogs and the constant stream of screenings that happened.  Great campaign for what I hope will be a great movie.

Let me just get this on the record: I’m tired of computer animated films, even those from Pixar.  There.  Now you all know that I really am the heartless SOB everyone has long suspected I was.  I don’t think they bring anything new to the film lexicon, there’s nothing inherently different or unique about them and quite frankly the advent of CGI has led to a lot of crap.  It’s not like animators are all of a sudden able to do something more original with CGI that they weren’t able to do when they were drawing these films by hand.  Plus, I’m getting a little tired of the look of them.

So Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is a wonderfully refreshing experience for me.  Forgoing even hand-drawn animation Burton has once again delved into the world of stop-motion animation.  The first time was for The Nightmare Before Christmas, which came on the heels of his two successful entries in the (initial) Batman series.  I’m not going to go into the plot too deeply since Pete Vonder Haar already submitted his review of the flick.  Let’s just say that, shock of shocks, Johnny Depp plays an eccentric.  Who’d have thunk it?

The Poster

I love it.  From the look of the characters to the little yapping skeletal dog in the background this poster positions the movie not only to be funny but also at times genuinely spooky.  If you’re already familiar with The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman Returns or Edward Scissorhands you’d be able to tell this was a Tim Burton flick even without his name appearing just above the title.  Burton has a one-of-a-kind visual sense to him and it’s in full display here.  The slightly emaciated figures, the blue/gray color palete and the spiny vines coming off the rock all mark this undoubtedly as a Burton production.  Interestingly I think that might be an actual picture of Helena Bonham Carter they used for The Bride and not the clay model.

The Trailers

Let’s not make any mistake about it, the teaser trailer for this flick works a lot better than the theatrical one.  The main reason for the disparity is that the teaser trailer doesn’t feature Annoying Voiceover Guy.  He’s just there in the full trailer to explain to all the rubes sitting in the theater waiting for The Island to start.  The teaser allows the characters to play their parts and let us know what the story entails.  There’s nothing wrong with making the audience think a bit about whether they understand the movie being pitched and then decide if it’s one they’d like to see.  No need to hand everything to them on a silver platter.

OK, that’s enough of that rant.

Anyway, there are some genuinely funny jokes in the trailers and they allude to the dark sense of humor the movie has.  Most of the time of the trailers is spent, shall we say, above ground, as the members of Victor’s and Victoria’s families deal with the strange twist that’s occurred as the couple prepares for their wedding day.  There some shots of the underworld citizens but not as many as I would have expected.  Seeing the characters move around and interact reinforces the unique design they were given and the craftsmanship required to present a full-length stop-motion feature.

The Website

I can’t tell you how disappointed I initially was when I brought up the website for this movie.  The HTML site-lite that Warner Bros. created simply lists all the usual content for a new movie.  Trailers, Photos and such were all there and listed very nicely and cleanly so anyone with basic computer skills could access them.  My heart sank.  “Surely they won’t let a movie as unique as this one be stuck with a half-hearted website,” I said to myself.  Then I entered the Flash-based site and things began to improve.

What Warner Bros. has done (or, more accurately, what the design firm has done on behalf of WB) is create a wonderfully interactive website that showcases the film’s unique locations.  Let’s dig in.

First stop, “The Pub”.  Here you can not only view the Trailer by clicking on a pair of spooky eyes, but you can play a game of darts to unlock other video content.  Online games are often lame but this one is actually quite fun and I played multiple times.  Then we’re off to the “Village Square of the Dead”.  Play catch with the skeleton dog and if you get him to catch the ball, which you throw by grabbing it with your mouse and bouncing it off the buildings, you get to view the Character Profiles of the underworld residents.

Next on the tour is the “Elder’s Study”, where we find some Desktop Wallpaper and, after doing a bit of snooping, a Screensaver.  In the “Village Square of the Living” we get Character Profiles of those in the movie who still have heartbeats and aren’t decomposing.  “Victor’s Room” contains a Synopsis and the Production Notes.  Final stop here is the “Music Room” where we can listen to some clips from Danny Elfman’s soundtrack.  If you look hard enough you can also find a spot where you can play some music yourself using your mouse or keyboard.  Again, it’s a lot of fun and I had a good time playing it.

Keep in mind that much of the content here is hidden, requiring you to look around for things which look out of the ordinary and click on them.  The content itself isn’t that revolutionary but engaging the audience is a good thing.

There are also three microsites associated with the movie you should check out.  Askthedead.com and Bonymail.com both allow you to create spooky messages and send them to friends, while Sept23.com has a grainy Blair Witch like video.

Overall

Where this campaign really shines is on the web.  The trailers are good, but ultimately weighed down by unnecessary voiceover work.  The poster is great at conveying the macabre sense of humor and look of the movie.  The website, though, really seems to have been created with the mindset of providing entertainment value on its own, not just as a repository for repurposed content.  The interactive nature of the website makes it more than just a one-time destination and works hard to sell the movie.