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Serenity Spec Ops?

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So, I finally get time to write some blog posts, then I forget to post them. That happens when one is writing a post at 7 Am and posting it at 9 PM.

In any case, on my walk in to work today, I switched from listening to podcasts to listening to tunage. Sometimes the desire just hits me. Usually it lights a match on something creative, even if it is not something I could pursue.

Today, while listening to the Crystal Method’s “Legion of Boom,” I came up with a movie conceit. It’s not really an idea and it’s not really a concept, hence: conceit.

Make a modern action/adventure movie with the cast of Firefly/Serenity.

In this movie, the cast would be members of an elite black ops team. Their handler would be only known as the Badger. In thinking about the roles for the group, I got stuck on Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk. The reason is that I would want to play with roles, give them something different than what they played in Firefly. However, Adam and Alan do their respective roles so damn well, it would suck to lose out on that.

What I have come up with so far, plot wise, is that there is an abandoned science city near Tura, Siberia. Something has happened there. Something very, very bad. The Russians are deciding what to do about it, and it looks like they’ll maybe nuke it from orbit (just to be sure). An unidentified, high-ranking US official takes a meeting with the Badger to activate the black ops team. The team inserts secretly using a stealth aircraft (on which the serenity name and symbol would be seen!) to investigate. Much badness ensues–I’m thinking werewolves or maybe zombies. Something shootable.

Really original plot, eh? Yeah, like I said, more a conceit than anything else.

Of the characters I already considered, Nathan Fillion would be playing Captain Ray Malcolm, the team’s leader. Morena Baccarin as Sarah, the linguist and second in command. Adam Baldwin would be Sev Janus, a man of uncertain origins, a rough-houser and a psychic. That’s right, a psychic. Jayne gets to play River. Adam Tudyk would be Hobbes, a deadly assassin with a motor-mouth (think a sane and relatively moral Deadpool). Gina Torres would be Zoe Washington, a sniper.

The Badger would be played, of course, by Mark Sheppard. We’d have to get Christina Hendricks in there somewhere.

That’s as far as I got before getting to work. I think it’s kind of a fun exercise, even though it won’t amount to anything. Maybe I can salvage the idea for a kind of modern day dungeon crawl.

The first scene in the movie would look something like this:

1. Interior Bland Office Space type Office
The office is very cluttered and rather small. Papers and books everywhere. The BADGER sits behind the desk. Standing in front of him is the un-named OFFICIAL.

OFFICIAL
There’s a situation we need handled.

BADGER
Yeah. Tura. I know. Nasty business that. We aren’t going to leave it to the Russians? Their territory and all.

OFFICIAL
Listen, Mr. . . . Badger?

BADGER taps the name plate on the desk, facing the official. It reads “R. BADGER”

OFFICIAL
Fine. Mr. Badger. Intel indicates the Russians are going to clean sweep the area. All evidence will be gone. We need to know what was happening there.

BADGER
I doubt it’s a moral imperative, but I’m up for Queen & Country and all that. You give us this mission, and we own it. Your boss told you that, right?

OFFICIAL
You’re a gun, Mr. Badger. We point and pull the trigger. What the bullet does after that is a matter of physics.

BADGER
Well put. You were listening at the briefing. Fine. We’ll take it. Expect the report in 48 hours.

OFFICIAL
In 48 hours, that area is going to be a radioactive cinder.

BADGER
And we’ll all be home and snug in our beds, no one the wiser. Good day.

The OFFICIAL stands looking at BADGER for a moment, then turns and leaves. BADGER sips at his coffee for a moment. He takes the nameplate and tosses it in his bag. He rises, takes his bag and leaves the office.

2. Interior Cubicle Farm type space, just outside office door
BADGER slides the name plate (which reads CRISIS MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT) off the door. Underneath is another name plate (Tom Winchester, Intelligence Analyst). Two men rise from desks at the cubicles just beyond the office.  These are MALCOLM and JANUS.

BADGER
You get all that?

JANUS
(nods) Like an open book.

BADGER
Are we getting fucked over again?

JANUS
Absolutely.

MALCOLM
We’re in the wrong line of work.

BADGER
Only if you’re making plans for retirement.