That is awesome. It's also a runner up for Best Movie of the year.

I posted earlier about SW fans angered by IGN's review of the DVD. SW is a runner up for Best SciFi award, what will they say now?

IGN has a lot of readers, I hope they would at least rent it.

[ edited by Mr Universe on 2005-12-20 10:37 ]

Mr Universe | December 20, 12:34 CET

Pff, like it was any real contest for "Best Sci-fi Film" this year. I'm surprised and happy that it won "Best Story", though I'll have to think about whether I saw anything in theatres in 2005 that was more affecting.

I think it says a lot about IGN's calibre of reviewers (or at least, how in line they are with my preference for appreciating all the genres accross the board) that stuff like Walk The Line and Brokeback Mountain appear a number of times. Especially Brokeback Mountain, which appears a lot in their runner-up categories. You wouldn't normally expect that from a site commonly seen as a big geeker-joy magnet that was originally built on love of video games--usually you would assume that they'd completely worship sci-fi, fantasy, and especially superhero films above all else, whether they were more deserving over the straight-up dramas and other quirkily comedic or difficult stuff out there. So congrats to IGN for not being predictable in that respect.

Kris | December 20, 13:11 CET

A happy coincidence that IGN.com's new paymasters, News Corporation, also have 20th Century Fox under their wing.

Simon | December 20, 13:23 CET

IGN gave Brokeback Mountain a really great review, I'm suprised it didn't win anything (beautiful film.)

Serenity doing so well is neat, also cool that Kong won best character... that's the geek in me :)

[ edited by rabid on 2005-12-20 18:16 ]

rabid | December 20, 20:13 CET

Best trailer, though? Huh?

The Dark Shape | December 20, 21:41 CET

On a sidenote I saw Nathan Lane making fun of Brokeback Mountain the other day. Also, Parker & Stone will be suing if there is any pudding in the film :)

zeitgeist | December 20, 22:52 CET

I honestly think that, as a film, Serenity was much better than Revenge of the Sith, and this is from a longtime Star Wars fan and someone who quite enjoyed the prequels, recognised their shortcomings certainly, but who still liked them. Revenge of the Sith was almost an exercise in damage limitation, and I did think it was the strongest of the prequels and so in a sense pulls them together, but taken on its own merit is much inferior to Serenity.

The acting, for example, is improved on its predecessors but still rarely rises above satisfactory. There were a couple of very good performances in certain scenes, and others that were supposed to be good but didn't move me at all. I suppose that in itself suggests that the Serenity cast were much more authentic and likeable than a host of well known actors, or that Joss's limits on special effects didn't hinder their performances half as much.

People sometimes criticise the dialogue of the Fireflyverse, but personally I like it and I think it has only ever become a little unnatural on a couple of occasions in the series, usually by actors who had quite small roles. I think people tend to forget that people actually did speak that way and Joss is reviving it because Firefly was a frontier story, so in that context it is perfectly realistic.

Never mind the fact that Joss has been widely praised, particularly on Buffy and Angel, for his witty dialogue, clever writing and emotionally realistic characters, all of which are evidenced in Serenity, unlike Revenge, where Anakin's betrayal was much too sudden and his motivations were rather muddled at best. Plus the most clichéd moment in movie history when Anakin emerges as Darth Vader and shouts "Noooooooo!" Plus there was a distinct lack of humour, with most attempts at providing any marred by their obviousness, whereas at every Serenity screening I was at the audience laughed at all the right places and frequently, and for the right reasons.

Star Wars may have had some great fight scenes and special effects, but there is also that strong sense of CGI running throughout the whole film, whereas with Serenity most of it was much more organic, like the Mule for example, which was completely believable and there was a real sense of speed and impact. Generally the action was just as entertaining even though the film's budget was much smaller.

Razor | December 21, 00:52 CET

Ok, this is off-topic, but I'm trying to find a place where The Dark Shape might see this: Did a hi-res version of this DVD cover ever get posted anywhere?

The One True b!X | December 22, 07:33 CET