Firefly

The international poster for Joss Whedon’s Serenity is here, and I can say for sure that it does not suck as badly as the domestic one. It does, however, really suck. The thing here is that the suck bar has been set quite high by the domestic poster, which looks more like some kind of a poster you’d buy at your campus bookstore and hang in your dorm room freshman year than an actual movie poster. It’s horrifically bad.

The international, poster, however, looks like it’s a movie poster, but for a poor movie. And one that’s possibly about dancing. Which, given that this is a Joss Whedon movie, could actually be the case. But it’s not a movie about dancing, so that’s bad.

What’s worse is that the poster really puts River Tam up front, a character who I truly dislike. On the TV show Firefly I found myself only truly disliking the brother and sister team of Simon and River Tam - which interestingly parallels my strong dislike for brother and sister team Boone and Shannon on Lost.

This poster should be featured Mal, Jane and Zoe, who are to Serenity what Kirk, Spock and Bones were to Star Trek - a threeway of hot lust. The poster as it stands is like putting Chekov up front on the Wrath of Khan poster because he has a cool worm scene.

I am seeing Serenity tonight, before heading off to LA to interview Joss and the crew, and I do hope to like it. Check our message boards later tonight for my take on it.