Yes, what none said.

And Whedon is pure genius. I always like to think what the PT could have been, if Lucas let him write the screenplays and/or direct.

But writing a good screenplay doesn't mean it will be a good movie: Whedon wrote at least two screenplays, that were totally f*cked up by the director: Buffy - The Vampire Slayer (1992) and Alien - Resurrection.

Okay, I'm getting a little off topic here.

Oh God. Serenity is up by ~200 votes.

Have these people never seen Empire? I do not understand.

 

Also: I reject all of your explanations. This is a travesty!

Serenity/Firefly/Whedon is completely awesome in every way.  Better than ESB...?  I would say no simply because of the history of ESB over Serenity, but Serenity rules.

I voted for Empire, but I had to think about it.

 

I have a really hard time believing that Serenity comes up to the level of brilliant, subtle storytelling that is Empire.

I have a feeling that Serenity is winning because it's newer and a bunch of kids who can't appreciate or understand Empire for the masterpiece it is are voting here. Either that, or Serenity is the unsung Citizen Kane of sci-fi. Which I doubt. I hear Browncoats are a pretty rabid bunch of nuts, though...

Damn show wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Star Wars... ~600 votes now...

^ I think none cleared up the logic quite soundly, I don't know many "kids" who are Firefly/Serenity fans who wouldn't enjoy Empire just as much if not more. 

But I also think Empire is maybe being elevated a bit high as well in this discussion?  Don't get me wrong it's amazing, but neither ESB nor Serenity are anywhere near Citizen Kane.

I'm just in disbelief that someone who knows Star Wars could ever consciously choose something else over it.

I didn't really care that much for Citizen Kane, really... but it's a good metaphorical example to use since a lot of people believe it's the best movie of all time.

Very well put *8, and yeah, it's nice to see something like Firefly bloom into a huge fandom, especially since it was treated so horribly during its original run.  It's probably a good thing you saw the episodes in the correct order on DVD, and not how FOX showed them.  And I think of the movie as a "what could have been" epilogue of the series, but even in it's own right it's awesome.

I'm glad the polling is close, it speaks to the strengths of both films and both fanbases

asterisk8 said:

It's a sad story, how Fox screwed the Firefly pooch. Airing it out of order, forcing Whedon to change the tone after previewing the pilot, commissioning a new pilot, and then repeatedly preempting it for sports and holiday programming. They had no idea what they were doing.

 

Isn't that pretty much what Fox has done with just about every show the past decade except the Simpsons? ;)

I'm pretty sure one reason King of the Hill had such a long run was that creator Mike Judge has blackmail photos of someone high up at the network. I swear Futurama got preempted for it even.

We all know who is to blame.

RedFive said:

Nathan Fillion loves "Firefly" so much, that he makes as much references as possible to it in his current series "Castle": Click. His "daughter's" response is the best ever: "Didn't you wear that like five years ago? Don't you think you should move on?"

I've read that Fillion said, he would buy the rights to "Firefly" if he had the money, and would make an internet series of it. Most of the cast-members would join him...

I wish he would get the rights to it, I LOVE this series, I am actually watching them all over right now and then watching the movie for the 100th time afterwords, this is a great show and a great cast.

dark_jedi said:

I wish he would get the rights to it, I LOVE this series, I am actually watching them all over right now and then watching the movie for the 100th time afterwords, this is a great show and a great cast.

He was joking, which people found out AFTER they started to organize to raise money.

Final score...

Serenity: 55.72% (13,242 votes)

Empire: 44.28% (10,522 votes)

I don't know why this is so shocking. Not everyone thinks SW movies are the greatest films of all time. In fact, some of the people closest to me think they kinda suck. But the fact that ESB made it to the finals is a pretty impressive sign--it won out against Alien, T2, Robocop, The Matrix and 2001. Io9 is a hard-sci-fi site and I'm surprised ESB got so far, because its a fantasy film and not hard science at all. I guess Serenity isn't either, but it definitely is the sort of thing that readers of that site would put in the finals. And, like many others have said, its a terrific film to one of the best sci-fi works of all time, let alone on television.

Personally, I think 2001 should have won. If this was 1990 it would be an outrage that anyone could think otherwise. But the relevance and popularity of older films wane and preferences change as newer films give you more choice and introduce new classics.

My mind is reeling, still.

*shakes his head sadly*