^ Sad but too true. Serenity's battle was there with the point of showing what had to be shown to carry the story forward. It did its job well. The battles in the Star Wars trilogy were made to carry the stories forward, but in many cases were themselves the story. And they too did their job beautifully. The battles in the PT felt like they were battles for the heck of it. The battle at Hoth served the purpose to divide up and scatter our heros. The battles at the end of SW and ROTJ served to provide an entertaining climax for the film. The PT battles, such as the overly boring Jango/Obi-wan chase scene, and the battle at the beginning of ROTS, seem like they serve little purpose other than to extend the film and show off effects.

Battles are great moments for emotional situations. It is when you can really make your characters come out of their shells and show who they really are. The hotshot can prove to be a coward, and the reluctant hero can be forced to step up to the plate. In Serenity, the end battle served for the death of Wash, a very emotional moment. Anyone who had liked the series and had a fondness for that character was shouting in their head, "What? NO! Why did that have to happen!" This also pushed our minds out of the "Our heros can live through anything" line of thinking, to "Who is going to die next?" From that second and through the rest of the end of that film there is a feeling of lose and helplessness. Serenity did a great job of making the battle and the end fight an emotional moment. Star Wars, with Luke loosing his old childhood frind into a puff of flame, and all the rest of the squadron bitting the dust one after another, great emotional moment. Even ESB with Luke's gunner dying and several speeders crashing and the streangth of the empire's forced served to give us a real feel of how grave the situation really was, something that never give throughout the entirety of the film. FOr the most part, none of us gave a damn about the Ewoks dying in ROTJ or about the Gungans dying in TPM, or about the the Jedi dying in AOTC or ROTS. Heck, did any of us even really care when Padme died of her broken heart? I think most of us felt more cheated than saddened. If there is nothing at stake in a battle, why even bother fighting it? Or in the case of movies, why even bother filming it?