Affably Evil: The Operative, who praises his enemies, apologizes for his evil deeds, is perfectly willing to negotiate, and spares and helps the crew once he believes killing them would not serve any useful purpose.
"This is a good death. There is no shame in this."
Air Vent Passageway: Played straight with Mal, played for laughs later with River
According to the commentary, this is precisely whythose two died, to heighten tension and make that final fight scene, in which nearly everyone else is hurt all the more scary. Well, thanks.
Apologetic Attacker: River beats up Simon to get to the bridge. Afterward, she explains that she didn't know if he was going to make her sleep, whereupon Simon wryly says, "you could have asked." Simon of course, always forgives his dear little sister.
Ascetic Aesthetic: Miranda. To drive it home, everyone there is either dead or went crazy.
Asshole Victim: The Operative's first kill in the movie was a scientist who vivisected and abused children without either their consent or that of their parents, and without the knowledge of the latter, to turn them into human weapons.
Ax Crazy: River, though it turns out she has a reason for it. She absorbed a number of the Alliance's dirtiest secrets, including Miranda. Knowing that your benevolent government was behind the Reavers would be enough to drive anyone crazy, let alone reliving the events leading up to it.
Badass Preacher: Book. He is not going to tell you who or what he was before he was a Shepherd. But they did release a comic, "A Shepherd's Tale," that did just that.
"I want to resolve this like civilized men. I'm not threatening you. I'm unarmed. [Mal shoots him, but he gets back up and jumps Mal] I am, of course, wearing full body armor. I am not a moron."
Mal, Jayne and Zoe share this view. When a bystander is captured, Mal shoots him dead before the Reavers can cut into him, an act later described by Zoe as "a piece of mercy". When Jayne looks like he is going to be captured, he asks Mal to do the same to him.
Cruelly subverted with the Miranda recording, in which the scientist tries to shoot herself after it becomes clear that she is not going to escape the Reavers. She does not do it quickly enough.
"Blind Idiot" Translation: Although (according to the DVD) a translator worked hard to get Chinese slang correct, and the actors studied tape recorders, apparently it was still mangled in the pronunciation.
Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mal suffers a vicious case of it. It's mostly under control at the start of the film, then has a flare-up about half-way after it's been irritated by exposure to the truth about Miranda.
Cold Open: The movie opens with a narration that turns out to be a school lesson that turns out to be a hallucination; then River is rescued, which turns out to be security footage being played back, then we fade into the title sequence and Serenity.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Alliance wears primarily blue and grey to match all their shiny tech. The Browncoats wear, um, brown, red, yellow, and orange, which goes with the Wild West setting. This symbolizes the Alliance's cold modernism versus the Browncoats' heart. The Reavers wear... red. Lots and lots of red. And what isn't red, is, well... skin tone.
Combat Pragmatist: A number of characters are willing to fight dirty.
Mal shoots not one, not two, but three unarmed men over the course of the two hour film. Take that, Boba Fett.
And other characters, like the Operative, who are not morons.
Jayne: Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight — or if I think he's going to start a fair fight....
Coming In Hot: Serenity crash-landing after being disabled by an EMP weapon.
Continuity Nod: During Mal's Shirtless Scene, you can see the scar where he got stabbed in The Train Job, and another from Niska's torture device in War Stories. Speaking of which, the "Mule II" hovercar is the official replacement for the "Mule" ATV that was destroyed in that episode.
Further, the barrels ejected from Serenity as they escape the Training House look and function just like the pilot's "Crybaby".
The second Reaver ship to appear in the climax is the one from the pilot episode.
Crapsaccharine World: On the surface, the Alliance is a highly advanced democratic civilization. Start digging deeper and you have oppression and abuse perpetrated in the name of making them all Better Worlds. Such abuse includes kidnapping a teenage girl and screwing with her brain to make her into a weapon and a behavioral modification experiment that results in the unintentional extermination of an entire planetary population and the creation of the Reavers.
Crazy-Prepared: The Operative informs Mal that his ship has locked onto Serenity's pulse beacon and will fire with a single command. Mal responds by handing him said pulse beacon. He also preps six decoys for nav sat tracking, (Serenity being signal #7).
Cruel Mercy: Mal does this to the Operative near the end.
Mal: Hell, I'm gonna grant your greatest wish. I'm gonna show you a world without sin.
Curb-Stomp Battle: River, completely, totally, utterly obliterating the Reavers by herself.
Curse of The Ancients: All the swearing that isn't done in "Mandarin"(-ish) has an Old West feel to it. Gorramit.
Kaylee: We're on a year now, and I ain't had nothin' 'twixt my nethers weren't run on batteries!
Mal: Oh, God! I can't know that!
Jayne: I could stand to hear a little more.
Danger Deadpan: Wash is a completely different character when flying the ship: normally he's loud and panicky, but at the helm, he is completely calm and collected, no matter what imminent doom might be following him.
Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting."
Wash:[deadpan] "Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die"?
Determinator: Mal, who does not let little things like swords in his stomach get in the way.
Despair Event Horizon: River's dialogue indicates that she crossed it at some point during her time at the Academy. The Operative crosses when he learns the Alliance made the Reavers. The R. Tam Sessions used to promote the movie sees the entire Break the Cutie process in action. Poor River...
Do Not Adjust Your Set: A rare heroic example when Mr. Universe broadcasts the Miranda file and everyone in the universe finds out the truth about the Alliance and the Reavers.
Dramatic Irony: The Audience and Mal know what the Reavers are, but The Operative does not, and boy is he in for a surprise...
The Operative: "There are a lot of innocent people in the air being killed right now."
Epic Tracking Shot: After 10 minutes of schizophrenic, Smash Cut-ridden intro, we get the title card, and then a 4-minute-long Oner that brings us home to the ship and her crew. (Movie Magic Tidbit: the sets for Serenity are divided between top and bottom levels. The cut was disguised with a whip pan on one of the stairwells so that it looks like a single take.)
Fake in the Hole: Seen in the deleted scenes, when Mal and Inara escape from the Operative. Mal throws a real, but not armed, grenade, making the Feds near his shuttle dive off for cover...then Mal picks the grenade back up and goes on his way.
Fan Nickname: The movie has one: the Big Damn Movie.
Fanservice: Unsurprisingly large amounts of it, too....
Good Old Fisticuffs: The Operative is a trained and skilled martial artists, Mal just hits things.
Gory Discretion Shot: Sarah Paulson's recording ends with her being attacked by the Reavers. She's moved out of the frame, but the sound leaves no doubt about her fate.
Government Drug Enforcement: The G-23 Paxilon hydrochlorate introduced into the air processors of Miranda, to keep the populace quiet and non-violent. It ended up causing apathy and lethargy so extreme that the majority of people just laid down and died and caused the remainder to become the hyper-aggressive Reavers.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: The Mandarin-ish and Cantonese-oid phrases scattered through the dialogue, often as family-friendly swearwords. Doubles as a Bilingual Bonus. As the DVD set shows, they used actual Mandarin phrases, although as mentioned above, the pronunciation is so atrocious that even native speakers will have trouble deciphering them, and some of them are absolutely hilarious in English.
The trigger phrase that Simon uses to put River to sleep after she clears out the bar is Russian, "Это курам насмех", meaning literally "This is hilarious to chickens", an old Russian saying used to denote something ridiculous.
Another Bilingual Bonus for the name of the chemical used on Miranda. Pax is Latin for "Peace"
Groin Attack: When River is triggered in the bar on Beaumonde, in the middle of trashing the place and beating the crap out of everyone within reach, she grabs Jayne's package and squeezes. Hard. Jayne is icing it down in the next scene.
Hand Signals: While the crew is exploring the planet Miranda Zoe takes the point position and uses gestures to guide the movements of the rest of the team.
Hate Plague: A small portion of Miranda's population had an extremely violent reaction to the Pax, becoming the first Reavers.
Heel Realization: The Operative upon seeing the evidence of what happened on Miranda.
Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted by River; see the main page for details. Played straight with Simon in what amounts to a lingering Heroic Sacrifice through the entire series and movie when he gives up status and fortune and lives with outlaws, so he can rescue and comfort his sister.
Hidden Depths: You wouldn't count on Mal having reada poem, or River being a death machine. The Alliance didn't expect Simon to be a criminal mastermind.
Shepherd Book knows an awful lot about Operatives for some reason he flatly refuses to elaborate on.
Humans Are Flawed: Joss states in the commentary that the point he wanted to make with this film is that while the Seven Deadly Sins are bad, they're also inseparable from human nature. This is demonstrated with Miranda, a world where everyone is either dead or completely inhuman.
Humans Are White: For a universe which is heavily Asian inspired and merged completely with Chinese culture, none of the main cast members even have Asian features; Tam is likely a Chinese surname, but Simon and River don't look at all Chinese.
Instant Sedation: Averted when Kaylee is shot with three tranquilizer darts.
Instant-Win Condition: The Operative's mission is to eliminate River Tam before any of the big state secrets she has in her mind can be let out. He's willing to kill huge amounts of people, the protagonists included, to pursue this mission. Once the broadcast of Miranda goes out, that mission is a failure, so he has his men stand down, as the damage is done, and killing Mal and the others is no longer "necessary" to him.
Intro Dump: For viewers who haven't seen Firefly, the intro has explain that Earth has been abandoned and humanity now occupies another star system, the backstory elements of the Alliance/Independents war, River's treatment at the Academy and Simon's rescue, and introduce us to the Serenity and nine characters who already know each other. All done in ten minutes with admirable deftness.
Ironic Echo: When Mal shows the Miranda recording to the Operative, he forces the latter to eat his words about how he was building "a world without sin" by showing him what such a world would actually look like.
Kick the Dog: after the Serenity crew prevent the Operative from tracking them down twice - he takes it out on every settlement that's harbored Serenity in the past.
Kick the Son of a Bitch: It's safe to say that there was no sympathy for Dr. Mathias when the Operative killed him at the beginning.
Operative:(stabs Mal) Do you know what your sin is, Mal? Mal: Aw hell, I'm a fan of all seven. (pulls sword back out) But right now, I'm gonna have to go with Wrath.
Make It Look Like a Struggle: Mal has an exchange with a guard early in the film about doing this so it doesn't look like the guard just rolled over and let them take the cash.
Jayne: I won't get et! You shoot me if they take me!
Mal:[aims pistol at Jayne]
Jayne: Well, don't shoot me first!
A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Simply being put in a room with Key Members Of Parliament was enough to drive River completely monkey-shit. It is expanded on in the Novelization - she was writing coherent secret messages to Simon right up until that point, upon which they immediately degraded to hash.
Mind Rape: Whatever the Academy did to River, she didn't turn out very well.
Oh Crap: "Target the Reavers! Target the Reavers! Target everyone!SOMEBODY FIRE!"
When Inara meets the Operative. She's very good at reading and controlling body language, so the way her smile fades before he even said anything speaks volumes.
The head scientist gets an understated one when Simon says, "She always did love to dance." He has just enough time to realize that this isn't a government official he's been escorting into Top Secret research areas before he is knocked out by the stun grenade.
One-Scene Wonder: Sarah Paulson's monologue (which gets played twice) is chill-inducingly brilliant:
"These are just a few of the images we've recorded, and as you can see... it isn't what we thought..."
Only a Flesh Wound: When Mal gets stabbed during his fight with the Operative, though having Alliance medical care available soon after may make it somewhat less applicable. In all other cases, averted.
"Ah, hell. I'm a fan of all seven... But right now... I'm going to go with WRATH."
Precision F-Strike: "Eight months. Eight months you had her on my boat knowing full well she could go monkeyshit at the wrong word and you never said a thing." It's easy to miss it, but this is a cuss word they couldn't drop on Fox, but could in a Big Damn Movie.
In the movie's novelization by Keith R.A. DeCandido, a version of the scene on Haven where Mal announces his plan to use the corpses of the murdered settlers as part of a disguise for Serenity to cross Reaver space is featured where Mal drops the F-bomb to emphasize his point. Pretty sure the same scene is featured in the early draft of the film's script floating around the 'Net, the version where Wash and Book don't die
And brutally subverted by Mal in his final fight with The Operative when he pretends to fall victim to this technique. In truth that particular pressure point was rendered invalid from a war wound, and he just played along so he could catch The Operative off-guard.
Schizo Tech: The just-settled Outer Planets have no infrastructures or industries built yet, and the Alliance considers anything past terraforming a low priority
Seven Deadly Sins: What the Operative seems to be obsessed with. Given that they think they can "make mankind better", the Alliance's chief sin seems to be Pride.
Mal is also a fan of all seven, but right now he's going with wrath.
Shirtless Scene: Both Mal and Simon get this. Joss Whedon actually apologizes in the commentary for shooting shirtless!Mal at such a close angle and not allowing a full look at his physique.
Shoot the Rope: Mal needs several shots to sever the mini-harpoon from Jayne's leg. While he's hanging from the back of Mule II at full tilt.
Shrouded in Myth: Reavers, at least until their origin is revealed.
Sonic Stunner: Simon apparently found one that only works at head level, then uses it to rescue River by setting it off and ducking (she's conveniently seated at the time).
Inara's flashbang-incense is a very crude version.
Space Clouds: The ion cloud around Mr. Universe's planet. Joss Whedon admitted that he knew exactly how unscientific this was, but he needed it there for Rule Of Cool in the battle scene.
Yes, but he's not flying any more. Flying is his super power. His milieu.
Swallowed a Fly: After a horrific encounter with the Reavers, the crew barely makes it back, and crashes the runabout back onto Serenity. Simon (who stayed behind) is frantic over River, who is oddly calm:
River: "I swallowed a bug."
Sword Pointing: The Operative does this to Captain Mal when he first draws his sword during their fight in Mr. Universe's complex.
There Are No Therapists: Not that there's any out there that could help much in River's case, not the very least because she's a fugitive who the Alliance and the Academy want back very badly.
Unresolved Sexual Tension: No, it is not your imagination that whenever Mal and Inara get within a foot of each other, electricity shoots out of your screen. It's the UST trying to explode your television/computer.
Unusual Euphemism: Between the Mildly Mandarin swearing, the use of archaic words like "quim", and various other slang such as "gorram" and "shiny", It's hard to find examples of usual euphemisms on this show.
You Are Already Dead: A variant, the Operative uses a nerve strike, that while not deadly in and of itself, does leave them paralyzed so he can stab them with his sword.
You Shall Not Pass: River, when the only thing standing between the badly injured and exhausted crew and the oncoming Reaver hordes are some broken blast doors.
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