In one of my recent bouts of insomnia I decided to rewatch Joss Whedon's Serenity and it struck me that the pre title scene is possibly one of the best ever. When you think of great opening sequences you always have to start at Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders has action, intrigue, suspense, all the things a blockbuster fan could possibly want. More importantly the opening perfectly informs the audience as to who Indy is and the type of universe he lives in. Spielberg makes it look so easy and yet when you look at all the films that have tried to emulate it and failed it becomes clear how special it really is.
Serenity is no Raiders, stylistically it couldn't be any farther from it. Raiders is the embodiment of cinema. The way Spielberg uses the camera and the action to create a universe is a masterclass. In comparison Serenity feels almost like a play the way the universe is brought to life through the words of the characters inhabiting it. Just as Spielberg is a master of the camera Joss Whedon is a master of the spoken word.
Serenity begins with an oral history of the universe which is presented in the form of a school history lesson. At the same moment we are introduced to the secret hero of the film River Tam who beautifully demonstrates the rebels conflicting ideology to the rest of the class and the audience. Without a wasted word we are shown how the government treats dissent as the classroom memory dissolves away to reveal River's tormented reality as a tortured test subject. The focus shifts to the doctor responsible for the experiments and an unknown government official making inquiries into the program. This provides a quick overview into the heinous acts of the government and really enforces the ideological split between the government and the rebels from the history lesson. The unknown official is revealed to be River's brother Simon when he stuns the doctor and escapes with River. Again the perspective shifts as everything we just saw is revealed to be a hologram of the security footage being watched by our villain, the nameless assassin. Like all good villains, he quickly proves himself to be a completely merciless killer following his personal code of honor.
With an Inception like use of reality Whedon has given us a perfect who, what, when, how, and why of the universe. More impressively he has done it in a way which provides greater knowledge to long time fans of the TV show while getting new viewers up to speed for the standalone story. Frankly my description doesn't do the sequence justice and I think the reason why hints at the reason you probably won't ever hear Serenity mentioned in the same group as Raiders when the topic of opening sequences arises. Simply put, the brilliance of the dialogue and the Shakespearian way it is used to convey action and intent make describing it hard. If you aren't straight quoting it you aren't doing it justice. The action is so informed by dialogue that describing it without the dialogue present to illuminate it again fails to convey the whole meaning. You could present this scene live on a stage and it wouldn't lose any of the power or context. In this way the scene is a complete antithesis of Raiders. Since Raiders is so cinematic it lends its self perfectly to discussion. The iconic moments are all image based. Weighing the sand to swap with the statue, the tarantulas on the back, the darts flying across the hallway, and most iconic, the boulder chasing Indy through the cavern. Mention any of these moments and anyone has seen the film instantly has an image of what you are talking about. Serenity doesn't have any of those iconic images, but I would argue it does an equally perfect job at setting up the universe. Just like Raiders, the opening seems so simple and so easy to emulate, it betrays the brilliance of it. So start memorizing dialogue and the next time a discussion about perfect opening moments arises don't forget about this sublime scene.