I'm of the opinion that Firefly was a bit over-rated. Not bad, but my opinion on it wasn't *fantastic*. In that context, the movie felt like a bit of a downgrade.

The following are some nitpicks I had about the characters and some of the plots.

[spoiler]**River**'s big reveal feels too quick. I get that it's because it's probably something they'd had in mind for a long time and needed to squeeze into a single movie, but that doesn't make it any less jarring.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Easily the most disappointing part of the movie. **Malcolm** completely flips on Simon. He was part of the crew by the end of Firefly. Suddenly he's not; him and his sister are a burden that he wants to toss out.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I know **Jayne**'s a generally immoral character, but he appears to have completely gotten over his guilt for putting River and Simon in the situation he did. I wouldn't expect him to outright try to abduct (and maybe kill?) River. That scene also just sort of ends and everyone forgets about it after Malcolm finds River and she shows them what she wanted to.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I'm a bit disappointed that once again **Shepherd** turned into a victim as a plot device to make the crew angry, this time permanently, and it seems like his ties to the Alliance are to be left a perpetual mystery. It's also disappointing that he was no longer an active crew member.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Again, probably a result of it being crammed into a movie, but the **Reavers** lost a lot of their mystery and fear aspects with how quickly they became prevalent. They were more or less what I expected, but I think they served better as boogey-men.[/spoiler]

The movie got a lot of the feel of Firefly right, but the above make it feel a little too far off for my tastes, and so I do think it was a lesser experience. I'm sure I'm in the majority thinking I would have preferred more Firefly seasons.