Does anyone know why the flag of the Union of Allied Planets was changed from the Sino/American Flag in the series to the more space based one in the film? It seems like a good deal of Firefly's Chinese and old west elements were sharply downplayed in Serenity. Does anyone know why?
There's a lot of Chinese dialog and signage in Serenity, comparable to its usage in the series. Also other Asian cultural influences, like the Companion house and the Japanese-style Fruity Oaty Bar commercial. And there were definite Western elements too, particularly in the opening heist. It's just that the movie focused mostly on other aspects of the universe, which was never strictly a "space Western" (see "Ariel" -- the core worlds were much more high-tech and urban). It's possible those aspects were de-emphasized in order to make the movie more accessible to the general audience, but maybe it's just that the story Whedon had to tell focused more on other facets of the 'Verse. After all, while the series took place mostly on the outskirts of civilization, the movie dealt more directly with the Alliance and its agents and activities.
Yeah, I'd go with just an attempt at making things more accessible for an audience that hadn't seen Firefly. There's actually a lot of this with Serenity, for example, the opening scene with Simon breaking River out of the Alliance facilty features two guys chasing after them wearing suits like the Blue Hands, except they aren't wearing blue gloves. Or that Mal seems to have greater reverance and respect for Shepherd Book than he did in the series. Or the rather cool and unique office-building style Alliance starships are no where to be seen and all Alliance military ships are rather boring and generic looking.
Part of the design differences could just be because the movie had a different production staff than the series, or maybe because they were designing for the big screen instead of the small and wanted details, colors, etc. that worked better for that. Or maybe it was just because they had to rebuild everything and decided to tweak the designs while they were at it. It's not in the nature of creative people to be perfectly satisfied with their work and never want to see it changed.
Perhaps one of them was the flag of the Alliance as it existed on Earth (i.e. the actual union of the USA and China) and the other one was the flag of the space based organization known as the Union of Allied Planets? Grasping at straws, yes. But it would also explain the different names (i.e. "Anglo-Sino Allliance" and "Union of Allied Planets"). Who says they have to be the same organization? The former may have been Earth only, whereas the latter is the one in use currently.
I don't see why an Earth flag would still be in use, but perhaps one is the flag of the political entity and the other is the flag of the Alliance Navy.
This is the Alliance public affairs office speaking: The phrase "Union of Allied Planets" has been brought to you by our own Department of Redundancy Department.
^ Perhaps, but you can't be in a union if you're not allied... I think they were just looking for an excuse to put the word Alliance in there. Or, hell, why not just have the whole, entire name be 'Alliance' and that's it? That's descriptive enough.
The Union of Federated Imperial Planetary Friendly Allied Planets in Alliance With Each Other Together. You can look it up.