For some bizarre reason, the film Serenity (and its TV series precursor - which I haven't seen yet) have been claimed as 'libertarian'. For those who haven't seen it, the film is centred on the exploits of the crew of a space ship led by a veteran of an interplanetary civil war (on the losing side).
The film opens with a bank robbery, in a scene recalling 'The Wild Bunch', although as one commenter claims here, because the money comes from taxation it has already been stolen so that doesn't count! By that logic I could hang around waiting for someone to be mugged, knock the mugger over the head and legitimately walk off with the proceeds.
I think the problem is that the people making these claims are not really familiar with Science Fiction as a literary form. They seem to think it began when they discovered it. Looking back though to the early days you will find nothing new in Serenity, not as science fiction, not as a film nor in its ideas. It isn't a bad film, just not especially original on any count.
The big bad government - the 'Alliance' - is a supposed coming together of the US and China. Joss Whedon, in the extras to the Serenity DVD sees this as positive, but you wouldn't know that from the discussion in Blogistan. It isn't an original concept by any means but ironically probably the best known version of it comes from Jerry Pournelle, an arch neocon, although in his case we have the 'Co-Dominion', an uneasy alliance between the US and the USSR. Nor would you know that the driver for humanity leaving earth was overcrowding and pollution - neither of them I suppose particularly high priorities for your average right libertarian.
The film itself is equally derivative - it contains elements of Star Wars, Alien and many others as well as drawing heavily on Whedon's own work. The character of River Tam is clearly another version of Buffy, while the Reavers recall both the myriad demons and monsters from Buffy, (especially in the climactic battle between River and the Reavers) as well as innumerable zombie films.
So is it indeed libertarian?
The short answer I suppose is no. The longer answer is 'only if you think libertarians have a monopoly on liberty' (which to be fair is what many do indeed think!) In practice it is a pirate movie - if Serenity is libertarian then so is 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.