STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM “Cowboys & Aliens”

Why do people assume that when aliens come to invade Earth, it’s always the present day? At least when they come before technology exists, they would have the advantage… right?

Directed by Jon Favreau, screenplay by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, story by Fergus & Ostby and Steve Oedekerk, and based on the comic book of the same name by Rosenberg, Cowboys & Aliens is about an amnesiac man who arrives in the town of Absolution, where he learns he is Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw.

At night, Absolution is invaded by alien spacecraft that kidnap a number of the citizens. The only thing able to fight them is a metal “cuff” on Lonergan’s wrist which is revealed to be a pulse blaster.

A reluctant Jake and a group of the townsfolk round up to find the spacecraft to rescue the kidnapped victims.

I love genre mashups. “Space western” is literally a sub-genre used for fiction; the most famous of them being the series Firefly and its feature sequel Serenity. However, that was a space opera set on other planets with Western themes. Cowboys & Aliens is a Western first, with an alien invasion movie as an afterthought.

It’s this type of treatment that makes the film unique. The film evokes Western themes and imagery because it IS Western.

So why didn’t this film do well? It all comes down to tone. The characters play out their situation very straight. No tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement on anyone’s part, not even the filmmakers, on what a bizarre premise they’re working with. But honestly, that’s the best way for these characters to react. They DON’T know what they’re dealing with. As an audience member, we know they are aliens from space; to their eyes, they’re demons. That’s literally what they call them.

I knew about the film when I saw the trailer. The moment I saw it, I was hooked, plain and simple.

Genre mashups are hard to do well in filmmaking, and Cowboys & Aliens, admittedly, can do better. Sadly, because of its box office failure, there won’t be any attempt to make a similar film so it can be done better. Personally, I don’t care.

The film’s plot is straight out of classic westerns like The Searchers and The Magnificent Seven with its road aspect and the misfit characters working together, respectively. It has stunning cinematography and perfect actors cast in their roles.