Cowboys Vs. Aliens: Not Really A Review, Just A Few Thoughts

* SPOILERS THROUGHOUT *

I quite liked Cowboys vs. Aliens. It was nice seeing Harrison Ford in an antagonist role for once -- and more than just an antagonist, he ends up being a multi-dimensional, identifiable, redeemable antagonist. I also have no trouble buying what's-her-name as an alien. And I like the way Daniel Craig's amnesia is built into the story as a crucial element, as opposed to being merely a convenient plot device.

I guess what I like most about Cowboys vs. Aliens is how serious it takes itself. It takes itself more serious than previous sci-fi westerns Wild Wild West, Westworld, and Back To The Future III. It's only slightly more serious than Silverado, about on the level of Tombstone, and not as serious as Unforgiven or True Grit (remake).

Since the late 1970s (i.e. Star Wars) writers have been obsessed with mythic elements in storytelling, and personally I believe the pulp-and-melodrama storytelling conventions of the American West comprise our most important unique shared cultural mythos. Alluding to these conventions (à la Silverado), CvsA sets up a thoroughly traditional Western dynamic of the Hero-Outlaw, seeking his redemption by turning a new leaf, who must eventually confront the Wealthy-&-Powerful Villain.

So CvsA sets all these dominoes up, and then, moments before the inevitable "opening face-off" between the Good Guy and the Bad Guy... BAM! Aliens invade, upsetting any conventional order we might have expected and forcing the archetypes to interact and collaborate in a fresh, unprecedented way.

Adventure ensues, escalates, resolves... and finally, at the end of the film, after the alien "interruption" has been settled, there can be no return to normalcy because the archetypes have all been forced out of their traditional oppositional roles. So the Good Guy and the Bad Guy, the guys wearing the figurative white and black hats, actually end up seeing eye to eye SHAKING HANDS instead of killing each other! That is one of the boldest, most progressive reconciliatory statements I've ever seen in a Western.