As I have watched more and more movies throughout my nearly
twenty-five years of life, I have noticed three different subgenres that are
completely different on a surface level, but very similar when you actually pay
attention to them. The three types of
movies are westerns, samurai films, and pirate films. There is something about the portrayals of
these types of characters (cowboys, samurai, and pirates) that seem very
similar while also different.
Cowboys and westerns have gone back about as far as film has
existed. One of the earliest movies was The Great Train Robbery which was a
western about cowboys robbing a train.
The name already says that, but I felt the need to pound that into your
skulls. Through the forties, fifties,
and sixties, westerns were popular in theaters and on television. There was something about a good ole cowboy
stopping some bandits from doing bad things that captured audiences. The way that a cowboy could stroll into town
and change it for better or worse was enthralling. Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are still some
of the most famous people ever making their names in westerns, and Gunsmoke is still one of the longest
running shows to ever be on television.
That’s how big westerns were.
The same could be said for samurai. They were essentially the Japanese
counterpart to the Wild West cowboy.
They would come into towns and do the same sort of things as the cowboys
in westerns. The similarities between
the two character types led to many samurai films, particularly those of Akira
Kurosawa, being remade as westerns. Seven Samurai was remade into The Magnificent Seven, and Yojimbo was remade into A Fistful of Dollars. The stories worked for both genres, which is
telling as to how alike the two character types are.
Pirate movies are a little different than the other
two. Instead of the hero being that good
guy, or at least a guy fighting against the bad that he encounters, pirate
movies are about loveable misfits who compare more to the bandits of westerns
and samurai films than the heroes. They
may not be as evil as the bandits in those other movies, but they are bandits
all the same. The whole purpose of a
pirate is to steal and plunder goods from other people. For some reason, they still sort of feel like
the western archetype by way of water.
It is a feeling, but when it comes to movies, feelings make a big
difference.
The reason I bring up these three archetypes is because of The Ice Pirates, a movie about space
pirates in the future. It takes the
concept of pirates, but instead of putting them on the seven seas, it puts them
in space where water is a treasure. Or,
more specifically, ice is a wanted item.
Everyone wants ice. The pirates
are out to get some ice. There’s
swashbuckling galore as the pirates fight with swords while swinging from
platform to platform in spaceships. It
feels like an old-style Robin Hood or pirate movie. It’s delightful.
It got me to thinking about other movies and television
shows that have taken pirates, cowboys, or samurai and placed them into
futuristic settings. Of course, the
first two that came to mind were from television. One of them is a beloved show that was ended
long before its time. The other is a
more recent show that lasted two seasons and had some problems with its focus
that lost it a lot of viewers. I would
venture to say that both worked as solid entertainment.
The first of the two is the one that most people will know
about. Firefly was a Joss Whedon created show that only lasted one season
on FOX in the early 2000s. It combined
aspects of westerns with the science fiction of space. Mal Reynolds was your basic hero gunslinger
with a Whedon twist to him. There were
gunfights, brothels, and standoffs. It
was a futuristic western on television.
If only people had watched it when it was on. Mind you, it did end up getting a follow-up
movie in Serenity. The movie tied together enough plot points in
the show to make it a satisfying conclusion, though I, like most people, would
have loved to see more of the characters and their Wild West above the sky
adventures. The most interesting part of
the movie is that the villain was a samurai-like character placed into a
western setting in a way that felt perfectly natural. It showed how the two types are interchangeable.
Revolution is the
other show that I wanted to mention. It
was a show in which all electrical power disappeared. This caused people to revert back to swords
for fighting and horses for travelling.
The first half season of the show was all about living in a world
without power, which worked quite well.
There were swashbuckling fights with all of the swords and swinging and
jumping around that you could want. It
lost focus when power was introduced halfway through the season. The second season removed the power again,
and went full western. Small town, a bad
group of people coming in, and the hero being much like a gunslinger or samurai
character. It was well done and
underseen.
Both of those television shows utilized their future or
post-apocalyptic setting with their western/pirate/samurai qualities. But there are a few movies that do this kind
of thing as well. Let me give you two
examples in which Akira Kurosawa’s films were adapted into science fiction
films. Why? Because science fiction tends to be
futuristic and the Kurosawa films that I’m going to use as examples are two
samurai movies. Thus, the samurai are
brought to a futuristic setting.
I guess the first isn’t really futuristic since it is set a
long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Yes, Star Wars is loosely
based on a samurai film, and it shows in that the movie feels sort of like a
science fiction western. You know,
because westerns and samurai movies have a similar feel to them. Star
Wars was partially inspired by a Kurosawa movie called The Hidden Fortress. The new
movie had open lands, much like westerns.
It had lightsabers in place of swords.
Luke Skywalker was basically a kid who wanted to be a samurai, and Han
Solo was an experienced gunslinger. The
whole movie had its roots in samurai and western movies, making them feel more
futuristic with the science fiction elements.
Though set long, long ago, the technology feels much more advanced than
anything we had at the time.
Another movie that fits into the science fiction western
type is Battle Beyond the Stars. It is a take on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, taking the defending to a
distant planet. Like the other versions
of this story, a small town (in this case a planet) is being tormented by a
bandit who wants to steal their goods.
Seven defenders are brought in to ward off the bandit and his
underlings. Battle Beyond the Stars even casts Robert Vaughn as a character
similar to the one he played in The
Magnificent Seven, the western remake of Seven Samurai. For the most
part, the story works in this new setting.
It is as entertaining as the other versions, though it may not have been
as well made.
As you can see, the idea of samurai, cowboys, and pirates in
a futuristic setting tends to work fairly well.
There is something about the advanced time and regressed character
types. The blending of the past and the
future makes for good entertainment.
There are many more cases in which this kind of blending has happened in
film and television, but, to be honest, I don’t have the time to write too much
more on the subject. As I’m writing this
sentence, it is Sunday afternoon and this post has to go up later today. I only have so much time in which to finish
it. What I can say is that each of the
movies and shows that I have mentioned are worth checking out. If you like westerns, samurai films, pirate
movies, or science fiction, you should take a look at movies like these. They’re just all around entertaining movies.
There are notes that I need to toss in here before I go:
- The Ice Pirates was suggested by @McNastyPrime.
- The director of The Ice Pirates, Stewart Raffill, would go on to direct another movie I have featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. That movie was Mac and Me, which I featured a few weeks ago.
- Richard Young was one of the actors in The Ice Pirates. He was also in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.
- If you’ve seen The Ice Pirates, you may have noticed John Carradine. He was also in a movie called Monster in the Closet.
- According to IMDb, Max von Sydow had an uncredited role in The Ice Pirates. He was also in the film adaptation of Flash Gordon.
- And going back to Mac and Me, an actor named Gary Brockette appeared in both that and The Ice Pirates.
- Have you seen The Ice Pirates? Have you seen any of the other movies I mentioned? Do you like when the past and the future are blended in movies? Do you like cowboys, pirates, or samurai? The comments section is where you can discuss all of this stuff and more.
- If there’s a movie that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to mention it in the comments. Or you could contact me on Twitter or send an email to sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
- Next week’s movie is a movie called Winky’s Horse. It’s on one of those bad movie sets that I have, so I’m going to watch it. I have no idea what it is about other than a horse. I’ll let you know next week.
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