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Topic: Westerns - is this a doomed genre? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Posted: 16 July 2019 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I'd define BONE TOMAHAWK as Western/Horror. 

I thought it was great.
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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 16 July 2019 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I don't think any genre is doomed. Its just that different genres wax and wane in popularity.

Personally, I wish we had more steampunk movies. Mike Resnick's Weird West Tale series, which is steampunk western, would make a good film series, given a decent budget.


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Matt Reed
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Posted: 17 July 2019 at 1:15am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

 Eric Sofer wrote:
It's hard for me to think of many westerns recently (Young Guns? Cowboys and Aliens? Any of the OK Corral bunch of films?)

Westerns are not limited to the time period in which they take place, but the tropes and themes that run through them.  HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016) is an excellent example of a film that takes place today but is in all other ways a Western.  Not speaking to or about you specifically, but people want to root Westerns in the Old West specifically and anything that doesn't happen between the very narrow window of 1860-1910 isn't considered a Western.  But that's simply not true.  Although the general populace may not recognize a movie that they're watching is, in fact, a Western doesn't negate the fact that it's still a relatively healthy and active genre.  As healthy and active as traditional Westerns created by Hollywood studios circa 1910-1975?  No.  But neither are war films (although that's what any zombie film is about even tangentially), or gangster films (although the success of SICARIO and its sequel would prove otherwise) or musicals (certainly not as popular now as in the 30's-60's but what are many animated films but musicals?).

At the end of the day, Hollywood (the industry) isn't cranking out four pictures per month per studio like they used to do for decades.  Some studios are lucky if they release four films a year.  So it's obvious that some genres are going to get short shrift.  But to think that any one genre is doomed simply because there aren't enough of them released in a given year isn't looking at the whole picture nor at the ways traditional genres are being updated and rejiggered for a modern audience.  
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 17 July 2019 at 4:28am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

As films goes, you need someone who looks
good in a hat and on a horse.It would help
if Hollywood hired men instead of grown
boys.
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Jack Bohn
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Posted: 17 July 2019 at 8:50am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Matt, I normally urge more caution in genre-bending, but in regards your comment, I was just reading the writer/director or CENTURION (2010) saying it was the Westerns on him as a young English lad, with the Picts as the Apaches, and the Romans as the cavalry.
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Phil Kreisel
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Posted: 18 July 2019 at 7:26am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Fear the Walking Dead, dispite taking place in a Zombie apolkapse, is essentially a western these days, primarily due to the John Dorie character, who is the equivalent of Marshall Dillon (Gunsmoke), right down to the two 6 shooters that he carries and uses.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 18 July 2019 at 9:20am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Hmm. Maybe, before we jump into noting that Westerns are or aren't still as popular... we ought to define what a Western exactly is.

Is it just a guy on a horse with a six gun dispensing justice in an older era? Or is there much more to it? Are there Westerns set in the present day, for example?
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 18 July 2019 at 9:29am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Are there Westerns set in the present day, for example?

——

Beyond the examples already given throughout this thread?
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