Zapata’s comics post and Sape’s comment about “Jonah Hex” movie have encouraged me to start this new topic here. I’m talking about the wonderful hybrid between sci fi and western. I love the both styles, so it’s wonderful to discover creations where both of my passions mix together. So I’ll give you a short list of my favorites, and I insistingly recommend you to add yours.
The first one is a series of books by Stephen King, called “The Dark Tower”. The protagonist, Roland, is a classic western hero, but also the last member of a knight-order of gunslingers. He’s carrying out his quest to the Dark Tower in the mystical, horrifying, magic and hostile world.
My second favorite is the Firefly, the space western television series by Joss Whedon. The story takes place in a universe of terraformed planets and moons, however, under lack of further support changed mostly to dull deserts, and the use of advanced weapons is strictly forbidden, so firearms are very popular, and used widely. This is a story of the small crew, which travels in an old transport spaceship, under command of their leader Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds. That’s will be a perfect scifi-western mix, because most stories, like train robbery, could happen in every regular Western movie. Those series are followed by sequel movie “Serenity” and comics, which I didn’t read.
The third and the last one for today is a Trigun, also a space-western theme, a story of Vash the Stampede is a very lighthearted, expert marksman that tries to promote love and peace as he personally said in several episodes. He appears to be a very merry person that dislikes seriousness, but is actually very deep and serious as can be seen in the situations he finds himself in. He usually presents a smiling façade, which Wolfwood is prone to call a “false smile.” Beneath this smile lies a lot of pain and the burdens that Vash has chosen to carry. Also known as The Humanoid Typhoon, he is a wandering gunman with a 60 billion double dollar bounty on his head. Every town he passes through either labels him “an act of God” or “a human disaster.” Vash’s approach is to save lives using non-lethal force.
That’s it, I’ll be glad if you can add your favorite scifi-fantasy-western creations here.
