Sandell and Josh review: Cowboys VS Aliens

Sandell Stangl: So let me ask you this, how did feel about "Cowboys and Aliens" as a viewer?

Joshua Efron: Bored.

Joshua Efron: Immeasurably disinterested and bored.
Sandell Stangl: Do you think that's a little harsh at all?

Sandell Stangl: I thought it was slow at times but in general I'm glad that it wasn't too fast paced.

Sandell Stangl: like most movies are today.

Joshua Efron: No.  Harsh would be calling it the worst western ever made, ever.

Joshua Efron: Which would be unfair.

Joshua Efron: Because it Wasn't A Western.

Joshua Efron: And it most certainly wasn't a movie about Cowboys vs Aliens.

Joshua Efron: They should have called it "Alien Wristband vs Aliens".  Or perhaps "Daniel Craig's characters' arm, which had an alien wristband on it, but not cowboys because they made an antagonist that only super-tech could affect, vs Aliens".

Joshua Efron: There's a dozen ways they could have made the movie work and they missed all of them.

Joshua Efron: All it really needed to be was archetypal.  Seven Samurai but the bandits turn out to be aliens!  Legendary gunslinger who doesn't want to fight anymore gets challenged by aliens who start threatening the town until he gives in!  Whatever!  It doesn't matter!  Make it genre cliché! Give the characters problems and let the solutions be cowboy solutions!  That's all that's required!

Joshua Efron: But they didn't.  They didn't make it a western.  They didn't give the characters problems they had to creatively overcome.  They didn't let the cowboys be cowboys.

Joshua Efron: Failure.

Sandell Stangl: Could you argue that the cowboy's mission of rescue is what enabled them to be 'cowboys'?

Joshua Efron: Not particularly.  There are many well known and (and some quite good) westerns that revolve around rescues, but a rescue mission isn't in and of itself any more western than it is any other genre.  What makes a rescue movie a western would be the other elements it incorporates, primarily methods of problem solving, type of obstacles encountered, type of characters involved, and so on.

Joshua Efron: Which leads to three additional problems the movie had -

Joshua Efron: a) It had no problem solving

Joshua Efron: b) it had no obstacles encountered

Joshua Efron: c) it had no characters

Joshua Efron: (really the movie had two primary problems - that it wasn't a good movie, and that it was a bad movie)

Sandell Stangl: What about the final scene of movie where they storm the alien's base? They had to use a cowboy-like strategy of tricking the aliens to come out in the open. It also counts as an obstacle they they had to pass in order to save their families. As for characters, I want to talk about that after this.

Joshua Efron: HA.  First of all, that wasn't particularly a cowboy strategy.  I mean, name me any genre movie where in that situation leading the aliens out into the open to shoot at them Wouldn't have been a better idea than storming into their base.

Joshua Efron: But that's not really the problem with that scene.

Joshua Efron: It's the fact that the cowboys and Indians Get Slaughtered.   They made the aliens so powerful that the only thing that could hurt them was Daniel Craig's character's wristband.

Joshua Efron: The cowboys and Indians are really only assisting by being numerous and tasty enough to keep some of the aliens outside while Daniel Craig goes inside and phasers the rest of them to death.

Joshua Efron: The movie  could have been called "field of helpless children and crippled wise men vs. Aliens" and it would have gone the exact same way.

Sandell Stangl: You mentioned the characters before too.

Sandell Stangl: Did you feel like they weren't three dimensional at all?

Joshua Efron: They were one dimensional, at best.  Harrison Ford's character -approached- being 2 dimensional but still didn't make it that far.

Joshua Efron: And honestly, the lack of character and characters was the movie's biggest flaw.

Joshua Efron: Daniel Craig's character had like 10 lines and half of them may have been "I don't know".

Sandell Stangl: At least he didn't ask if his wristband made him look gay :D [JE: Damn you Boondock Staints 2]

Joshua Efron: Olivia Wilde's character had maybe 20 lines herself but all of them were either "I need to know where you're from" (generally followed by the answer "I don't know"), or were non-characterizing exposition 2/3rds of the way through the film.

Joshua Efron: The Sheriff's grandson had like 5 lines and was .5 dimensional.

Joshua Efron: The bar keeper was a one-dimensional Very not-funny comedic side-character. 

Sandell Stangl: Do think its necessary for every character to be fully developed or more important for them to fulfill the roll that the writer meant them to fill?

Joshua Efron: "That the writer meant for them to fill" is a complicated phrase.
Sandell Stangl: for example...

Sandell Stangl: The sheriff's son was a jerk who you were supposed to hate in order for the main character to beat up

Sandell Stangl: so you can be like "Daniel Craig is a badass"
 Joshua Efron:  A "fully developed" character doesn't need to be what we refer to by three dimensional, but they need to accomplish what their role in the story (and what their role for the audience) is.

Joshua Efron: I will agree - Harrison Ford's character's son is the one successful character in the movie.  He has one task over two-ish scenes and he accomplishes it very well, due to the quality performance by Paul Dano.  He's a well-executed archetype - the spoiled brat son who does whatever he wants and hides behind his powerful father when he gets himself into the muck.  So Is he "fully developed"?  He is exactly as developed as he needs to be, so yes.
Joshua Efron: So being "fully developed" and "fulfilling the role the writer intended" means the same thing.

Joshua Efron: So do they have to be "three dimensional"?  No.  But they have to be Interesting.  We need to have a reason to be intrigued, or a reason to like, or a reason to dislike, or Some sort of reaction.

Joshua Efron: Daniel Craig's character, with his 10 lines and whatnot, was he intriguing?  Did I like him or dislike him?  Hell No!  I seriously couldn't have been less interested.  Or Olivia Wilde's character, who we only know is interested in this other character that I'm not interested in.  How is her having interest in an uninteresting character supposed to be intriguing to the viewer?

Sandell Stangl: That means though, 'interest' is subjective. Someone else could be intrigued by the fact that Daniel Craig has something on his arm and has amnesia.

Sandell Stangl: Although, being Daniel Craig helps too.

Joshua Efron:  I will agree, interest is subjective.  Were you interested in him?

Sandell Stangl: Honestly, I think the fact that it was Daniel Craig and he had an arm thing was enough to 'interest' me. Was it enough for me to say that this was a well written and executed movie? Hell no.

Sandell Stangl: He did seem apathetic throughout the movie. I take it then you wouldn't recommend it to anyone...

Joshua Efron: When the movie comes to DVD I am going to edit a shorter but equally valid version of this movie.

Joshua Efron: It will likely be 3 minutes.

Sandell Stangl: What will the climax be?

Joshua Efron: The same as the climax in the actual movie.  Cowboys and Indians will be helplessly slaughtered by the Aliens, while the alien wristband on Daniel Craig's characters arm goes into their ship and saves the day.

Sandell Stangl: Throw in some clips from independence day and I think you got yourself a movie!

Sandell Stangl: At least throw in the president's speech.

Joshua Efron: Also - this movie proves Iron Man being good was a fluke.

Joshua Efron: John Favrou sucks as a director and should be flogged.

Joshua Efron: Also - Did Harrison Ford agree to do this movie before or after he read the script?  I want to ask him that.

Sandell Stangl: You know I wanted to ask him that with "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".

Sandell Stangl: apparently he doesn't care anymore...

Joshua Efron: He agreed before reading it for sure, but that was "Indiana Jones", so it was a given.  This was Daniel Craig's arm.

Joshua Efron: Indiana Jones > Daniel Craig's arm

Sandell Stangl: Well this has been "Cowboys and Aliens" Until next.