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Cowboys and Aliens (film)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
Cowboys and Aliens (film)/Headscratchers (view source)
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* Why do so many people think the premise of cowboys fighting aliens is fundamentally ludicrous? If we accept that aliens landing on earth is a sensible plot to begin with (and judging by the thousands of movies where exactly that happens, ''we do''), then why does setting the plot in the mid-19th Century suddenly make it crazy?
** I think it's the idea that cowboys stand a reasonable chance against aliens and won't be utterly wiped out in the first ten minutes.
** So after tens of thousands of years of storytelling, an outmatched hero triumphing against impossible odds is now ridiculous? Bonk that; I want to see them do a series of these movies. Just think: ''[[The Colonial Period|Colonials]] and Aliens,'' ''[[Samurai]] and Aliens,'' '''''[[
*** There's a novel by [[Poul Anderson]] called ''[[The High Crusade]]''. Anglo-Norman knights preparing for an excursion into the Holy Land, face a surprise [[Alien Invasion]], kick the aliens' asses, commandeer their ship and carry the crusade beyond the stars - and that's just the first few chapters! It could make an AWESOME movie -- unfortunately, ''Cowboys And Aliens'' seems to have tanked and discredited the idea.
**** I ... don't know quite how to tell you [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110024/ this ...]
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** Alternately, they may just prefer to do their mining in an atmosphere whenever possible. And they just underestimated the nastiness of the locals.
** That is also making the big assumption that the aliens have a racewide government. For all we know, these aliens are a poor mining company who couldn't afford the 'rights' to mine any profitable asteroids.
** Everyone always assumes that just because aliens have some advanced technology, they have all possible theoretical advanced technology ever. Maybe they have the technology for interstellar travel but haven't figured out a way to reliably hang around asteroids mining them. Why doesn't that ever occur to people?
* When they were battling near the alien ship, why didn't they just take the firearms from the aliens that had them, insead of resorting to guns, spears, and dynamite?
** Because its been made very clear that those weapons are [[Clingy MacGuffin|Clingy MacGuffins]]. For all we know, once a weapon-bearer dies, the weapon is pretty much irretriveable, at least in the short timeframe the cowboys had. It could also explain why Ella took Jake's gun rather than nick one off the aliens Jake killed.
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** Whose to say they ever needed clothes or armor before fighting the humans?
*** For previous wars? They already fought against at least one civilization and surely they must have had wars among themselves.
**** Their "fight" against that previous civilization was a [[Curb Stomp Battle]]. And while it's natural to assume they had wars among themselves at some point in the past, they may never have encountered a "lesser" race that was able to harm them through their natural defenses before. Same reason most lumberjack companies don't go around with a cache of full SWAT armor for every employee, even though we have the tech to do that... it's expensive and they have no expectation of needing it.
* If Ella can shapeshift, why did she keep choosing the form of a woman instead of turning into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and fighting the aliens?
** Her shapeshifting might be limited to disguising herself, not actually changing her strength or abilities.
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** Some kids you just can't reach under normal circumstances. Percy isn't the way he is because of how Dolerhyde tried to raise him, Percy is the way he is because that's the way he is.
** Maybe Dolarhyde's just a shitty parent, because as already established, he's an asshole. A lot of tycoons end up raising people like Percy.
** Dolarhyde's shown as not quite knowing what he truly wants or being able to express himself properly, which was a problem a lot of men had back then. His experiences are pretty transformative for him, which is why it's implied that the "fresh start" he's been given with Percy will work out much better this time around.
* So what now? There's plenty of bits of spacecraft and technology lying around. There are alien corpses galore lying around to prove what happened happened. Does the timeline branch off in a new direction or did the government swoop in and hush the whole thing up?
** It probably laid around in the desert getting worn away, picked up and disassembled for pretty bits, or otherwise just destroyed by time and elements. The government of the time period isn't large and powerful enough to do any swooping, nor is any organized body large and powerful enough to rush in and start reverse engineering anything. It's probably all going to lay out in the desert until it's worthless and unrecognizable, allowing the movie to fit into the timeline without altering anything. Ask yourself where a society that hasn't quite gotten a handle on semiautomatic weapons would even START with reverse engineering a faster-than-light drive, even if there were an organized body capable of doing so that knew about its location.
* So Native Americans keep anti-amnesia medicine sitting around just in case... why? Is amnesia common in the Wild West?
** Whose to say it was just for amnesia. For all we know, it was 19th century tylenol.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Cowboys
[[Category:Headscratchers]]
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