Oren: Although, it’s worth noting that a number of the big Western flops have also technically been speculative. It’s a very specific environment with similar plots and themes on top of a very specific environment, and I think that if you stick to something that’s so niche for a while, it just grows stale and loses novelty, and one of the advantages of then mixing in speculative elements back into the setting is that you can add some of that novelty back in. Then, if you look at Westerns, it’s so specific. Anything that has any kind of futuristic technology could be called science fiction, hugely varied. Alternate scenarios that could take place tomorrow. Like, anything that has any type of magic could be called fantasy, and those are very different stories with very different aesthetics.
And the other reason that they kind of talk around because they don’t know what it is-but is the reason why they only work with Americans-is that they are too low on novelty.Ĭhris: Yes, that’s what I was gonna say! Because, if you think about all of the different speculative fiction genres, fantasy and science fiction are huge. The biggest one that they talk about is that Westerns are too American and non-American audiences don’t get them. So, this is a pretty well-established fact that Westerns don’t make that much money anymore, and there are a bunch of reasons for it. And, I’m not saying this, this is just something that you can read in numerous entertainment think pieces by people who have much more time to study this than I do, and there are pieces in the Atlantic about it. However, it is also true that westerns are making way less money than they used to. So, there are more than you would expect, and I looked at a list of Western films per year from Wikipedia and there wasn’t nearly as big a drop in recent decades as I would’ve expected. Oren: Yeah, I know right? So, first of all, there are way more Western movies coming out each year than we think.Ĭhris: Hmm, we just don’t watch them cuz we’re geeks. Oren: Okay, okay, so I did some research for this.Ĭhris: Research? What? Get outta here with your facts! Ĭhris: There are, of course-there’s probably more than one reason why it feels like we’re seeing more speculative Westerns than straight Westerns these days, and one is simply that moving Westerns to a different setting makes them less problematic. Oren: What I’ve learned from watching Star Wars Westerns is that there will always indeed be balance in the Force between good and evil, because we get a good thing like the Mandalorian and then a bad thing, like the Book of Boba Fett, and so all things are eternally imbalanced and we are in hell.
Yeah, so today we’re gonna talk about Westerns because, you know, we’ve watched things like Boba Fett and the Mandalorian and other kinds of fun, Westerny kinds of things, and we wanna talk about those, because why not? And also maybe why we don’t really see so many traditional Westerns anymore and why that’s probably a good thing. It must be time to talk about Westerns, everybody, because we’ve got all that’s necessary. Pistol at the hip, regardless of the time and genre? Check. I’m your host, Wes, and with me today is Chris and Oren. Wes: You’re listening to the Mythcreants podcast. Volunteer to transcribe a podcast.Ĭhris: You’re listening to the Mythcreants podcast with your hosts Oren Ashkenazi, Wes Matlock, and Chris Winkle.
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