Westerns/Any Of You Watch Them?

[ArlEammon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiEH5DMx78&list=FLOrwLWeEmlBon3dgg6C0G6g&index=4

This is a slightly misleading title, but also, how can you incorporate an Old West style gun slinger into a Fantasy setting, well convincingly?

[darkblade]

Ah, the Weird West (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdWest), one of my personal favourite genres.

A lot of stories have done good work taking the Western American Frontier and mixing in some fantasy elements (Gemma Files' Hexslinger series, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun comic series, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare from Rockstar Games, among others). Making the much more common form of Western based fantasy.

There are others that make a whole new world that employ tropes that give them a Western feel. Most of these lean more towards Sci-Fi (Trigun, Firefly, Cursed Earth, Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex (sometimes the Science was a little bit light)).

Finally there are the rare attempts at making legitimate fantasy worlds that have western elements (The Warded/Painted Man (I have only read this book so I cannot vouche for the other books in Peter V Brett's Demon Cycle), China Miéville's Iron Council (third book in the Bas-Lag Cycle others are well written but not even a little bit Western), Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.)

[JustPlayItLoud]

Before I clicked your link I was going to suggest looking at the Wild Arms series. But now I guess I have nothing more to offer.

[Thanqol]

The actual classic Westerns - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Kung Fu and so on - are all really really good movies. They're from a time when movies were more sedate in their pacing than modern films but damn if they couldn't pull off some spectacular shots and awesome moments. The final scene from The Good et al is permanently fixed in my mind as one of the heights of cinema.

[Philistine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiEH5DMx78&list=FLOrwLWeEmlBon3dgg6C0G6g&index=4

This is a slightly misleading title, but also, how can you incorporate an Old West style gun slinger into a Fantasy setting, well convincingly?

Fairly easily, actually. Why wouldn't you be able to? The two genres often run on very similar assumptions, after all.

[TheThan]

I’m partial to John Wayne westerns myself. Stagecoach, the Shootist, True Grit and Rooster Cogburn, Rio Bravo, El Dorado… these are some of Wayne’s best.

Other great westerns include Tombstone, The Sackets (made for TV film based off of several Louis L'Amour books, suburb books, great movie), The Magnificent Seven, paint your wagon (what, its still a western), geeze so many I could list off here… I better stop.

As for the whole “weird west” genre, I use a very few elements of it, usually in descriptions when I’m running Iron Kingdoms. It helps segregate the peoples of the Iron Kingdoms a bit in a visual sense, those that live more on the eastern side of the continent are going to be more western in look, wide brimmed hats, dusters, that sort of stuff, those that live along the coast tend to wear more 17th century outfits, tricorns with frilly feathers, etc. Khadorans tend to dress in stereotypical Russian fashion (lots of red/black and fur hats).

You get the idea. It adds atmosphere to the world, and gives the players a sense that each geographic area and nation is different.

[Hopeless]

Are you familiar with Pathfinder specifically their Golarion setting?

There's an area where magic either doesn't work or doesn't work properly and one of the ideas for that area is precisely the sort of character you're asking about in the opening comment of this thread.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel dealing with them going back in time comes to mind as they had western "traders" in anicent Japan or China where the Turtles ended up armed with guns and a cannon as I recall...

Ditto on Kung Fu, what about the Shaolin Knights or maybe thats the sequel with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson?

[Avilan the Grey]

I have never cared for the Western as a genre. Individual movies are great, but it is not a genre I seek out.

Movies (and TV) I like:

The "new" mini series (that was much closer to the books) of The Little House on the Prarie was technically a western series

The Man With No Name series of movies of course

As a Swede, I am culturally indoctrinated to love How The West Was Won; as I understand it this series was much more popular here than anywhere else, and they still run reruns of it every 5 years or so.

Rango, of course :smallbiggrin:

The Magnificent Seven

Blazing Saddles :smallbiggrin:

Tombstone

Are the ones on top of my head.

As for the "Weird West thing"... I don't think I have really come across a good Fantasy / Wester mix. SF and Western on the other hand... Firefly, of course. And then there's always Fallout New Vegas
Come to think of it... I should get Big Iron on my phone ASAP. That is a heck of an earworm!

[Fri]

Here's one underrated Weird West.

The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.

Though calling it Weird West isn't exactly fitting. It's a Korean western set in the manchuria in the roaring twenties (or was it 30s? whatever). But I guess I'll call it weird west because it's set in korea, which is unusual for western, and stylish instead of realistic. My favourite action movie of all time, bare none. Western, eastern, bollywood, whatever, this is my favourite action movie. Got an awesome stylish, hong-kong style shoot-out, kick-ass soundtrack, and one of the best and most intense chase scene ever in the climax.

Here's a trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzNnCK5cd8Q

[Hopeless]

Silverado?

[hamishspence]

Finally there are the rare attempts at making legitimate fantasy worlds that have western elements (The Warded/Painted Man (I have only read this book so I cannot vouche for the other books in Peter V Brett's Demon Cycle), China Miéville's Iron Council (third book in the Bas-Lag Cycle others are well written but not even a little bit Western), Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.)

David Gemmell's Jon Shannow books spring to mind.

[TheThan]

Silverado?

That’s another good one.
And one of the few Kevin Costner films I can sit through in one sitting (why are his movies so long and boring?).

[Ebon_Drake]

The classic Clint Eastwood movies like A Fistful of Dollars are pretty hard to beat.

I really liked the Coen Brothers' relatively recent version of True Grit. It was a decent combination of a classic western with their typical dark humour.


And then there's always Fallout New Vegas
Come to think of it... I should get Big Iron on my phone ASAP. That is a heck of an earworm!

Johnny Cash performed a fine cover of Big Iron on American IV: The Man Comes Around. I heartily recommend it.

[McStabbington]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiEH5DMx78&list=FLOrwLWeEmlBon3dgg6C0G6g&index=4

This is a slightly misleading title, but also, how can you incorporate an Old West style gun slinger into a Fantasy setting, well convincingly?

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Read it. Trust me, it's right up your alley if you're looking for a mashup of Western and Fantasy.

That being said, Westerns were kind of a bedrock of television for about twenty years, so in a way, everything that followed from it also evolved out of it. You can't watch an episode of Gunsmoke or Maverick without tripping across a plot you've seen done afterwards five or ten times in Brooklyn, outer space, in medieval London, etc., because the plots are constantly recycled and updated. So in a way, every modern fantasy is a mashup with Westerns because Westerns are so very influential on both the plot and cinematic language of film. Trying to imagine, say, TNG or Game of Thrones without the Western is like trying to imagine a Kubrick film without the influence of Melies' A Trip to the Moon. It just can't be done.

[Ebon_Drake]

Trying to imagine, say, TNG or Game of Thrones without the Western is like trying to imagine a Kubrick film without the influence of Melies' A Trip to the Moon. It just can't be done.

QFT, although I'd say Star Trek: TOS has a more obvious Western influence than TNG.

It's also worth noting the genre's influence on Star Wars: Han. Greedo. 'nuff said.

[Killer Angel]

This is a slightly misleading title, but also, how can you incorporate an Old West style gun slinger into a Fantasy setting, well convincingly?

not exactly a standard western, but this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DExlXcU20U) is pretty unusual...

[Philistine]

-stuff-

This is what I was getting at, only here it's much more thoroughly explained.

[Bhu]

Alas I have not seen many Westerns, but from what I can remmeber I can suggest these:


If you're looking for a horror take on westerns try some of the following:

The Burrowers
Dead Birds
Grim Prairie Tales
High Plains Drifter
Near Dark
Ravenous
Westworld
The White Buffalo

If you want more straight westerns try these:

True Grit (either version)
Django Unchained
No Country for Old Men
Quigley Down Under
Unforgiven
Pale Rider
A Fistftul of DYnamite
Jeremiah Johnson
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
A FIstful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
Django
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Death Rides a Horse
The Great SIlence
Once Upon a Time in the West


And if you want something different:

Rango
Tears of the Black Tiger (thai)
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (korean)
Outland
El Topo
Blazing Saddles


To incorporate gunslingers: make a Feat called Craft Gun. A gun is an item similar to a wand, but can be made with any spell that does damage and has a target of 1 creature. Unlike Wnads guns can be used by anyone, even without Use Magic Item, but have more limited charges as a result (but unlike wands can be recharged).

[thompur]

Two obvious(to me, at least) TV series come to mind: The Wild Wild West, and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., as well as a show I enjoyed from the earliest days of the UPN network, Legend.

[Avilan the Grey]

Cash performed a fine cover of Big Iron on American IV: The Man Comes Around. I heartily recommend it.

I might get both.


That’s another good one.
And one of the few Kevin Costner films I can sit through in one sitting (why are his movies so long and boring?).

Oh he is good, as long as you don't allow him to direct. He is really good in 13 Days, for example.

[Shyftir]

I'm working on writing a Louis L'Amore style story set in a fantasy version of early western expansion. So far I have one short story and a lot of ideas...