I just finished watching the second Episode of Firefly, “The Train Job.” As I lye here looking back and thinking it over, the thing that stands out the most for me doesn’t have much to do with the actual storyline or even with the moral of the story. In fact, it has to do more with the setting. Just as the “cowboys” settled the American West or the “new frontier” the “space cowboys” in Firefly are settling the “final frontier,” outer space. The contrast between the futuristic characteristics side by side with the classic western characteristics worked surprisingly well. There were space ships, high tech computers, and digital windows. But, there was also what seemed like a saloon, a town sheriff, and old guns that didn’t seem to belong in that century. Somehow it all managed to work together without seeming too out of the ordinary.
Anyone who has seen a classic Western with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood must have found it just as funny as I did that a television show that is set in the future and was made in modern times still chose to use the cheesy gunfire sound when we now have much more realistic sound bites.
Another strong similarity between this Sci-Fi flick and a Western is the fact that in this particular episode, the crew’s mission was to rob a train. This takes me back to a movie from way back in the day, The Great Train Robbery. I believe it was actually the first true film in the Western genre.
If you had told me prior to today, “Science Fiction and Westerns can be very similar.” I imagine I would have had a good laugh and said something to the effect of, “Yeah right! They are total polar opposites!” Funny thing is, I would be eating my words right about now.
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