Please stop comparing Superhero films to Westerns

Since at least the 1920s…

4 Likes

There is also the nostalgia thing—in a western for the 19th century, which some people still remembered, as opposed to in a superhero film for our own youthful memories of comic books

4 Likes

And Kurosawa borrowed heavily from Shakespeare. It’s turtles all the way down.

6 Likes

Gosh. You don’t say. Someone should make a joke about that… /s

3 Likes
6 Likes

Too Big

9 Likes

It would be pretty fucking weird to discuss Logan without comparing it to a western.

4 Likes

Never!

There’s actually a lot of parallels between the two film genres which make them a natural fit. Including, but not limited to, the archetype of the stoic killer hero, the fact that the decades preceding and following the Meiji restoration lined up nicely with The Wild West, both being periods of huge societal change which is easily romanticized, etc.

If anything, Samurai films should be borrowing more plots from Westerns.

3 Likes

[Kurosawa side-eye]

12 Likes

Yes, because the western borrowed all that from Samurai films, specifically Kurosawa…

7 Likes

:musical_note: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be X-Men… :musical_note:

6 Likes

Captain America Lol GIF by mtv

4 Likes

Spaghetti Westerns were mostly critical of assumptions underlying the genre. (Sergio Corbucci being the most notably political)

There is an entire subgenre which is practically Marxist in its criticism (Where the Mexican Revolution is a setting. The “Zapata Westerns”)

10 Likes

My favorite American remake of a Kurosawa movie is probably A Bug’s Life.

6 Likes

The one which doesn’t get enough recognition is Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken and Bruce Dern.

4 Likes
2 Likes

War movies, it depends on the scale and the conflict.

It used to be easier when black and white was the norm, because you could use actual war footage for filler. (Color war footage seldom matched as easily to Hollywood shot stuff)

The explosion of Vietnam films after Platoon (1986-89) came largely due to film friendliness of the Philippine government. Providing vehicles, equipment and people when necessary.

They shot 11 seasons of MASH in the hills of California and 7 seasons of Combat on backlot sets.

5 Likes

The setting of the war helped too. It’s easier to find a film locale that looks like the jungles of Southeast Asia and set off some pyrotechnics in the foliage than to (say) shoot a convincing recreation of the Blitz.

6 Likes

There’s no doubt that Kurosawa’s work was hugely influential on many of the great westerns, but the genre was pretty well established by the time he made his first film in 1943. By then the movie studios had already been filming Westerns for a full four decades, and the themes of stoic cowboy heroes and societal change had already been shown in several of them. (But maybe just not as well.)

4 Likes

A brief history of 20th Century film influence:

influence

(For his part Kurosawa was a fan of John Ford’s films)

16 Likes