All film genres generally boil down to a matter of personal taste. Most general filmgoers probably don’t prefer westerns for their simmering runtimes while others still like to see some dirt getting kicked up on the big screen. Sci-fi is certainly picking up some slack as of lately and is becoming more mainstream every year. While both have been around as far back as movies have been made, they usually don’t cross their streams. I generally prefer the western to sci-fi if only because they tend to be more fun and don’t take themselves as seriously as most sci-fi tend to, but alas it was bound to happen that eventually the two would marry for a summer blockbuster as it now has with Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens.
To make a list of the heavy hitters involved is quite impressive. In the producer's chairs you’ve got Favreau himself, along with Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Steven Spielberg. In the writer category you’ve also got three of the credited screenwriters in Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Damon Lindelof (all three also producing), best known as a trio of J.J. Abrams’ personal cronies. Then when you consider it stars James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), you can’t help but take a deep breath to prepare yourself for what you’re about to partake of.
However, the two additional writers (Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby) have worked with Favreau before on the first Iron Man. While they are credited with the story and co-writing, it would appear that the Abrams crew was possibly brought in to polish things up. How much is left of Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s original story is unknown to me. I tried to read it and could only get through the first ten pages of his graphic novel. It is awful. Let’s just say that there’s aliens, there’s cowboys, and that’s probably all that remains the same and it’s all for our better.
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