The Smurfs at the O.K. Corral

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Smurfs at the O.K. Corral

We may take this as official: the something-istas who make movies think you and I are idiots. Exhibit A, The Smoking Phaser: Cowboys and Aliens.

Movies are art. They fuse visuals with the essentials of literature, plot, character, and setting, and through this dialectic make something new. This relatively new art is still evaluated by transcendent aesthetics: Is this beautiful? Does this speak well of the human condition? Does this speak truth? Is the audience in some way better or happier for having considered the work?

Films, like other forms of art, tend to follow genres. One does not compare The Bells of St. Mary’s to a Three Stooges wheeze because while both address misunderstandings and portray humans positively, they do so in entirely different ways. We see conflicts of good and evil both in Robin Hood and in Star Wars, but we would be greatly surprised if the Sheriff of Nottingham and merry Robin were to draw light-sabres on each other. Even within a genre the forms of address can be so very different that they could not with integrity be conflated: Support Your Local Sheriff isn’t Red River, nor should it be; each film enjoys its own valid artistry.

Given an aesthetic reality which is obvious to a ten-year-old, what were the producers of Cowboys and Aliens thinking? Not much of the audience, certainly.

However, not wanting to miss out on the possible profits to be ill-gotten from this trend, I offer to modern film producers the following cowboy-fusion treatments for their consideration:

The Smurfs at the O.K. Corral
Bridezillas Meet Jesse James
Sushi Red River
The Ballet Russe at the Alamo
Beavis and Butthead Ride the High Country
The Man from Laramie’s Starbuck’s
The Lone Ranger and Captain Kirk
Sergeant Rutledge on Sesame Street
The Northwest Mounted Therapists
Across the Wide Ganges with Daniel Boone and Mohandas Ghandi
Belle Starr Does Riverdance
Zorro and Princess Leia Save the Harp Seals from the Evil Canadians
They Died With Their Cell ‘Phones On
The Short Texan
Davy Crockett and Ringo Starr Solve the Debt Crisis at Fort Apache
The Santa Fe Email
Gabby Hayes – Vampire
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in Libya
Buffalo Bill Meets Mussolini
Zorro and Mickey Mouse against the Martians
Gene Autry and the Invisible Copper Wire Thieves of El Dorado Meet Batman
Annie Oakley and the Hell’s Angels in Hawaii
Cochise, Shogun Peace Activist
Pancho Villa and Hercule Poirot in Old Kentucky
Destry Bicycles Again
The Nazi Undead Who Shot Liberty Valance
Ho Chi Minh and the Cosmic Apaches

Gabby Hayes – Vampire. Dude! That has Palm d’Or written all over it.

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