Critical summary

Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Cowboys and Aliens: An Alien Thought Experiment

Blaise Pascal

Recently, while watching the 2011 movie ​Cowboys and Aliens​, I got to thinking

about the way in which an alien invasion of earth would, in all likelihood, unite the

peoples of the world in one common goal and what this likelihood says about the real

world today. Initially an indie film favorite, the director of the film Jon Favreau has

progressed to strong mainstream visibility into the millennium and, after nearly two

decades in the business, is still enjoying character stardom as well as earning notice as

a writer/producer/director (Flemming, 2011). While Favreau has been acclaimed for his

better known ​Avengers​ and ​Iron Man​ movies for Marvel, ​Cowboys and Aliens​ is ranked

by Rotten Tomatoes as one his least popular films (Brenzican, 2011).

While frequently entertaining, the film (which was based on the 2006 graphic

novel of the same name by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg) was generally panned by critics

and audiences (McClintock, 2011). But the not-so-obvious moral of the story is still

valuable: human pettiness and selfishness tears us apart when we don’t have a shared

and common culture.

The film, set in New Mexico in the 1870s, is about an eclectic group of cowboys,

outlaws, townsfolk, and Apache indians, who are thrown together by the necessity of

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Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT defending earth against a technologically superior yet monstrous species of alien that

are bent upon the elimination of the human race (Boucher, 2011).

The film begins with outlaw Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up to find a

strange, technological bracelet on his wrist. As the film progresses, it becomes evident

that Lonergan has been abducted by aliens, although he has no memory of the event

until he encounters the Talisman ‘Black Knife’ (Raoul Max Trujillo) who provides him

with traditional medicine to restore his memory.

Lonergan has been fleeing capture by the local cattle magnate, Woodrow

Dolarhyde (played by Harrison Ford). It turns out that Lonergan and his outlaw gang

has stolen some of Lonergan’s gold, but in his attempt to flee Dolarhyde’s armed ranch

hands, Lonergan ends up getting arrested by the local town Sheriff (played by Keith

Carradine) on an outstanding warrant.

Things are not looking good for Lonergan, who has found himself in shackles and

about to be shipped off to Santa Fe to stand trial for robbery. But before the prison

stage can set off, the town and its inhabitants are suddenly attacked by a fleet of alien

spacecraft, which not only kill many of the townsfolk, but abduct dozens of them using

high-tech lassoing.

It quickly becomes evident that the only way the various factions can defeat the

aliens is by working together. Ever faithful to typical hollywood tropes, our group of

heroes-to-be initially eye each other with a combination of distrust and disdain, informed

as they are by prejudice, greed, and self-interest. But the imminence of extermination

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Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT brings the best out of our bunch of misfits, and they all end up good friends in the

process of saving humanity.

Beyond the award-winning great ILM in the film (Desowitz, 2011), the movie

raises many interesting observations about ​human nature​ itself. Extraterrestrial

invasions in fiction are born from the post-industrialized imagination. Aliens typically

represent everything we despise about ourselves: the ugliness of colonialism, the abuse

of technology, and the tyranny of power, all ubiquitous features of civilization over the

past century (Barger, 2013).

Cowboys and Aliens is a film which presents us, from the outset, with the

ugliness and pettiness of human nature. All of the characters have hidden motivations;

all of the characters are, in one way or another, deeply flawed and contribute to the

destruction of the community. But, like many great science fiction movies involving

alien invasions (​Independence Day, War of the Worlds, I Am Legend​), the threat of

extinction itself is enough to override our pettiness, and help us rediscover what is most

important: existence itself, and living with a common purpose. This, so the philosophers

tell us, is the most important value for humans, for all other values flow from this one,

universal principle (Fontanelle, 1686).

There are many lessons for us today to be drawn from ​Cowboys and Aliens​.

We’re living in a world, which--according to increasing research--people are more

politically divided and isolated more than ever (Eidelson, 2013). Social media too plays

a part in separating us from other, and leading us to live individualistic lives in which our

neighbour is, according to Mannix, “a dissociated object” (2013). Once the human

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Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT person becomes something “other” and something “detached”, we are more readily able

to treat them as an “object” for personal gain.

But tragedy is, perhaps, the most compelling of all reasons to bring people

together. Family tragedies bring people together and enable them to bury old hatchets

and grievances. National tragedies, like 9/11, bring nations together, and--at least for

the time being--put political differences on hold. Without a common goal, we become

more and more fragmented. Without a common culture, we become more and more

willing to tear one another apart.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait for an Alien invasion to help us overcome our

current political differences, and to rediscover our shared humanity. Otherwise, the

extraterrestrial invasion signified in Cowboys and Aliens runs the risk of becoming a real

ideological invasion which will destroy culture and lives in the process.

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Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

References

Barger, Andrew (2013). Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Short Stories 1800-1849.

USA: Bottletree Books LLC. pp. 43–44.

Boucher, Geoff (2011). "'Cowboys & Aliens' world premiere will be at

Comic-Con International in San Diego". Los Angeles Times.

Breznican, Anthony (2011). "'Cowboys & Aliens' director Jon Favreau on

Super Bowl sneak, nude Olivia Wilde, and his serious sci-fi/western mash-up –

Exclusive". Entertainment Weekly.

Desowitz, Bill (2011). "ILM Talks Cowboys & Aliens Visual Effects". indieWire.

Archived from the original on 2011-08-12. Retrieved 2011-09-17.

Eidelson, Roy, J; Eidelson, Judy I (2013). "Dangerous ideas: Five beliefs that propel

groups toward conflict". American Psychologist. 58 (3): 182–192

Fleming, Michael (2011). "'Cowboys & Aliens' hits the big screen". Variety.

Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de (1686). Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds.

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Running Head: COWBOYS AND ALIENS: AN ALIEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENT Mannix, E. A. (2013). Organizations as resource dilemmas: The effects of power

balance on coalition formation in small groups. Organizational Behavior and

Human Decision Processes, 55, 1–22.

McClintock, Pamela (2011). "Box Office Upset: 'Smurfs' Beats 'Cowboys &

Aliens' on Friday". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Archived

from the original on July 31, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2011.

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