In 1873, New Mexico Territory, an unnamed loner (Daniel Craig) awakens in the desert injured, with no memory, and a strange metal band shackled to his wrist. He wanders into the small town of Absolution, where the local preacher, Meacham (Clancy Brown), treats his wound. After the stranger subdues Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who has been terrorizing the populace, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) recognizes him as Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw, and tries to arrest him. Jake nearly escapes, but a mysterious woman named Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) knocks him out.
Percy's father, Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a rich and influential cattleman, arrives with his men and demands that Percy be released to him. He also wants Jake, who stole Dolarhyde's gold. During the standoff, alien spaceships begin attacking the town, and Percy, the sheriff, and many townsfolk are abducted. Jake shoots down one ship with a device concealed in his wrist band, ending the attack.
Dolarhyde, Ella, and some townsfolk form a posse to track an alien that may have ejected from the downed ship. Jake, meanwhile, travels to an abandoned cabin, and in a flashback, recalls returning there with the gold just before he and a woman, Alice, were abducted by the aliens. Jake returns to join the posse. During the night, the alien they were tracking appears and kills Meacham.
By the next morning, most of the posse has deserted, and the others are attacked by Jake's former gang. Jake, who stole the gang's loot after their last heist, attempts to retake control, but fails. As he and the others flee, the aliens begin attacking again and Ella is seized. Jake jumps aboard the ship and attacks the alien pilot, causing the ship to crash, but Ella is mortally wounded.
Chiricahua Apaches capture the posse, blaming them for the alien attacks. As Ella's body is dumped on a fire, she is fully resurrected. Ella is actually an alien who traveled to Earth to help resist the invaders after they destroyed her homeworld. The aliens, who have been abducting humans to perform experiments on, are also mining gold to power their machines. They are not invulnerable, however: Jake's gauntlet weapon can kill them, as well as stabbing and shooting, though the creatures are far stronger and more durable than humans and have superior weapons. Ella claims Jake holds the secret to the aliens' whereabouts and says they must stop them before they exterminate all life on the planet. After drinking the Indians' medicinal brew, Jake recalls that Alice died in an alien experiment, but he escaped, inadvertently stealing the alien weapon. He can also remember the aliens' hidden location.
Armed with this knowledge, the group, now led by Colonel Dolarhyde, prepares to attack the aliens' grounded mothership. Jake returns to his old gang and persuades them to join the fight. In a sneak attack, the humans breach the spaceship, forcing the aliens into a ground battle. Jake and Ella board the ship and free the captives, but Jake is captured. Dolarhyde rescues him and both men escape the ship after killing the alien leader. As the remaining aliens are taking off in their damaged craft, Ella sacrifices herself, destroying the ship using Jake's gauntlet.
Jake's memory partially returns, and some abducted townsfolk can recall their past, while others, including Percy Dolarhyde, cannot. Still a wanted man, Jake decides to leave; the sheriff and Dolarhyde say they will claim that he was killed. The citizens intend to rebuild the town with the expectation that the newly discovered gold mine will soon bring many new settlers.
[edit] Cast
The cast includes:
Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw with amnesia
Harrison Ford as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, a powerful and rich cattleman who controls the town of Absolution
Olivia Wilde as Ella Swenson, a mysterious traveler
Sam Rockwell as Doc, a saloon owner
Paul Dano as Percy Dolarhyde, Woodrow's trouble-making son
Clancy Brown as Meacham, a plain-spoken preacher
Keith Carradine as Sheriff John Taggart
Noah Ringer as Emmett Taggart, John Taggart's grandson
Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, Colonel Dolarhyde's right-hand man
Abigail Spencer as Alice, Jake's lost love
Ana de la Reguera as María, Doc's wife
Walton Goggins as Hunt, a bandit
Julio Cesar Cedillo as Bronc, a bandit
David O'Hara as Pat Dolan, Lonergan's former gang-member
Raoul Trujillo as Chiricahua Apache chief, Black Knife
Brendan Wayne as Deputy Lyle
[edit] Production
[edit] Development and casting
The project began development in 1997, when Universal Pictures and DreamWorks bought film rights to a concept pitched by Rosenberg, former president at Malibu Comics, which he described as a graphic novel in development. They hired Steve Oedekerk to write and direct the film, which Oedekerk planned to do after completing Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Rosenberg, who formed Platinum Studios to pursue adapting Cowboys & Aliens and other Malibu Comics properties into film and television, joined as a producer. By 1998, Oedekerk left the project to pursue a remake of the 1964 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet with Jim Carrey.By 2004, the film rights were acquired by Columbia Pictures, who did not move the project beyond development.
In 2006, Rosenberg published Cowboys & Aliens as a graphic novel. In the following year, Universal and DreamWorks partnered again to adapt Cowboys & Aliens into a film.[8] In June 2008, Robert Downey, Jr. entered negotiations to star in the film as Zeke Jackson, a former Union Army gunslinger. While Downey, Jr. was making Iron Man 2, he told director Jon Favreau about Cowboys & Aliens. Favreau investigated the project, and in September 2009, he joined as director.Downey, Jr. left the project in January 2010, to star in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,and later in the month, Daniel Craig was hired to replace him.Favreau said Craig's portrayal as James Bond "brings a certain virtuosity".He also described Craig, "On the one hand, he's like this Jason Bourne type, a leading man who's also a lethal character, but on the other hand, he's also got a lot of humanity and vulnerability to him."
In April 2010, Harrison Ford was cast alongside Craig.[16] Favreau had cast Craig and Ford in the film because they were actors who suited the action-adventure roles so the characters would be less seen as comedic. The director compared Ford, in particular, with John Wayne in having "a sense of history" with the actor and the role.[14] Before Cowboys & Aliens, Ford's only Western film was The Frisco Kid in 1979.While Ford is well-known for playing Indiana Jones, the filmmakers wanted to avoid giving him a cowboy hat that would remind audiences too much of Jones. Writer Alex Kurtzman said, "We needed to make sure that—no pun intended—we tipped a hat to iconography of Harrison Ford and also presented the audience with a very different version."
Olivia Wilde was cast in one of the lead roles, and Favreau called Wilde's character the key to the film. Rockwell was also cast in a supporting role as Doc. The character was described as a large Mexican in the original script,but when Favreau and the writers learned of Rockwell's interest in the film, they reconceived and expanded the role. Favreau himself is known for appearing in his films, but for Cowboys & Aliens, he chose not to have a cameo because he thought it would affect the tone of the film.
When asked about how the film was developing, Rosenberg stated, "It's incredible. Sometimes it's like seeing exactly what was going through my head when I first had that spark in my head as a kid. Jon Favreau's bringing his own talent and vision with the adaptation, but at the same time it remains true to what I was really trying to get at in the original story."
Steven Spielberg, one of the film's executive producers, visited the director and the writers during pre-production to look over the script and the artwork. He provided Favreau with a collection of classic Western films.[] Spielberg also invited the director and the writers to a private screening of several Western films and provided live commentary on how to make one properly.The films included Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, and Destry Rides Again.
[edit] Writing
In the film's period as a developing project under several studios, different versions of the screenplay were drafted by numerous screenwriters, beginning with Oedekerk. Other screenwriters involved included David Hayter, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Jeffrey Boam, Thompson Evans, and Chris Hauty. When Universal and DreamWorks re-partnered in 2007, they had hired Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus. In 2009, Ostby and Fergus were replaced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Damon Lindelof.[23] Kurtzman and Orci watched and analyzed American Western films including The Searchers. Orci said, "The first draft was very kind of jokey and broad and then it went very serious. You kind of swing back and forth between the two extremes and the tone until you find the exact right point where a Western and a sci-fi movie can really shake hands without it seeming unnatural."[] "Imagine you're watching Unforgiven and then Aliens land," Orci explained.
Orci also said, "The comic has the themes of enemies uniting to fight a common enemy and has the setting of that specific time period, so we kept the inspiration from all of that. In terms of the specifics of the story and who these characters are, we wanted the audience to be surprised and to not feel like they've already seen everything if they were fans of the comic. So, while the themes and the setting and many of the elements are a great inspiration, the story is completely adapted and translated for live action." The aliens were loosely based on the Anunnaki gods of Zecharia Sitchin's interpretation of the Babylonian religion, who have a distinct interest in gold.
[edit] Filming
On June 30, 2010, principal photography for Cowboys & Aliens began[27] at Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico.[28] One of the filming locations was Plaza Blanca, "The White Place", where Western films like The Missing, 3:10 to Yuma, City Slickers, Young Guns and The Legend of the Lone Ranger had been filmed.[22] Sound stage work took place in Los Angeles, with additional location shooting at Randsburg, California. Filming finished on September 30.
A scene in which Craig's character rides a horse alongside a ravine and jumps down it onto a spacecraft emulated many scenes in American Western films where cowboys rode along a moving train and jumped on it. Favreau said the scene referenced the one in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones chases a truck and noted that a similar scene existed in the 1939 film Stagecoach, saying "We're constantly referencing back to our roots."
[edit] Design and effects
Scott Chambliss was hired as the production designer based on his work on Star Trek, produced by Orci and Kurtzman. The visual effects were created by Industrial Light & Magic, represented by Roger Guyett as the visual effects supervisor.[31] The film also features practical puppet aliens created by Legacy Effects, under the supervision of Shane Mahan.
Favreau noted that Cowboys & Aliens focused on a specific aspect of the alien genre which mostly revolved around the films of the eighties. "And although we have quite a bit of CG – I like the way they told stories before – before you could show everything with CG. And it was a real unveiling of the creature, little by little, and using lighting and camera work and music to make it a very subjective experience. And so we tried to preserve that here," he pointed out.
Cowboys & Aliens will not be shown in 3-D. When approached with the idea by DreamWorks, Favreau was not interested, stating that Westerns should be shot only on film (as opposed to being shot digitally, which is required for modern 3D technology),[33] and didn't want it to be converted after filming. "That would be like filming in black and white and colorizing it," he reasoned.
Here below the official movie posters of Cowboys and Aliens:
(Click on a poster to enlarge.)
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Cowboys And Aliens
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Cowboys And Aliens
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