By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Science fiction is both a genre unto itself and the perfect base to support any other genre you can think of, from horror (Alien), drama (Arrival), comedy (Spaceballs), and even romance (Upside Down), but nothing has meshed as perfectly as sci-fi Westerns. On the surface, the two genres seem like they wouldn’t have a lot in common; after all, one includes spaceships, and the other uses horses, but in practice, the two are so complementary that it’s now hard to imagine them standing on their own. There’s been a handful of breakout hits, but this list of cult classics with their own die-hard fanbases is a tribute to how well the mash-up works: Firefly, Trigun, Killjoys, Prospect, and while Borderlands the movie was a disaster, the video game series is another great example how this is the perfect combination.
Life On The Edge Of Civilization
The best sci-fi Westerns prove that living a life on the frontier is the same whether you’re colonizing a new planet or Wyoming. Heroes are gunslingers, villains are either ruthless businessmen or brutal killers with no respect for the law, and the vast distance from civilization means craving out a living against the brutal environment however you can. Once you see how the two genres constantly overlap, you’ll start to notice it everywhere, from Star Wars: A New Hope to Riddick.
Sci-fi Westerns have had the most success not with movies but on the small screen, where the influence of classic shows like Gunsmoke and Wagon Train proves some formulas will always work no matter the decade. The first example everyone thinks of is Firefly, which mixed six-shooters with space travel and even included an episode entirely around trying to save a brothel from a local villainous gang. Even the theme song sounds like a country ballad about freedom.
Over A Century Of Sci-Fi Westerns
Firefly wasn’t the first of the genre mashups; the 80s gave us the Saturday morning cartoon Bravestarr set on the planet of New Texas and the Sean Connery sci-fi western Outland, featuring the star as a Marshall on one of Jupiter’s moons. In the 90s, there was the anime Trigun, Outlaw Star, and Cowboy Bebop, all of which are still among the best of the medium. Even after the Nathan Fillion star-making series hit theaters with Serenity, there’s been more, including the more Western than sci-fi series Defiance and the overlooked bounty hunter series Killjoys.
Beyond the screen, one of the first sci-novels ever written, in 1868, was a sci-fi western, The Steam Man of the Prairies, about a young boy who created a steam-powered giant that took him on adventures across the frontier. In the 50s, during the space race, a few authors experimented with the genres fused together, including Lone Star Planet by John J. McGuire from 1958 and then, more recently, the Cowboys & Aliens graphic novel, which ended up inspiring the movie flop.
There will always be an appeal to life on the frontier, whether it’s a moon of Jupiter or along the Oregon Trail, and the continued success of sci-fi westerns over the decades proves it. Science fiction aims to explore the problems of today through the lens of the future, but that doesn’t mean it should ignore the lessons of the past and in fact, when it embraces the classic tropes and symbolism of the West, it’s able to reach new heights.
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