Cowboys & Aliens — Why Massive Hollywood Blockbusters Fail | Anatomy of a Failure

if you believe we have crashed craft uh stated earlier do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft as I've stated publicly already in my news Nation interview biologics came with some of these recoveries yeah were they I guess human or non-human biologics non-human and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program it was this documentary evidence video photos foreign [Music] aliens is our wannabe sci-fi Western Blockbuster from 2011 where Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert thinking that is Jason Bourne without a name or memory after which he quickly runs into trouble in a nearby town with some cowboys as well as of course as the title suggests one yeah aliens attack do snatch a bunch of people up like cattle and then Daniel Craig joins forces with a local Tycoon Harrison Ford to go save them and essentially a couple of Canadians as a movie functions much like its main hero all of us most likely at some point have heard of it yet none of us really remember it which is pretty strange considering that it's one of the biggest Hollywood movies to date not only due to its massive budget and massive leading actors but also because of the Giants behind the screen we have a seemingly endless writing credits with some of the most hollywoodest of Hollywood screenwriters we have a super hot director coming in after launching the modern superhero craze we have Titans of Industry producing including Steven Spielberg as well as Ron Howard hey that's a big with all those names and more mentioned what could possibly go wrong well we still need more money yeah Cowboys and Aliens is a classic Hollywood Blockbuster Tale in that it's this big movie that was meant to soar into the sky only to crash and burn because most people didn't like it or go see it and I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why like the cold hard fact that the movie just feels there are some interesting and entertaining elements present like whining crying Paul Daniel constantly getting his ass kicked foreign [Music] but as a whole it's a pretty generically boring experience but of course since blanket arguments like generic and boring aren't really tangible or helpful to the rest of us I thought today we could look at Cowboys and Aliens in a deeper sense because what I'd argue to be the main problem deep in his core that turned it into this forgettable flop is that it crumbles under its own weight there are so many big people and Visions behind it such massive character actors in it such an extensive variety of conceptual elements in play Within it that ultimately there is nothing because it all cancels each other out like magnets of the same kind in other words the movie lacks specificity which in filmmaking is pretty much you so yeah let's take a closer look at what that means why Cowboys and Aliens became yet another generic Hollywood flop that gets talked about only when some random YouTuber years later brings it up here's why specificity is a necessity foreign the first key reason this movie feels so generically meh is that the specialty of its conceptual elements mostly is not used to create special scenes as a quick example look at the opening where Daniel Craig awakes in the desert without memory with a wound in his stomach and a strange bracelet stuck on his wrist before he can even get on his feet some local o'drisco boys having to ride by figuring that this dude could be a fugitive worth Bounty money got iron on his wrist he's been shot could be done broken the setup of the scene works just fine but when it comes to the actual play-by-play well [Applause] yeah Daniel Craig just kind of takes these guys out and then rides out with their gear there's nothing wrong with that but the issue is that it's a usual standoff scene you've seen in a hundred other westerns done by filmmakers way more talented there's just nothing special here nothing to make it stand out because it specialty is not used whereas if for example you also use the mysterious alien bracelet if Daniel Craig have accidentally activated it to blast the last couple of physical bows away you'd have a fresh angle for this scene it would make the scene look and feel different than the versions of it you've seen in as Sergio Leone movie due to the fact that Sergio Leone didn't have an alien bracelet to use or if not that yet at least something smaller because I mean the movie is called Cowboys and Aliens there's not really any mystery as to the origin of this thing and for most of the runtime the movie keeps falling into this same trap Daniel Craig rides into town and stumbles into a preacher who fixes his wound which could happen exactly like so in any other Western he goes outside to see some restfuls causing havoc and gets involved because he's a quite badass maybe you don't know which could happen exactly like so in any other Western he gets his keys crossed with a local power because of his badass nature and also gets in trouble with the law because of his Shady Outlaw past which could happen exactly like so in any other Western and has indeed happened it gets to the point where we enter the end of the First Act still without any proper standout specialty so far we've only had one quick disconnected scene with bright lights it's basically there as well as some scary Visions that's it mostly what you see you could have and have seen anywhere which begs the question of what's the point why would I watch an average imitation of Sergio Leone when I could be watching Sergio Leone now to be fair the concept is used more from here on out at the end of act 1 the aliens attack the town and we get this cool scene of breaking out of jail while alien ships blast by lassoing people with them this is a familiar Western scene done in a very different way that you could only see here great and there's even more there's a casino vessel upside down in a desert which is a very unique location that I actually remembered there's the hero's love interest being burned on a pyre and then walking out naked which is quite out of the ordinary and at the end we have westerners and natives joining forces to fight Alien Invaders that's a western movie scene that you can find only in this particular western movie that's something worth remembering and paying for [Applause] foreign as a whole these conceptual elements just aren't used enough the alien bracelet seems to activate only at times when the plot absolutely demands it the love interest is another kind of alien but outside of that one and nude scene and some Exposition she may as well not be it makes no difference the aliens are after gold which ties them neatly to a central western topic but without much effect because gold isn't relevant in any real detailed way there's nothing special gold is needed for here people get called at the end and then all they do with it is buy drinks which is the same way gold is always used in these movies those goals can make things different I have a railroad in here soon as in the conceptual specialty is there but not utilized enough to be special I guess what I'm getting at is to think of your conceptual elements as an alien gun when it comes to building a scene in a western movie you can never survive against Sergio Leone not in a fair fight but if you draw your alien gun that Sergio Leone doesn't have at least now you got a chance concept is of use only when used an alien bracelet is only a bracelet until utilized as an alien bracelet or just to make this less convoluted let's forget the Alien Part let's say that for your summer holiday your grandma gives you a brand new bracelet a special bracelet because it can make you smarter it can it can teach you a language like Spanish you know you turn it on and then you can do these fun 15 minute interactive Spanish lessons every day which allows you to have a conversation in Spanish in just three weeks great well that specialty is there only if you actually turn the bracelet on to use it if you don't all you have is a brick on your wrist and an unpleased grandma that's your conceptual element and the audience right yeah that makes sense oh and the bracelet special software is Real by the way and it's called Babel it's the super efficient and easy to use language app that fits your daily life and teaches you through a variety of non-boring Hands-On methods quizzes games podcasts even live classes designed by real language teachers to get you talking in three weeks in just 15 minutes per day you say espanol more beer if you want to learn a language for work Babel is sponsoring a 60 filamental discount with the link below or the QR code on screen so do check it out thanks the second key reason this movie feels so forgettably blur is that characters lack specificity to create scenes with which reduces most scenes to follow basic prompts if you look at the opening again what you'll notice is that nothing is known about the hero that could Propel the story forward he is wounded and he has the bracelet and a photo of some woman but there's nothing about him to move things not even a trail to follow like with born as in we have a wounded guy in a desert so what do you think is gonna happen next that's right he goes to fit an issue with this is that it's a story point that 99 of other writers in this situation will write oh the hero is wounded well of course the next logical thing is to go fix it which is not exactly a good storytelling because now you're telling a story that pretty much every other similar movie is telling you get lost in the noise please audience um well it's entirely your choice and a lot of the movie is like this most of what happens is a basic Western prompt we go to town and there's trouble in town that pulls Us in because we're a quite badass we get in trouble with the law in town because we have this backstory of being a badass Outlaw or in tarnation we get mixed up with powerful locals because we just happen to miss with the wrong person it's all other circumstantial or born from the most obvious backstory known to every Rider and it keeps repeating when we set out to find the townspeople captured by the aliens we soon get ambushed by Daniel Craig's old gang who have turned against him because he's actually a pretty good guy that left the gang because of someone we need that money when the Gangsta is over with we soon get ambushed by natives who take us to their Camp as prisoners but then become friendly because turns out they're not so bad thank you I mean even the whole emotional basis for us to find the aliens is that Daniel Craig sees visions of his supposed ex-girlfriend so of course we will need to go save her there's nothing necessarily wrong with any of that but it's not really standing out either it's all stuff you've seen a thousand times before because it is the most obvious way to tell this story and as for the reason why that's so I'd say it's because there aren't any specific enough qualities about these characters to write from in terms of goals and motivations and personality and whatever the hero is literally a passive shell with no objective to actively Chase so the only way to write the movie is to use basic prompts to make stuff happen to him the hero has no emotional investment in a journey I don't care so the only way to give him investment is to show quick visions of a hot woman he apparently loved and of course he needs emotion in the present too so let's add this other hot woman to get intimate with him even though that goes fully against the emotional basis with the first woman the woman did you love her a dead man I can't remember all I know is [Music] what I'm getting at is that specificity of narrative comes from specificity of character like blue Bloom breaking into a house after robbery to get footage he can sell to the news and moving dead bodies at an accident site before police arrive to get a better shot these are scenes you can see only in this movie these matter one for the triple murder in Granada Hills last night because it's the specific nature of this character that creates them wide angle we want all of this [Music] whereas if you don't do that then you get stuff like with Harrison Ford here his gist is that he's this powerful cattle Tycoon with an army of henchmen that Rivals even the law which is an interesting basis that you can do a lot with I mean they made a whole show about it and yet it's not really relevant here he goes on a journey with no involvement of the law which is the handful of henchmen who get killed off almost immediately so then what is this character what's the point of having this powerful cattle Tycoon if he's not being that in his story what can you do with him nothing he's just kind of this grumpy old guy there for the ride he's Harrison Ford being Harrison Ford and even though Hashem Ford is great I can see him be Harrison Ford elsewhere I don't need this movie for that says if you're such a great warrior why do you only have a man and a boy to follow you into battle oh no specialty of story comes from specialty of character so identify what is special about your character and write the story specifically from that because if you're a preacher character for example functions like a doctor it will always take value away from the doctor character a powerful Tycoon who isn't a powerful tycoon in a story is easily reduced to nothing thank you [Music] thirdly the reason this movie feels like such a mediocre is that the most inherent special element in it the aliens is so unspecific in his specialty that there is no specialty to give you a sense of what I mean look at what the aliens are initially we see them fly these agile ships in the night to lasso people with them as they disappear in a blink and when one ship crashes it has this tiny cockpit from which the pilot has to knock away meaning that it's like they're this physically inferior race of intellect-based beings Who hide in the shadows and strike suddenly with technology except it turns out that that's not what they are at all right it turns out the aliens are actually these hulking monsters that the runneth you in the battlefield mindlessly to bite your head off which is pretty weird because it contradicts everything from before why do they need these rating ships if they're so physically gifted it's it's hard to even picture them flying one of these how come they can sneak in the shadows if they're these massive bees um I'm pretty sure you'd hear them coming a mile away what in tarnations and what's the point of them using features the weapon stack if they can just run up to you and slay you all right to be clear contrast and irony can be effective a big guy who hides that can be very cool but what I mean here is that the aliens are so special in so many rivaling areas that all that specialty negates each other sometimes the aliens are shown to have this weakness inside their body when they open their chest to reveal these creepy hands that's probably something Steven Spielberg brought in and it's pretty cool it's how the kid kills one of them great but it only exists in a couple scenes any other time the chest weakness isn't relevant in any way and the aliens are getting killed when someone shoots them in the face and if that's so what's the point of the weakness can you even call it a weakness I mean just shoot them I guess we found out his weakness bullets same on the behavior side the aliens are built up to be highly intelligent with their realistic Ron Howard technology and all but at the end they're reduced being these brainless animals that charge in the battle with no kind of plan which makes it tough to see them as intelligent anymore they show no sentience they don't care for their fallen or protect their comrades or reveal any kind of self-over emotion like hesitation or fear they're just these big CGI monstrosities whose nature seems to shift and change based on the situation for context the aliens in a quiet place are great because they're very specific they're blind animalistic monsters who hunt with sound great of course here the movie just kind of says that yeah the aliens don't see so well in the light they don't see well in daylight but then they see just fine like what are you waffling about the fact that their everything means they're nothing it's difficult to take seriously the fact that one alien holds a grudge against Daniel Craig at the end when outside of that one scene there are these dumb Bulls who seem to have no idea what's even going on in fact it's as if the aliens are whatever the narrative in different moments needs them to be they round up people like cattle and bring them to their Mothership but we never really delve into why cattle implies food but it's not for food the returning bodies to dust you could say there were kidnapping people to study them but still to no end what are they studying why do they need so many people to study that it exposes their presence and why are they blowing everything up what why are they destroying random herds of cattle I don't know I guess that's just what the plot requires I'm blowing up other people's cows [Music] we'll set up for a slice even the fact that the aliens want gold at face value I think it's great it connects them to the heart of the Wild West it allows for a very poetic ending where the bad guy gets dunked in hot goals you've got [Music] you've got everything now but the issue again is that we never delve into what they need called for it's not water it's not vital for survival it's more of a vanity and I don't see the aliens as vain I can't picture them wearing a Rolex I'm just not given enough to invest in or even fully understand why the aliens would assign value to Gold specifically the way humans inherently do because again they don't seem human since there are all these other things as well they want gold this is rare to them as it is to you well that's just ridiculous what are they going to do buy something as a whole what I'm getting at is that specialty is of use only when used wisely and consistently a diamond is valuable yes but mostly so when you find it in a field of sand whereas a diamond that you find in a field of diamonds that has no individual value at all that's just something that gets lost in the abundance that in essence is what happened to Cowboys and alien foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Filmento

Views: 404,322

Keywords: cowboys and aliens, cowboys & aliens, cowboys & aliens 2, cowboys & aliens trailer, cowboys & aliens ending, cowboys & aliens explained, cowboys & aliens fight scene, cowboys & aliens alien scene, cowboys & aliens full movie, cowboys & aliens sequel, cowboys & aliens flop, cowboys & aliens cinemasins, why cowboys & aliens flopped, blockbuster flops, bad summer blockbusters, bad blockbuster movies, screenwriting videos, movie videos, biggest movie flops, biggest flops

Id: t1TaBxkXOWw

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023