In the sense that the author/director (Joss Whedon) specifically called it a Western. If they aren’t Indians in the western, what are they?
Space zombies?
Which reminds me that Ewan McGregor’s character in The Island is named “Lincoln.” As in, you know, the guy who freed the slaves?
In the Simpsons episode Pennywise guys, Homer Simpsons rescues a man from a swarm of grasshoppers and remarks “Whoever thought Homer Simpson would be involved in a day of the locust?”
The Day of the Locust, a 1939 novel by Nathaniel West, has a character named Homer Simpson. I wonder how long the writers have been waiting to work in that reference?
Until I read Bugs Bunny’s TV Tropes page a few months ago, I didn’t realize that in his cartoons, he lets bad guys’ hijinks slide twice. The third time: “Of course you realize, this means WAR!”
Laverne and Shirley
Lenny and Squiggy
I didn’t notice until recently learning it on TV Tropes that the Starcar from The Last Starfighter makes a cameo in the 2015 town square scenes in Back to the Future Part II.
The Reavers aren’t the only enemies, and Firefly does not follow all the Western tropes. The Reavers have numerous characteristics that are not shared with Indians in movie Westerns, which are the only type I was thinking of, and the only type relevant to a movie.
That said, you guys clearly know movie Westerns better than me, so I concede, as long as you guys will also concede that this is not “obvious.” It’s an arguable point, not obvious. I also think I was probably more horrified by the Reavers than any of you were.
It took me a long time to realize that the same notes are played over and over in Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”. It took me even longer to realize the same thing happens in Led Zeppelin’s
“A Fool in the Rain” (though different notes from “W o L”, of course).
Nope, I watched Firefly as a marathon while visiting an English friend. I hadn’t heard of the series, previously. We watched the pilot. He asked “what do you think?” I said “you lied; you said it was science fiction, but it’s cowboys in space”. I then went into an explanation of why I thought that, then as we watched the first few episodes I pointed out additional reasons, matched roles, etc.
The Reavers are the Injuns if you call it “cowboys in space”; call it “explorers in [insert any remote here]” and the Reavers get to be the savage cannibals; heck, make that a scary forest in coal country or a very long road with no gas stations in Arizona and it’s the inbred, six-fingered cannibals. As Miller already explained, they’re not a direct reflection of “movie Indians”, but an instance of the role of “dangerous savages”.
I’ve been watching (and dubbing) various versions of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. I love the way that this film has gone, in only 3o years or so, from an overexposed, chopped up, unwatchable ghost of a Great Old Silent Film to almost completely restored version, lacking only a very few scenes to be complete. It even has the original score accompanying it now.
But there are a couple of things I didn’t notice the first zillion times, and one thing I just noticed now on the complete restoration.
During the first Maria the Robot dance scene (presumably in Yoshiwara’s, although I don’t think they actually say where it is), she is originally supported on a sort of giant serving-dish that is supported on the backs of some burly black guys (statues, almost certainly, as they don’t move). At the end of the dance, when the watching tuxedo-clad rich guys all rsh up like rock groupies and reach for her, the supporting statues have been replaced by the statues of the Seven Deadly Sins from the Metropolis cathedral. This is clear in the restored version, since they show you the Sins statues fading in to replace the Nubians. But even on my crappy old washed-out and carved up 35+ year old copy it’s clear (if you look) that the statues have been replaced. But I never noticed.
One other thing that I noticed many years ago is that the work clock in Fredersen’s office – one of the first shots in the film – shows a ten hour clock. It’s an interesting visual, because you don’t catch t at first. You’re too diverted by everything else that’s unusual, including the weird way the numbers are drawn. but eventually it sinks in. It’s never made clear exactly why they’re there – have they gone to Digital Time, and these time periods aren’t really the same length as out hours? Or do they signify a ten-hour workday? (this seems more likely to me, and in keeping with the theme of worker exploitation) In either case, it shows that this isn’t our world, but some odd futuristic one with things subtly different.
But there is ONE clock in Metropolis that doesn’t have a ten hour dial. It’s the wristwatch on Fredersen, which we get to glimpse when he’s visiting Rotwang, as Rotwang is deciphering the plans that were found on the bodies of injured workers. It’s possible that the shot was a mistake, and they simply used an existing watch, not noticing the discrepancy. But the shot of the watch fills the screen, and good filmmmakers plan theur shots. If the shot was deliberate, it subtly indicates that Fredersen, as not only a member of the elite, but the actual Man At The Top, is not bound by the ten-hour work clock that rules the lives of the workers.
I agree with you. The Reavers are Zombies, not Indians. And there is way to much moral ambiguity in the series to fit neatly into the Western genre.
But zombies are not powered by emotions as the Reavers are. Zombies don’t rape, they don’t lay down traps, they don’t even enjoy eating brains. It’s just what they do.
The enthusiasm, sneaky bastardry and kill-frenzy that characterizes the Reavers puts them much more squarely in stereotypical Injuns territoy.
The only zombies who eat brains do, in fact, set traps.
I would have to see some Zombie polling data before I could agree with this.
Sorry, but when you say “the only type relevant to a movie,” are you saying that movies can’t draw from literature for inspiration?
Sorry, like I said, it’s really, really obvious to me. To the point where I genuinely don’t understand how someone can not see it.
I’m also not sure why you think you found them scarier than the rest of us did, or how that’s significant.
I don’t think the morality is really all that unambiguous in Firefly. The ethics get a bit murky, but the morality is made pretty clear in the first broadcast episode, when Mal gives up a big paycheck and pisses off a powerful crime boss rather than steal medicine from sick people. Certainly, there’s nothing in the series that approaches the moral ambiguity of The Searchers or The Unforgiven.
Well, fairer to say the original brain eating zombies set traps. The trope has spread pretty far beyond Return of the Living Dead at this point.
I can see the parallel, although it never occurred to me when I watched Firefly and to be honest, I don’t find it a particularly interesting parallel.
I would say that neither The Searchers nor Unforgiven fit “neatly” into the Western genre. 
OTOH, while not nearly as good a movie as your examples, Silverado fits pretty much perfectly.
Remember Mal kicking the guy into the ship’s engine? Remember him kicking the colonist off their scooter-dealie and leaving him for the Reavers? That’s the kind of moral ambiguity I’m thinking of.
I haven’t really thought about this, so you can probably find good reasons why I’m wrong, but to me it seems more of a Cold War thriller, with the Alliance as the Soviet Union and the crew as a group of partisan freedom fighters.
On thinking about this a little more, there’s not many flicks I can think of featuring Commies versus partisans. But if you change it to WWII and Nazis versus partisans, that works prety well too.
Really? I’d call them the acme of the genre.
I’d forgotten about the colonist, actually - and that was clearly morally ambiguous. It also gets called out by Zoe as uncharacteristically callous for Mal.
I’d argue that kicking the guy - an unrepentant murderer working for the worst crime boss in the system, who has just sworn to hunt you down and kill you and all your friends - into the engine isn’t really all that morally ambiguous. He was an evil man stating his intention to do evil things. Kicking him into the engine wasn’t fair, in the sense that the guy didn’t have a real chance to fight back, but “fair” and “moral” aren’t quite the same thing.
Except the crew aren’t really freedom fighters, except (arguably) in the movie. They’re not politically motivated. And there’s no Cold War going on - indeed, there’s no secondary, non-Alliance government for there to be a Cold War with. Mal isn’t a Cold Warrior, he’s Jesse James - a former Confederate soldier turned bandit.
The Alliance itself doesn’t seem to have anything in common with the Soviet government. It’s various black ops aside, it’s doesn’t appear to be overtly oppressive - the Core Worlds are pretty opulent, and the standards of living are pretty high, and their interference with the frontier worlds is largely marked by callous indifference, more than anything else. There’s no indication that the government actively suppresses freedom of speech or political assembly, and they don’t seem to have any particular ideology, other than Federalism.
Nazis is even more of a stretch - again, black ops aside, the Alliance is nowhere near as crazy evil as the Nazis. The Alliance culture is explicitly multi-racial and multi-cultural, and there’s nothing like an overt genocide in the series, or even the heavy-handed, casual brutality through which the Nazis ruled their possessions.
And, of course, there’s no war going on, and the Serenity’s crew aren’t motivated by overthrowing or directly opposing the Alliance government, but rather, to make a living without attracting its attention.
The real-world political situation that Firefly is most closely an unambiguously modeled on is Reconstruction, with the Alliance as the US Federal government, and Mal as an “unreconstructed” Confederate.
This one is so obvious, my boyfriend literally refuses to watch the show, insisting that it’s “War of Northern Aggression” apologia. I think he’s crazy. But he’s cute, so I let it slide.