And in general, I’m pretty firmly opposed to the idea of changing around the characters’ genders, sexualities or ethnicities just for the sake of virtue-signaling/political correctness. It’s one thing if the actor in question is VERY perfect for the role, and the ethnicity doesn’t matter, which is why I think Idris Elba would make a terrific James Bond, outside of whatever Bond-canon exists out there in the rebooted series. But… in the Old West, a black man or a hispanic man wouldn’t be able to pull off being the James West role- people were too racist back then for that to work. And they were too sexist for a female Gordon or West as well. I do think that you could take the whole idea that Loveless as a little person was part of his evil genius, and extrapolate that to some other persecuted/discounted group at the time if we so felt like it, but why? It’s not somehow more politically correct to cast an ethnic and/or female Loveless than a little person, after all.
The female that was proposed, Maredith Eaton, is a little person.
Having a distaff version is OK in modern set remakes (I have grown to like Joan Watson in Elementary) but not in a period piece. No one is the 1870s is going to accept a woman, Chinese or African American as West or Gordon. A female West would spend 90% of her time kicking sexist ass just to get cooperation and information. A female Loveless, however, could work. Just one different way the evil genius could feed bitter resentment. Remember the episode where Loveless made West six inches tall? A female Loveless could turn him into a woman, ala Turnabout Intruder.
Possibly having a female Loveless (especially a 5’5" version) would provide an interesting tension, as West thinks he can just seduce her, and she’s too smart for that (she’s not gay, just in control). He’d have to think his way out.
But if they make West some super SEAL equivalent, I’m not watching.
I don’t think a black James West is as ridiculous or anachronistic as some here are making it out to be. The original show was set during Grant’s presidency, aka the Reconstruction period, when there were black Congressmen and after thousands of black men served in the wartime army. A good writer would come up with a backstory for West as a wartime spy who answered pretty much to Grant himself, became trusted implicitly (saving Grant’s life would work), and thus had an “in” to stay in government service after the war.
Yes, a black government agent would face resistance, but a good writer would incorporate the “have to be twice as good just to be considered equal” dynamic into the character. You’d have scenarios where people grossly underestimate West, or presume that Gordon is in charge and West is his sidekick, only to find out their error the hard way. 
Admittedly, writers would have to walk the line of not glossing past the issues of a black West and not making West being black the primary focus of the show. But I think it could be done and still be primarily a lighthearted action show.
They don’t meet the age requirements, but I’ll go with Timothy Olyphant as West and Simon Pegg as Gordon.
Sounds awfully close to how they wrote Will Smith’s James West, actually.
The problem I’d have is that while a black intelligence/covert agent could be extremely effective in that era, he’d have to be so in the context of black people in that era- he’d be a cowboy, or a sharecropper, or whatever other awful role in society that black men filled back then. It might make for a very good movie, but it wouldn’t be James West either.
Will Smith wasn’t wrong for the role because he was African-American. He was wrong for the role because he was playing Will Smith instead of James West.
I love these two ideas! The difficulty is that we see them both as leading men, not second bananas – and so do they themselves. If either were willing to play it as mostly equals who KNOW they are not the alpha, then either of them could be quite good. And it could be a running gag that they think they have the young lovely wrapped around their little finger by the end of the episode (as they would in most circumstances; handsome, suave, sophisticated, full of physical prowess, etc.), only to have the woman ask if their partner will be joining them on the date with the most obvious eagerness?!? And of course they would have to have their own wins on occasion, both being the true rescuing hero of the episode- and being the preferred man for the female special guest star.
Also, thank you for the heads-up about LOGAN LUCKY. I plan to view it when I get the chance based solely upon your description of the movie and the character.
Actually, this is a different show but one I would like to see. Kind of a ‘not as good as I once was, but as good once as I ever was’ version. They could build episodes around suspense (I remember Mission: Impossible as very tense with only occasional hand to hand or sniper solutions- the whole point was if they got caught they were doomed and the government would disavow knowledge of their actions). They could take down evil plans with cunning and charm and only resort to physicality in small instances. It would be more realistic because if two guys can turn the tables with a fight the enemy isn’t much of a threat anyway. For example, they could over power a guard charged with supervising them- but instead of escaping and hunting down the evil genus they booby trap the guard and lure the main bad guy down (after he is ready to just blow up the entire room or building they are in- including his own henchman) because only HE can do a job right!
It would be amazing to see these two be much more like the Bob Redford character in SPY GAMES, giving operational launch orders right in front of a room full of bureaucrat’s intent on hanging his ass on the front lawn. Those two guys could pull it off, and still charm a date with whatever beauties they meet during the course of the episode. I mean, what is the sense of being a slick spy if you aren’t going to seduce the occasional young lovely. (In a perfectly consensual and dignified manner of course.)
And in any version, it would be nice if they would hold all hand-to-hand combat to what was common before Bruce Lee brought the secrets of the East to American shores. No jumping kicks (in fact damn few kicks at all), no sweeping the legs, just good old fashioned grappling and punches. Grabbing a bad guy and pushing him into other bad guys (or using him as a human shield) allowed, and stuff like thumb holds and take-downs. But nothing that resembles Karate, Gung Fu, Jiu jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, or even Judo. Their ‘special training’ might consist of the fact that they don’t throw exclusively John Wayne haymaker’s as everyone else apparently did in the old west. They might keep their guards up, jab and move, but most of all, know when they should be closing — and when they should be circling defensively.
It wasn’t awesome, but it was ok, and it definitely wasn’t what I expected from Tatum.
I hate to be the guy who quotes himself, but……
How is this guy not perfect to play Dr. Loveless?
I could not find the one where he has someone in his space station lair and says to him: “Let’s meet the real you”. But here is the set-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcEdfViFL3A
I did not recognize the name so I skipped over Mr. Urban, but with so many comments I looked him up. I remember him as Bruce Willis’ grandson in the first RED movie. I agree, he would be perfect as Agent Gordon as long as some young pretty boy is West (I still like Zac Efron, excellent suggestion bump).
Too late. Already done in season 1 "The Night the Dragon Screamed (appx 46 minutes in) where West shows remarkable skills in the Chinese martial arts.
Okay I stand corrected. I was not able to play the video in the link, but I believe it. I know The Rifleman had Asians fighting westerners in one episode also, and obviously Bonanza had Asian characters – at least one of them must have been a proficient martial artist.
My point is that even though the show is a futuristic techno thriller, it would be nice if they did try to stay in the time period they want to portray. NO westerner was a martial artist back then, the skill was not taught to outsiders, and my understanding was that it was not taught to anyone who did not commit to a lifetime of devotion and study. Perhaps one or two “Oriental” martial artists might have immigrated to the US and might be willing to give a weekend seminar on fighting techniques to government agents – but even that would have been quite limited and cursory. No Chinese or Japanese weapons would have been permitted (unless they were unrecognized as weapons- which was sort of their reason for existing), no Asians were well regarded at that time.
If they are going to set the show in the old west, the least they could do is stick to cowboy era fighting techniques. Even modern boxing stances were rare then, that underhanded John L. Sullivan style was probably most common for pugilist, and grappling was how most fighting was conducted until you could hold someone’s hands harmless and pummel them once they were on the ground. I will stipulate that West and Gordon might have the best training available to any westerners, but still please let’s respect the era. Spinning kicks, back fists, etc are forbidden (do you hear me? FORBIDDEN!), and the first appearance of throwing stars or Samurai swords puts this squarely in the rubbish heap! Period. Fingerprinting was virtually unheard of at this time- and certainly on the western frontier. If some cowboy starts fighting in an Asian martial arts style – Walker, Texas Ranger better have been transported back in time, damn it all !!
Now, this is just my opinion. But I am pretty damn sure I am correct.
(Of course my ban on Asian weapons and fighting techniques does not extend to actual Asian characters. A story might call for Gordon and West to escort a diplomatic party from San Francisco to Washington DC, and that diplomat will have security officers he brought with him. That would be completely acceptable, but western dudes using Eastern weapons or fighting techniques must be quashed at every opportunity!)
I agree with you. But that ship sailed in 1966. Original flavor West had plastic explosives, compact (electric?) motors that could winch him off the ground, and homing pigeons that could return to the train. That’s some smart pigeons! (Arabella!)
I suppose I could handle some anachronisms. It was the spirit of the original series. What I hated was the true supernatural episodes, like The Night of the Lord of Limbo, where Ricardo Montalban time travels by the power of his mind. Or, both appearances of Count Manzeppi, who as far as I could tell, used real magic. And some of the more egregious Loveless episodes, like The Night of the Surreal McCoy, where he used sound to travel into paintings! What drugs caused that episode?
I get a kick out of watching the episodes now and seeing how often I can spot Red West. I never knew him before Black Sheep, but now I see him everywhere in WWW. The new show would need someone like that - a “repeat offender”, who plays different parts in lots of episodes.
Actually…
“The first American to actually study judo was Prof. Ladd from Yale University, in 1889. He trained at the Kodokan in Japan for about ten years; by 1908 about 13 Americans were training there.”
“Jujutsu was first introduced to Europe in 1898 by Edward William Barton-Wright, who had studied Tenjin Shinyō-ryū and Shinden Fudo Ryu in Yokohama and Kobe. He also trained briefly at the Kodokan in Tokyo. Upon returning to England he folded the basics of all of these styles, as well as boxing, savate, and forms of stick fighting, into an eclectic self-defence system called Bartitsu.”
So saying that some small number of special secret agents were trained in either in the 1880’s doesn’t seem completely impossible.
Anson Mount showed his western/action hero chops in Hell on Wheels; I think he’d make a fine James West!
He might work… if we were to do a “Casino Royale” style conceptual reboot, and have the whole “Wild Wild West” milieu be more gritty and Old West, and less stylish and civilized than the original series actually was.
Otherwise, he’s too masculine looking- James Conrad was kind of a pretty boy when the series started, and was a good counterpoint to the relatively plain Gordon (not that Gordon thought so).
I’d pay good money to see Jim Parsons as Jim West or a Sheldon-like Artimes Gordan.
The only USSS agent who specifically used ju jitsu (mentioned by name) in the original series was Bosley Cranston (Pat Paulsen) in “The Night of the Camera.”
Barry Atwater (“Surak” on*** ST: TOS***) was in this episode as well.*
*Just thought I’d throw that in. 