LONE RANGER, THE (2013)

LONE RANGER, THE (2013). Gore Verbinski, dir., and producer, along with Jerry Bruckheimer. Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio (screenplay and "screen story"; Rossio and Elliott also getting exec. prod. credit). Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer as Tonto and the Lone Ranger. USA: Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films (major prod.) / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (almost all dist.), 2013.

Cowboy movie set in the late 1960s, emphatically not science fiction; still, as Mark Finn points out on the ListServ of the Science Fiction Research Association (8 July 2013), this version of the Lone Ranger saga does not greatly develop but gestures toward "steampunk/weird west," especially for steampunk in the prosthetic: "It's articulated, and made of ivory, carved in scrimshaw-style motif. The men in the story are particularly attracted to its color and its value. However, within the leg is a mechanism for a shotgun, activated by a lever on her upper thigh, with the blast coming from her heel. "There are mystic elements in interesting juxtaposition to very serious consideration of standard tropes of the Western on technology and "The Coming of Civilization to the Wild West." As usual the introduction of the railroad appears, as does a motif on Time (note the title of the classic Western HIGH NOON [1952] — the time the train arrives — and the even more specific title 3:10 TO YUMA [1957, 2007]). In THE LONE RANGER of 2013, time is given a highly emphasized "objective correlative" of pocket watches, literal clockworks. Different technologies of weapons is also emphasized, making clear that the pen may be mightier than the sword, but even highly skilled mounted archers will be mowed down by a Colt 1874 Gatling gun (with anachronism additional evidence for the film-makers' desire to make this point).

5. DRAMA, RDE, 08/VII/13