Board 8 > Board 8 Ranks: Westerns! The Official Results Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you all three of you ranked the movies though then they'd be higher...

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#28. Shane - 159 points

Pokewars 6
KBM 11
Johnbobb 25
CoolCly 29
Karo - 29
Stifled - 29
Inviso 30

Very poor plot synopsis:
You see, Joey, your father and that drifter are your new mommy and daddy. Im just here to cook for all of you.

Why it was included:
This is perhaps one of the most famous westerns of all. The timeless tale of the mysterious drifter that is taken in by a family and everyone learns something from each other. He bonds with the parents, but also bonds with their child. Weve seen this story many times. A good example that comes to mind is the episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender called Zuko Alone. The banished prince of the Fire Nation finds himself separated from his Uncle Iroh and is taken in by a nice family for a meal. Zuko does hard work for them, bonds with them, even teaches the little boy of the house a few things. When things get tough for the family, Zuko steps in to help. However, when his past becomes far too apparent and too dangerous, he opts to move on. As Im sure you can surmise, the creators of the show were inspired heavily by Shane. I believe when something so beloved in the modern era can pay such homage to a classic, said classic is worth taking a look at.

What Stifled thinks:
A number 29 on most lists is a miss for most people, but not for me. I did actually enjoy watching Shane. Granted, Shane did not age as well as Id hoped. I adored this film as a child, but its flaws are much more apparent in my adult years. And listenI dont want to be that guy because Im a parent and I get it, butthe kid is fucking annoying. He really is. There is a big difference between being mischievous and curious andwhat that kid is. Im not sure if the director thought kids had to be annoying at all times. Im not sure if perhaps the director felt kids exist to cause conflict between family members. But this is what we got on screen. The kid was basically trying to cuck out his dad for Shane in this one scene where he was asking who would win in a fight. And why on earth would they fight (before the end of the movie lmao)? The bromance between Joe and Shane was the highlight. They had each others backs, especially in that brawl in the general store. It was such a joy to watch. And honestly, if the kid was just a background character and the focus was totally on Shane and Joe vs the baddies, Id be on board. You knoweven though the baddies are complete fucking morons. They literally asked the kid to come work with them. Are you serious? And likewhy didnt Joe and Shane work together at the end? I know its the classic I need to do this myself shit and all, but still. I think the ending would have been better with the father being involved in the fight, especially with the kid watching. But its fine. The movie is still deservedly a classic. Its just worth noting it has its flaws.
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Poke: Some of the best fighting scenes that look realistic. Shane is a straight up boss and I just loved the overall story of a stand-up guy looking out for people who he has come to love.

KBM: Okay, yes, the kid is a little annoying. But he could have been worse, and he's very much NOT the focal point of the movie, so even as someone who usually can't stand annoying kid characters in movies, I found him largely forgivable, because damn, this was a fun watch in spite of it. I really enjoyed Alan Ladd's softspoken performance as Shane; as laconic as many of the gunslingers on this list were, there was a quiet, subtle nuance to his performance that only Jean-Louis Trintignant's performance as Silence came close to, unlike the blunt gruffness of an Eastwood type, or the folksy charisma of John Wayne or Gary Cooper. The way Shane played off of all the various characters in the ensemble cast was also consistently interesting, whether it's his undeniable chemistry with Jean Arthur as the homesteader's wife, or the electric fights he picks with his natural adversaries in town. And how about Jack Palance? What an iconic performance he gives here. Between his chillingly casual, smiling demeanor, and that incredible scene where he shoots Elisha Cook, Jr., he manages to give one of the greatest villain performances on the entire list (and all while the actor was apparently extremely uncomfortable on horseback, to boot). If it weren't for the kid, this would be a top tenner easy, but as it stands, it's still one that I'll never forget and will probably watch again at some point, because the good things about it are just SO good and largely overwhelm anything negative I'd have to say.

Johnbobb: oh my god will shane and joe just bang already

CoolCly: Shane himself was a pretty boring and generic drifter with some gunslinging skills.
The dad homesteader is pretty compelling in his values and goals, and he was very well acted. He was the highlight of the movie for me. Its kinda interesting to see the town shop that the homesteaders to do their shopping and that sort of thing. Some interesting mundane details. I wonder if they were based on actual life then.
The villains who want their land are pretty generic, but the way they provoked that loudmouth guy that was itching for a fight was pretty good.
Unfortunately, the kid that just yells about Shaaaaaaaaaaane is unbearable. I hated this kid, and yet hes the lens we watch the movie through. Therefore, I hated this movie and would anti recommend it to anyone who might ask me about it.
2/10

Karo: This lone gunman wanders into town and befriends a group of farmers who in the true spirit of the old west have just stolen other people's land by camping out on it and calling it their own.
These squatters are the heroes apparently just because they have kids or something and the other side is in the wrong 'for reasons'. Fuck you I'm going to fence up your cow pasture and you don't have the right to complain because think of the children!
Speaking of children, the main farmer couple have this ugly little gremlin who is almost like the deuteragonist for no reason. Like the little fucking brat forces himself into every scene in the movie despite having almost nothing to do with anything that is going on. Like we'll be trying to have a scene that is serious or moving and then suddenly there will be random high-pitched squealing hey shane shane lookit me oh youre so cool shane bang bang bang im a cowboy heeba deeba herpa derp
It's like the producer's kid was playing on the set during filming and they had to leave him in because he was the producer's kid.
So anyway Shane goes and kills all the ranchers for having the gall to complain about their stolen land. The kid saves Shane's life because of course he does. Shane then rides off into the sunset and leaves a small child alone in town in the middle of the night surrounded by the dead bodies of everyone he murdered. And thus was the tale of how the west was dumb.

Inviso: I wanted to give this movie a fair shake, because on paper, the idea of homesteaders fighting back after being threatened off their land has potential to be interesting. But unfortunately for this movie, it has one of the most obnoxious and most overused child actors Ive ever seen in one of these lists. It was like watching a bad 80s/90s kids movie, with Shane (a gunfighting, human male) as the pet that the little kid has to yell at and send off into the sunset by saying he hates him. And the scenes with the kid just go on forEVER. Im gonna chirp bang! over and over and over again, even though my mom is clearly upset at the gunfighting stuff. Im gonna wail Shane! over and over and over again. I just couldnt enjoy any aspect of this film because of how cheesy and immature it made the plot seem, even compared to some of the worst movies Ive watched thus far.
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Wow.

So bad.

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*#30 and #29 drop*

Me: "So far so good--"

*#28 drops*

"goddammit really"

Pokewars posted...

Wow.

So bad.

I know, right? How could anyone rank this movie sixth when it's straight-up trash?

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That's a shocker!

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Like, I figured the regulars would rank this kind of low because of the kid (the only bad thing about the movie), hence my "Okay, yes" at the beginning of my write-up, but... Jesus.

And yeah if y'all spectators wanted the older movies to do better you should have submitted a list! The whole idea of these projects is aggregating disparate opinions and seeing what comes of it!

OUTLIER

Poke 30
Inviso 25
CoolCly 24
KBM 18
Johnbobb 12
Karo 10
Stifled 6

As Poke walks away, Inviso and CoolCly yell come back Poooooke! Not because they actually want him to come back, but because hes now winning/losing/whatever metric suits you. KBM wanted to get involved in the final battle, but ended up unconscious at the farm. Then Johnbobb, Karo, and Stifled took one look at the battle against dumb land barons and was like nah.
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Lol, there's no way that kid was so prominent that it soured you anti-natalists that much.

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StifledSilence posted...

As Poke walks away, Inviso and CoolCly yell come back Poooooke!

I can totally see this ;D

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And yes, I echo the sentiments of my fellow rankers. I see a lot of complaining but no lists submitted. There was more than enough time for this to get done. Hell, Cly powered through it in about a month.
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I remember liking Shane when I watched it about five years back. Legit some great stuff.

I can't remember anything about the movie except that ****ing kid. Hell, I couldn't remember anything a month after seeing it except for that ****ing kid.

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Mega Mana posted...

I remember liking Shane when I watched it about five years back. Legit some great stuff.

I can't remember anything about the movie except that ****ing kid. Hell, I couldn't remember anything a month after seeing it except for that ****ing kid.

This is the thing. The movie is extremely generic by Western standards, and the only really memorable aspect of it is the overbearing, high-pitched little bastard child. So naturally, that shit torpedoed my enjoyment of the film as a whole.

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Even if I thought Shane himself was more memorable and the fight scenes were good (which I do not believe are true), the kid was so unbearable I still have a hard time seeing this movie get past a 5/10 for me. SHAAAAAAAAAAAANE

I do think the homesteader dad was great though, and I liked the loudmouth guy that got himself killed. That's a good scene.

Re: Karo. I don't think the homesteaders stole the land - my assumption was that they were awarded it by the government or something, and the villains had previously had free access to the land for grazing their cattle and are now butthurt and feel entitled to it. Mclintock! had homesteaders arriving being awarded land the same way, and John Wayne similarly tells them to get lost (though he seems to be more genuinely warning them that it's bad land than because he wants it himself, which is what they assume)

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Not gonna complain about the ranking but I am gonna complain that Johnbobb didn't mention Logan once.

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Inviso posted...

This is the thing. The movie is extremely generic by Western standards, and the only really memorable aspect of it is the overbearing, high-pitched little bastard child. So naturally, that shit torpedoed my enjoyment of the film as a whole.

Ugh, right? Y'all should've watched a real good western movie without those pesky child actors. Why watch Shane when you can watch a man they call Jayne...

Well he robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man and he gave him what for
Our love for him now ain't hard to explain
The hero of Gauntlets, the man they call Jayne~

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TomNook posted...

That's why I didn't participate. I saw this list a few months ago, and I'd already seen all of them (except Prospect), but I never liked how the classics almost always get bottom tier on this board. I'm fine participating with an all modern list here, but the auto-trashing of objectively good things from people who don't really understand, I just don't like reading very much, except to poke fun at occasionally. Participating would make me feel culpable.

You won't win anyone over by phrasing it like that, but then again, the people who feel attacked by that probably don't post on movie sites anyway, so they wouldn't watch it no matter how you worded it. Just have to accept that some places on the internet aren't really movie hotspots.

meh i'm not trying to win anyone over obviously.

i do think that we have failed as a culture to teach people to understand different cinematic languages though, which is why normies shun anything made before jaws or star wars or BTTF or whatever you think an appropriate cutoff point is. that classic hollywood, international cinema, and smaller more idiosyncratic current fare is dumped on to prop up, you know, the mcu (apparently the last portion of this series) or something, is deeply upsetting on a visceral level. and from people who claim to like movies!

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I think that's a very egotistical way of looking at this. The important thing is to expose people to the classics to broaden their horizons, not that they MUST like the classics or they are "normies" that "don't understand movies". The rankers of these projects have always given every movie a fair shake. While you could definitely say older movies are ranked lower on average, saying they are shunning and auto-trashing those films don't fit the bill here. And quite frankly, I think anyone who says they didn't submit because older movies tend to get ranked low is a cover for "I didn't feel like doing the writeups."
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And on that subject, here's another classic film we ranked low lmao

#27. The Searchers 158 points

Poke 4
Johnbobb 17
CoolCly 25
Stifled 27
Inviso 28
Karo 28
KBM 29

Very poor plot synopsis:
Murdery man is so murdery he would murder a murder of crows. He wants to murder his niece because she doesnt go yee haw anymore, pilgrim.

Why it was included:
If you set out to read a critics list of the greatest westerns of all time, The Searchers will likely appear on all of them. And truly, there are good reasons why. The cinematography is excellent. The performances, whatever you might take from them, are enthralling. It definitely has something to say and it shouts it at you. But what are they saying exactly? Is this a movie about coming to terms with someone/something you once thought was an enemy and moving on? Is this a movie about feeling isolated when everyone around you moves on from an antiquated ideal and you still believe youre right? Or is this movie actually a big litmus test to determine where the country stood at the time in terms of feelings toward Native Americans? The brilliant thing about this movie is you could make a case for any or all of those and have a valid point. This is certainly a movie that warrants a discussion, and I was eager to bring that discussion to Board 8.

What Stifled thinks:
Im going to be 100% honest here. I dont believe John Ford has a nuanced bone in his body. Stagecoach painted a picture that The Searchers signed in the corner. When I watched these movies, I felt hatred towards Native Americans. In Stagecoach, Ringo was shown to have kindness towards those treated unfairly, yet he gladly dispatched the Natives like rabid animals. Fast forward to The Searchers and I see more of the same. A grizzled John Wayne takes it to the next level and goes on a quest to find his niece, but when he doesnt like what he finds, his thoughts immediately turn to murder. He no longer sees her as a person, but as a rabid animal that needs to be put down. I saw this as John Fords last gasp to try and see if people sympathized with his Ethan character. Because you see, I believe Ethan IS John Ford. Fords masterpiece puts himself on the screen because he is frustrated by a country slowly coming to terms with their mistakes. He wants to continue the hate and Ethan is his vessel. The ending of Ethan not killing his niece is a begrudging acceptance. An acceptance that he must change his ways to blend in with society, and it kills him inside. Could I be completely wrong about this? Of course. But thats how I felt when I watched this. The very fact I could tinfoil hat a movie so much easily keeps it out of last place. Plus, you know, lovely frontier scenery porn and convincing acting performances.
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Poke: This was an epic that spanned a number of years for the characters. I was invested in the characters and their motives. I really, really wanted Johns character to find his niece. Every time it seemed like there was hope, it was dashed, only to renew again. Quit playing with my emotions! Wonderfully shot film.

Johnbobb: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Eo6eJqFLRMBs4HpGu2fcReH1E3-uOxzw9H1FK8BkPFo/edit?usp=sharing

CoolCly: This is another movie where I thought the premise was good but didnt enjoy watching it play out. The initial chase where they try to recover both girls but end up finding one has been killed was good. Theres a sense of desperation and anger. It kinda felt like they let that one guy run into his death a little too easily, but I suppose thats fine.
After that, I didnt really feel any strong thrust to the plot. A lot of ambling around, and the part with the Indian wife felt very strange, especially since it doesnt seem like they would have respected it.

The interesting angle is that the uncle is super competent but very Comanche hating, and the adopted brother was worried hed kill the girl if she becomes naturalized to the Comanche.
When they finally find her, she says shes one of them now and refuses to leave. Uncle tries to kill her and brother gets in the way. Next time, she happily comes with and Uncle seems like hell kill her but doesnt.. Happily ever after.
This didnt feel like it was resolved in any satisfying way. The girl and the uncle both just flipped positions because the point in the plot required them to. Very disappointing.
Generally, I think native americans were portrayed extremely poorly here.

3.6/10

Inviso: This movie was far too long given how winding and meandering its plot ends up being. Were introduced to John Waynes character as this like, misanthropic Confederate soldier returning home from multiple wars, and we barely get enough home life to explain his family being attacked and killed by Comanches. Thats all fine. Its a good inciting incident. But the problem is that the movie cannot settle on a tone. John Wayne and his nephew (and a third guy who dies relatively quickly) go out searching for the tribe that attacked their homestead, along with two kidnapped daughters, and the rest of the movie is an at LEAST five-year journey searching for the younger of the two girls. Theres a weird, comic relief bald guy. Theres a subplot about the nephew getting married off to a squaw (which goes from comedic to tragic as shes gunned down by soldiers soon after). Theres a bizarre subplot about the nephews love interest marrying someone else, leading to a dust-up upon the nephew returning home just in time for her wedding. And ultimately, the payoff to all of this disjointed plot is rescuing the one surviving daughter (after a brief instance of her renouncing her whiteness to live as a Comanche), but it just feels like such a weird plot that I didnt find myself enjoying throughout the film.

Karo: A pioneer settlement comes under attack by indian raiders, which causes them to send their youngest daughter off wandering into the wilderness because I guess they expect an 8 year old girl to be able to outwit dozens of native trackers or something. So of course she is kidnapped by the brutal Comanche war chief... Scar, who oddly enough is a white man in some really bad native cosplay but nobody seems to notice.
So this trio of cowboy dudes sets off on a journey to recover and/or kill the missing girl, with some stops along the way for a spot of spousal abuse and some casual desecration of indian burial grounds.
What should have been a story focused on the search instead is bogged down in to a mess of inconsequential subplots, unfunny comic relief characters, and random jumps through time without warning.
The film is dated beyond the threshold of pain and the characters act so inconstant it is hard to see them as real human beings. Ethan goes from concerned uncle to homicidal maniac and back again with no explanation. Debbie wants to stay with 'her people' until suddenly she wants to come home again. I have no idea what is going on with Martin, except to speculate maybe he was dropped on his head as a child.
Horses are riden. Indians are massacred. The camera is panned through picturesque desert vistas. Two hours of my life is wasted.
There is no reason to ever watch this piece of drek unless you are some kind of lead paint ingesting redneck who wants to cheer 'USA! USA!' to John Wayne shooting up some 'injuns' as you chug down moonshine and have sex with your sister.

KBM: I guess it was interesting to see Jeffrey Hunter in something other than the original Star Trek pilot as the original Captain Pike. This is one, though, where the racism really overwhelms everything else for me. Reading up on the making of the film, I guess they were TRYING to be even-handed, by '50s standards, but despite some beautiful landscape photography, this one's just dated as all hell and features both John Wayne at his most unlikable and John Ford at his most typically slow-paced and politically regressive.
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Wowwwwww. Not expecting that to drop. Yeah, I'm going to be the outlier champ for sure.

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one gunslinger stands alone to protect the old classics

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inb4 poke ranks high noon #1

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OUTLIER

Poke 53
Inviso 26
CoolCly 26
Johnbobb 22
KBM 20
Karo 11
Stifled 6

Poke continues to ride off into the sunset and hopefully not kill his niece in the process. Johnbobb tries to join Poke on this long journey but doesnt fundamentally agree with why hes there. Everyone else was scalpingsome tickets online.
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That power point write-up is a masterpiece.

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I'm just gonna say it...John Wayne kinda sucks as an actor. He's a lead character in what, four movies on this list? And none of them are especially good.

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Can I deputize TomNook and Zithers?

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I like Wayne's acting quite a bit. He's got a presence about him that makes his performances so believable. But yes, not all of the movies he's in are winners, I agree.
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StifledSilence posted...

When I watched these movies, I felt hatred towards Native Americans. In Stagecoach, Ringo was shown to have kindness towards those treated unfairly, yet he gladly dispatched the Natives like rabid animals. Fast forward to The Searchers and I see more of the same. A grizzled John Wayne takes it to the next level and goes on a quest to find his niece, but when he doesnt like what he finds, his thoughts immediately turn to murder. He no longer sees her as a person, but as a rabid animal that needs to be put down. I saw this as John Fords last gasp to try and see if people sympathized with his Ethan character. Because you see, I believe Ethan IS John Ford. Fords masterpiece puts himself on the screen because he is frustrated by a country slowly coming to terms with their mistakes. He wants to continue the hate and Ethan is his vessel.

this is interesting. i dont know anything about John Ford, but my impression was that Ethan's hatred of Comanche was intentionally done as a character flaw that was consuming him. Would Ford be self aware enough to have Ethan overcome that to represent his own integration in society?

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Pokewars posted...

Can I deputize TomNook and Zithers?

these men are cowards - they won't stand with you when you need them.

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Also, I've given a fair shake to plenty of old movies on these lists. Just going back through old lists and checking everything from 1970 or earlier that I ranked in my top ten for that given list, we've got:

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Sci-Fi)
The Shop Around the Corner (RomComs)
Singin' in the Rain (Musicals 1)
Funny Girl (Musicals 1)
My Fair Lady (Musicals 1)
Goldfinger (James Bond)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Musicals 2)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Musicals 2)
Kiss Me Kate (Musicals 2)
Several Movies From This List

But just because something is a classic doesn't mean I automatically think it's good.

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CoolCly posted...

this is interesting. i dont know anything about John Ford, but my impression was that Ethan's hatred of Comanche was intentionally done as a character flaw that was consuming him. Would Ford be self aware enough to have Ethan overcome that to represent his own integration in society?

I think so, yes. My theory is that Ford was hoping Ethan would fire everyone up about the Natives again, but at the same time he knew better and had Ethan's defeat mirror his own.
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yeah the searchers is a movie about a guy so full of hate that he is destined to be alone forever. they even have the scene where they shoot the dead native's eyes so he has to wander the spirit land in eternity.

then at the end of the movie the family is back together except for ethan, who has the door shut on him, and he suffers the same fate but in life. owned!

StifledSilence posted...

I think that's a very egotistical way of looking at this. The important thing is to expose people to the classics to broaden their horizons, not that they MUST like the classics or they are "normies" that "don't understand movies". The rankers of these projects have always given every movie a fair shake. While you could definitely say older movies are ranked lower on average, saying they are shunning and auto-trashing those films don't fit the bill here. And quite frankly, I think anyone who says they didn't submit because older movies tend to get ranked low is a cover for "I didn't feel like doing the writeups."

watching the movie isn't the same thing as giving it a fair shake and clearly going by the searchers write ups everyone is just expecting the old movies to be racist because that is the main takeaway. depiction isn't endorsement fyi. also john ford had positive depictions of natives in some of his movies (wagon master comes to mind - great movie btw i got it on bluray earlier this year before warner archive closed their shop up) and if you're concerned about him being a white supremacist, you could watch sergeant rutledge or acknowledge the fact that he made combat documentaries during ww2 which was, you know, about fighting *against* nazis (although he was in the pacific theater and had shrapnel removed from his head during the battle of the midway). he also refused to name names during the red scare and publicly defended supposed communists/sympathizers. also he wanted to cast black actors to be falsely accused of a crime before having abe as their attorney in young mr lincoln but the studio wouldnt let him.

btw tomnook if you wanna talk with old movie lovers send me a PM i run a discord with all of the old theater/home media users that had a lick of taste.

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I don't exactly think Ford is a white supremacist. One can fight Nazis and hate Native Americans. The two aren't connected. I'm strictly saying his art reflects his feelings on the Natives.

And everyone goes into a movie with preconceived notions, good or bad. You can be excited about a movie you've been wanting to see, or dread a movie you are watching not for yourself but for a project. But what matters is the opinion is genuine after the watch. Any kind of bias going in can be changed after. I believe the reviews from this group are the genuine article.
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Snake5555555555 posted...

Not gonna complain about the ranking but I am gonna complain that Johnbobb didn't mention Logan once.

Yeah in hindsight I really shouldn't given that the parallels are so obvious and Shane literally appears in Logan! Shane is the kind of movie that I feel like is a lot better for its influence as opposed to how much I enjoy it on its own which makes it hard to rank

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StifledSilence posted...

I'm strictly saying his art reflects his feelings on the Natives.

Thinking The Searchers reflected that John Ford was racist against native Americans is like thinking All in the Family reflected that Norman Lear was a racist.

Zithers is absolutely right when saying that depiction isn't an endorsement. Put a little more thought into this, the great films deserve the effort.

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Snake5555555555 posted...

That power point write-up is a masterpiece.

I really do try once in a while

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rockus posted...

Thinking The Searchers reflected that John Ford was racist against native Americans is like thinking All in the Family reflected that Norman Lear was a racist.

Zithers is absolutely right when saying that depiction isn't an endorsement. Put a little more thought into this, the great films deserve the effort.

Eh, I don't know about all that. I think that's kinda where my mindset was the first time I watched it, but the more I see it, the more this movie strikes me as closer to how stifled sees it. I mean sure, Wayne's character's racism is a character flaw, but it's not one that's ever chastised by the film. If anything it seems to hold the perspective that Wayne's character should be pitied, as though his cowboy nature (native-hating and all) is something he can't ever unlearn and it's his own life suffering for it

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There are only a few movies on this list that I think are really BAD in terms of racism (by modern standards), but the ones I ranked low, the outdated attitudes didn't even register with me. I didn't like Stagecoach or Searchers, not because of weird anti-Native sentiments, but because they just lacked an interesting narrative to me.

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john wayne is good btw

poke also invited if he wants in

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Wow, not even sure what to say about that last ranking. Its a classic film for a reason.

The butthurtedness about these movies getting low rankings is honestly really strange. Nearly every western on this list is "considered one of the greatest westerns of all time" so they can all trigger this empty outrage

Zithers posted...

watching the movie isn't the same thing as giving it a fair shake and clearly going by the searchers write ups everyone is just expecting the old movies to be racist because that is the main takeaway.

then there's comments like this which I don't think is really accurate about the writeups at all

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i don't think anyone thinks prospect (what is this?), the og true grit, 310 to yuma remake, tombstone, robert rodriguez stuff, etc are among the best westerns ever except for people who don't actually like westerns

hopefully the other 30 you're watching at least have some mann, boetticher, tourneur, walsh, etc

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Yayyyy

I hated The Searchers.

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Been a long while since I watched, but I don't remember liking The Searchers either. I know it's considered a classic, so I went in with that mindset and was disappointed. I went through my Western phase quite a few years ago and I think part of it was just that I'm not a John Wayne guy; I'm hard pressed to remember anything that I liked him in.

The thing about old movies is that the classics will have had their tropes and themes reconstituted so many times over the intervening years that, from a modern perspective, it can be hard to appreciate the original/originator.

The analogy I would make is to Super Mario 64. 64 is a classic...it's also not as much fun to play today as Odyssey or 3D World or Galaxy. I can appreciate it and understand its historical relevance but it's approach has been better refined since then. (And I say this as someone who was blown away seeing it in Toys R Us back in the day.)

Imagine being a kid today and there's no way they'd want to play 64 over a more modern Mario platformer. It doesn't mean their opinions are shit and that they hate old games; it's just that the medium has evolved.

You're playing a game (or watching a movie) out of time and that means it's not within its historical context. It's something you literally cannot recreate. You can inform, certainly, but it will ultimately always be seen through the lens of the present.

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Super Mario 64 is better than both Galaxies!

Anyway to be fair The Searchers wasn't particularly well-received at the time either. It mostly just served as a major influence on a number of prominent filmmakers like Scorsese, Spielberg, and Lucas. When I last watched the first Star Wars movie that Tatooine scenes felt like they came straight out of a Western, and that's because they were cribbed from The Searchers. The whole relationship between the De Niro and Foster characters in Taxi Driver also owes a lot to The Searchers.

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StifledSilence posted...

I like Wayne's acting quite a bit. He's got a presence about him that makes his performances so believable. But yes, not all of the movies he's in are winners, I agree.

I saw the original True Grit for the first time last year and liked his performance there. Whether he deserved to win the Oscar over Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman is another question entirely though.

Also I usually haven't seen most of the movies on these lists and don't really feel like doing it just for the sake of write-ups. Also I kind of want to mention I never got the hype for the original Star Wars trilogy until I watched other movies that came out in the '70s and '80s so I learned to appreciate the films as products of their time in the best way.

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Btw it should be reiterated

Influential does not necessarily mean good

And the amount of complaints from people who insist the older films were better without bothering to watch the newer ones is staggering

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I'm hype to hear opinions about The Magnificent Seven (1960). I've only caught scenes here and there on TV growing up, never watched the whole thing through.

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