Editing Western (section)

==Notable Variants==

Just about every genre you can imagine has had either a Western version or equivalent, including, but not limited to: Romance, Murder Mystery (''[[wikipedia:Hec Ramsey|Hec Ramsey]]''), Horror (''[[Wikipedia:Curse of the Undead|Curse of the Undead]]''), Science Fiction (''[[Wikipedia:Cowboys and Aliens|Cowboys and Aliens]]''), Spy Thriller (''The Wild Wild West''), Musical (''Oklahoma''), [[Superhero]]s (''[[Wikipedia:Lone Ranger|Lone Ranger]]''), Kung Fu (''[[Wikipedia:Kung Fu (1972 TV series)|Kung Fu]]''), Crime, [[Urban Fantasy|Modern Fantasy]] (aka "[[Weird West]]"), and War (usually set during the Civil War or against Indians, which, well, see below under trappings).

The first were probably either the Space Western, or the Samurai Western, depending on how you count. The (1950s made) Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa were ''very'' western inflected, and several wound up being remade as traditional Westerns ("A Fistful of Dollars" and "The Magnificent Seven", among many others), which means the Samurai Western has claim of priority in film. On the other hand, the sci-fi magazines and comics of the pulp era loved raygun westerns because they were easy to write<ref>It cannot be understated how much easier having '''two''' sets of cliches to draw from makes things for writers.</ref> and advertise, but since Science Fiction is expensive to film, the first cited example is either the initial pitch for Star Trek (which Gene Roddenberry described as "''Wagon Train'' to the stars"), or 1977's Star Wars. That being said, Horror-themed works set in the "old West" period have a long history as well, with some "Horror Western" films<ref>Admittedly, the most notable example (''Phantom Empire'', the first Gene Autry film--well, actually a [[Wikipedia:Film serial|serial]], but that's not that important) took place in the then "present day" of the 1930s, but was still counted as a Western (if a weird one) by audiences of the day</ref> dating back to the 1930s.

[[Cattlepunk]] is what you get when you cross [[steampunk]] with a Western.