Okay, I get it now...

I’ve been wandering about in a Steampunk cloud lately (something a little different for me) and I’ve had one of those epiphany moments that I enjoy so much. This is one of those long tortuous revelations that are a lot time in coming so there’s a bit of backtracking before I get to the point. Please bear with me...

Awhile back, I got all excited about a new game that had shown up called “Deadlands” (this alone will give you an inkling of how far I’ve backtracked!). My excitement stemmed from years of reading such things as DC’s “Jonah Hex” and John Findley’s “Tex Arcana” which I read in Heavy Metal Magazine in the early ‘Eighties. It also stemmed from watching “High Plains Drifter” one of my favourite Western movies. After buying Shane Lacey Henshley’s game, I was intrigued by what I found and started writing my own ‘Weird West’ stories for my roleplaying crowd. However, there were aspects of the game that I just couldn’t fathom: why were there Mad Scientists running all over the “Deadlands” West? The whole notion seemed to have no basis in any source material I was aware of so I decided to just work around it.

Sometime later, a movie came out which I went to see. It was called “Wild Wild West” and starred Will Smith and Kevin Kline with Penelope Cruz and Kenneth Branagh. I’m not a Will Smith fan and Ms. Cruz was pretty much an unknown quantity at that time, but Kline and Branagh are usually good value so I figured I was going to be entertained at the very least. ‘Turns out, being merely entertained was the most I could expect from this woeful, shocking, awful piece of crap. Take my advice: avoid it like the plague. Not even a giant steam-powered iron tarantula could save it from turkey-dom.

Afterwards, I was left a little conflicted: the concept of the film was kind of kooky and off-beat, but this was a Barry Sonnenfeld vehicle so I was all over that (I loved his Addams Family films). My issue was that the film seemed to have no spawning point: if there was a genre here, I was uninformed in terms of my expectations. I thought, kudos for trying something new and unexpected; I just don’t get what you’re aiming for. Part of working in a genre is that the audience knows what to expect; for this film – I had nuthin’.

So here I am now in 2013, vaguely thinking about Steampunkery, and I do a Google search to see what the commotion is all about. Along the way, I see a reference to “The Wild Wild West” as an important source for the concept. I thought, surely the underpinnings of Steampunk have been around longer than that crappy Will Smith flick? So I took a closer look:

It turns out that the awful movie was based on an old 1960s TV show about gadgets and megalomaniacs duking it out with dashing Government agents along the wild frontier and the difference between the two creations is vastly more than the deleted definite article of the movie’s title. I’m pretty investigative about the movies I watch and I remember reading up on the film before I went to have my life wasted: I don’t recall reading anything about the previous TV show in the all the hoo-ha before the movie’s release, so I’m left wondering if the television show ever aired in this country at all? Perhaps if it had, the movie would have fared better than it did.

So now with this connexion in place, imagine my surprise when I discovered that we have the entire television series box-set at work? My evenings are now full of Mad Scientists trying to blow up Washington or break California off the map (yes, that old chestnut had to have its roots somewhere!). And now, to come full circle, I understand what Shane Lacey Henshley was getting at in “Deadlands”. Finally, I understand what all of those Mad Scientists and Pinkerton Agents are doing there! I can finally rest easy.

Although wading into this televisual offering has taken some getting used to. Firstly, it’s dated: the guys are all square-jawed and two-fisted; the women are all smoky and ineffectual, content to be pawns of the baddies, not running the show. And usually ready to change their spots after a quick grope from our hero. This attitude is enshrined in the animated opening sequence, which I loathe and not only for that reason.

Speaking of our hero, they don’t come more handsome and hard-nosed than our G-man of the Plains, Jim West. Played by Robert Conrad, West is all dash and dapper, a veritable James Bond of the Wild West, which is, in fact, the point of this show. Given the era of this program, I was a bit alarmed by the frequency with which he takes his gear off: there are many robing and disrobing scenes. I am constantly reminded of the comment made by Alan Rickman’s character in “Galaxy Quest”: “I see you got your shirt off”. Actually, since he did all of his own stunts, there are quite a few scenes in which his terribly tight trousers rip too; there are websites out there which tell you when to hit the freeze-frame button. Seriously: look for yourself... or maybe not.

West’s sidekick Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) is supposed to be the ‘Q’ to West’s ‘Bond’. So far, he seems to be a bit of a lightweight: in the gunfights he gets shot in the shoulder; he can’t take a punch and he always seems to end up disguised as a drunk. Or a Mexican. Or a drunk Mexican (he has range). In the woeful movie adaptation, the screen writers scripted caustic animosity between Kline’s Artemus and Smith’s Jim West for no clear reason: watching the original, I now have trouble with their matey bloke-iness: I keep waiting for Artemus to stick the knife in. Artemus’ job is to come up with all the gizmos and crazy devices while Jim gets the Girl; fortunately, he seems pretty sanguine about this state of affairs (I’m assuming he feels that girlfriends might take up valuable time better spent tinkering with stuff).

Interestingly, the literal lightweight of the show is, so far, the most entertaining aspect. Miguelito Loveless is the midget evil genius who sets himself squarely against West as his nemesis. After a few less-than-riveting megalomaniacs, which amounted to some pretty ordinary racial stereotyping, I hit the first Loveless episode and was pleasantly surprised. Loveless doesn’t seem to have any particularly strong motivation – he’s just an evil genius – but it’s the execution of the role that is seriously convincing. I’m sure it’s because the role is probably a lot meatier than most of the parts usually played by actors afflicted with dwarfism: in an era light years away from “Game of Thrones”, I’m guessing the best they could hope for was a bit part in “Bewitched”, or “I Dream of Jeannie”. This must have seemed like a dream role at the time and Michael Dunn is having all kinds of fun with it.

Anyway, it’s early days in my exploration of “The Wild Wild West” and I’m feeling good about it. I’m mostly enjoying the fact that I know now what that awful movie and the excellent roleplaying game are all on about. I love it when these things come together.