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We did a rewatch of 3:10 to Yuma last night at

ninjababe's request, after seeing Cowboys & Aliens for the first time. And that prompted me to read my one 3:10 To Yuma fic that I wrote a few years back. It wasn't bad, in retrospect. I think I got Ben Wade down pretty well, and I liked the Vin voice (it was a crossover - don't act surprised [g]). Was a nice refresh of the memory.

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The graphic novel for Cowboys and Aliens is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the movie.

So how does it differ in the Jake character???

Jake's character was greatly expanded and changed for the movie. He wasn't an outlaw with a prostitute girlfriend. He was something of a cowboy who hung out with a cowgirl named Verity, who was freaking awesome.

I hate it when they rewrite a character for 'movie license'
THIS Jake sounds more interesting.

Verity was his gunslinger partner and on equal level to the man in all aspects. The alien woman who helped them, they did her a disservice by how they altered her. I mean, I like Olivia Wilde, but her character's story was more interesting when she was a double agent with the invading aliens and didn't look human. The female characters are pretty much the ones who lead everyone else.

The story itself changed from the source material, too. It's really insane how this was more an "original" piece of work than an adaptation of the Cowboys & Aliens graphic novel. It treated the minorities and women better, esp. the stuff with the Native Americans. The whole prologue is a side by side comparison of the alien invasion and the Manifest Destiny era of US history.

As a one shot comic story, I have to emphasize it's very much all about its title - cowboys & aliens - with a solid and fair representation of people of the West but thin on character development. However, there's no Man Pain. The women take no shit and hold positions of importance and power. Native Americans are treated with more respect. It's a nice little 100 page tale.

I enjoyed the film for what it was, though. Summer popcorn fun.

The women of the west were a tough lot no matter what
role they played
If they were not, they did not survive
I will never forget reading a book which was actually the
diary of a woman who lived with her husband and four kids in a sod
When he was gone she was it.
She spoke of fighting off tribal people, the sod had a gun slots
in side that was open, fought off wolves which gathered at their door etc.
It was a harrowing account presented by her descendant who found the diaries in the attic in a trunk that had been forgotten.
She also was a writer so the result was this book.
Then I think of my maternal grandmother who left Switzerland when she was 17, boarded steerage in a ship, arrived in NYC to board a train
which stopped here in Oregon. From there she boarded a paddle wheeler which took her east on the Columbia where her sister and family met her.
That took the kind of courage that the earlier women had.
I salute them one and all.