"Gosh, stranger, we ain't never seen nothin' weren't orange or brown before."

COWBOYS & ALIENS

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. VERY GENERIC WILD WEST TOWN

PAUL DANO

Yee-haw, I am so drunk on both power and liquor! My paw owns this town and I can do what I like, and right now I feel like gunning down anyone who isn't a total Western-movie stereotype!

SAM ROCKWELL

Well, guess we're all safe. Go about your stock character functions, everyone.

PAUL DANO

(aiming at DANIEL CRAIG)

Hey, what about this new guy?

DANIEL CRAIG

Actually I have amnesia, so I don't remember if my backstory is fully developed or not. But I sure as heck remember who's the star of this movie, so I know you ain't shooting me.

DANIEL CRAIG'S TOP BILLING punches PAUL DANO in the NUTS.

PAUL DANO

Oowww!

(teleports to jail)

KEITH CARRADINE

Nicely done, stranger. Even though you look exactly like the most notorious bandit for miles around and I'm the Sheriff whose business it is to know shit like that, I welcome you.

DANIEL CRAIG

Thanks. If the plot needs me, I'll be in the saloon.

CUT TO:

INT. VERY VERY VERY DIMLY-LIT SALOON

A DANIEL-CRAIG-SHAPED SILHOUETTE is sitting at the GIANT DARK SMUDGE when A BUNCH OF SHADOWY BLOBS enter.

KEITH-CARRADINE-SHAPED BLOB

Listen up, everyone! I just saw the Wanted poster that makes Daniel Craig look like an extra from Rango, so I'm here to arrest him.

DANIEL-CRAIG-SHAPED BLOB

I don't think so!

There is a burst of PUNCHING and FURNITURE-SMASHING SOUND EFFECTS, punctuated with some SPARKS OF GUNFIRE that almost allow the BAREST GLIMPSE of the action.

KEITH CARRADINE

(opening door)

Maybe a sliver of light will help me figure out what's going on...

(looking around)

Hey, you defeated all my deputies! How'd you do that?

DANIEL CRAIG

It's so goddamn dark in here, I just laid down and waited silently while all your men beat each other up. I'm going to call this new fighting style "plank fu"

OLIVIA WILDE

Too bad your preternatural combat senses don't extend to noticing women who are barely off-camera!

(clunks DANIEL on back of the head)

DANIEL CRAIG

Arrrgh, my one weakness, being hit from behind by a woman! Seriously, I'll shrug off far worse impacts later in the movie like it was nothing.

(passes out)

CUT TO:

EXT. ABSURDLY DIMLY LIT MAIN STREET, I MEAN COME ON FAVREAU, PERIOD REALISM IS ALL FINE AND DANDY BUT MAYBE WE COULD ACTUALLY BE ALLOWED TO SEE WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING, JUST A THOUGHT

HARRISON FORD

(riding in)

Hey Carradine, I heard you had my SON arrested! Let my SON go, right now!

KEITH CARRADINE

I'm afraid I can't do that.

HARRISON FORD

Need I remind you that I own this godforsakSON town, and am a mean, heartless, evil bastard, at least for the next few scenes before I instantly transform into a reluctant hero. You'll do what I tell you!

KEITH CARRADINE

No, I mean I can't see a fucking thing, including where the prison stagecoach is. Am I even in shot?

HARRISON FORD

Damned if I know. Well that coach is around here SONwhere, so get to it!

Suddenly CRAZY BLUE LIGHTS and HUGE ORANGE EXPLOSIONS go APESHIT ALL OVER THE GODDAMN PLACE.

KEITH CARRADINE

(whisked away by alien ship)

Wheeeeee!!!

PAUL DANO

Daniel, save us with the crazy alien weapon you have!

(gets punched in nuts)

DANIEL CRAIG

(regaining consciousness)

Worth a try. In fact, I'll bet these alien ships are vulnerable to the Jack Nicholson Joker maneouver. You know, the one where I just stand still in the dead centre of the street and shoot them as they fly in a nice straight line directly at me.

It WORKS!

DANIEL CRAIG

Well, all the most famous actors survived that attack, so I guess everything's A-OK.

HARRISON FORD

Wrong, son! Those aliens just took my SON, and YOU'RE gonna help get him back! Ain't no SON of a bitch gonna take my SON!!

DANIEL CRAIG

I refuse to help.

HARRISON FORD punches DANIEL CRAIG in the FACE.

DANIEL CRAIG

(glares)

DANIEL CRAIG punches HARRISON FORD in the FACE.

HARRISON FORD

(glares)

HARRISON FORD kicks DANIEL CRAIG in the BALLS.

DANIEL CRAIG

(glares)

DANIEL CRAIG gets his HORSE to TAP-DANCE on HARRISON FORD'S BALLS.

HARRISON FORD

(glares)

HARRISON FORD takes an ENORMOUS SHIT all over DANIEL CRAIG and then fires a CIVIL WAR CANNON into his BALLS.

DANIEL CRAIG

(glares)

DANIEL CRAIG travels to the FUTURE, gets a ATLAS COPCO 658 SERIES 48"-BIT JACKHAMMER, COMES BACK and USES it to PLAY BEETHOVEN'S COMPLETE FIFTH SYMPHONY on HARRISON FORD'S BALLS.

HARRISON FORD

(glares)

DANIEL CRAIG

Okay, I'll help.

CUT TO:

EXT. WILD WEST LANDSCAPE

DANIEL CRAIG and the remaining TOWNSPEOPLE are somehow tracking the ALIENS, or OLIVIA WILDE told them where they are, or some bullshit.

ADAM BEACH

Why'd you come along, Sam Rockwell?

SAM ROCKWELL

Those creatures took my wife, and I'm gonna use all my doctorin' and saloon-ownin' powers to get her back.

CLANCY BROWN

(sagely)

I suggest you find yourself a gun, Sam.

SAM ROCKWELL

Wow, that's great advice to give when we're miles away from the nearest town in the middle of open desert. I suppose I'll just conjure one out of thin air with the power of my mind?

(does so)

Oh, hey. Cool.

CLANCY BROWN

(sagely)

You're welcome.

HARRISON FORD

It's almost SONdown. Let's take shelter in that CGI rendering of an enormous overturned riverboat.

SAM ROCKWELL

Er, you know that the writers never get around to explaining where the hell that came from. And we'd look like total idiots for taking refuge in something so obviously unstable that could come crashing down on us at any second. Maybe we should just ignore it.

ADAM BEACH

Yeah, why do we all have to do what Harrison says anyway?

HARRISON FORD

(pointing at self)

RAIDERS STAR WARS WITNESS FUGITIVE AIR FORCE SON!!

SAM ROCKWELL

Okay, geez.

CUT TO:

INT. UPSIDE-DOWN RIVERBOAT THAT IS ALL BLUE, ALL THE TIME, AND HEY GUESS WHAT? REALLY FUCKING DARK

OLIVIA WILDE

Daniel, you seem so troubled inside. I think it would ease the burden on your soul if you took your shirt off and got rained on a bit.

DANIEL CRAIG

Perhaps you're right. And perhaps I could share my feelings better if you got your thin white blouse all wet and see-through.

OLIVIA WILDE

Deal!

Just then an ALIEN bursts in!

ALIEN

CAN I INTEREST YOU IN SOME ENCYCLOPEDIAS?!! YOU GET THE FIRST VOLUME FREE, AND THE FIRST VOLUME IS YOUR AGONIZING TERRIBLE DEATH!!

DANIEL BLASTS it, but not before it MORTALLY WOUNDS CLANCY BROWN!

SAM ROCKWELL

Dammit, Clancy, have you EVER survived all the way to the end of a movie?

CLANCY BROWN

(weakly, yet still with sage-like properties)

Yeah, even in the Spongebob movie I got eaten by mutant coral.

(dies)

CUT TO:

EXT. A VERY SIMILAR STRETCH OF WILD WEST DESERT

Our heroes get ATTACKED BY ALIENS AGAIN!

DANIEL CRAIG

Damn, one of the alien ships grabbed Olivia! No way to save her either... unless my horse can somehow outrun a spaceship, but that's ridic...

(horse outruns spaceship)

...oookay then.

The ALIEN SHIP obligingly flies into a CANYON so that DANIEL can jump on it!

DANIEL CRAIG

Hold still, Olivia, so I can blast you free!

ALIEN PILOT COINCIDENTALLY NAMED OLIVIA

Huh, do you mean me? Okay, I'll hold a dead steady course and make no attempt whatsoever to shake you off. Take your time.

DANIEL BLASTS the SHIP, and it CRASHES!

DANIEL CRAIG

Lucky we landed in this two-foot-deep water, otherwise that might have hurt.

OLIVIA WILDE

Phew, yes! Mark me down as totally unscathed.

ALIEN PILOT COINCIDENTALLY NAMED OLIVIA

(bursting from out of water)

GODDAMMIT DANIEL, I THOUGHT I WAS SPECIAL TO YOU AND YOU LIED TO ME!! YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD!!

(gashes OLIVIA)

TAKE THAT, YOU MAN-STEALING HUSSY!

DANIEL BLASTS the ALIEN!

OLIVIA WILDE

Ooh, my wound looks awfully mortal.

(dies)

DANIEL CRAIG

Nooo, you can't die! You haven't done your nude scene from the trailer yet!

(thinks)

There must be some Magical Indians in this movie somewhere that can help. Rather than stay close to this huge pile of smoking wreckage that could act as a signal, I'll wander aimlessly in the desert until I pass out, which by Movie Law will summon the Indians to rescue us.

It WORKS!

CUT TO:

EXT. MAGICAL INDIAN CAMPGROUND

INDIAN CHIEF

Throw Olivia Wilde into the fire!

(she resurrects herself)

And here's some memory pills for Daniel.

DANIEL CRAIG

Thanks!

INDIAN CHIEF

Anyone else need some plot points resolved? No?

(pause)

Well, that's OUR contribution to this movie. You guys mind if we stick around and watch the ending?

DANIEL CRAIG

Yeah, no problem. I gave my comp tickets to the Fickle Bandit Gang led by Ficklaus McFickleton, but I think Harrison still has a bunch.

INDIAN CHIEF

Cool.

OLIVIA WILDE

Now you know my secret, that I am a different kind of alien, from the world of "Cocoon" I took this form to be able to walk amongst you.

DANIEL CRAIG

So wait... instead of being, say, Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham, you CHOSE to be an attractive woman in Old West frontier times. I guess you thought the constant harassment, lack of civil rights, and ever-present threat of rape would, what, come in handy?

OLIVIA WILDE

(defensively)

Well, maybe I thought that Olivia Wilde deserved a better movie than "Tron Legacy".

SAM ROCKWELL

Then I'd say you just barely succeeded. But look, do we really want Daniel to get his memory back? Won't he remember being an evil bandit and not help us anymore?

ADAM BEACH

Come on, Sam. Everyone knows that even the most foul, antisocial, hardened criminal only needs a couple of days' worth of amnesia to become a complete fucking superhero. If scientists could just develop a reliable memory-loss pill we'd never need prisons ever again.

DANIEL TAKES the PILLS and RECOVERS HIS MEMORIES, which has UTTERLY NO GODDAMN EFFECT ON ANYTHING AT ALL FOR THE WHOLE REST OF THE DAMN MOVIE.

HARRISON FORD

I'm joining this discusSON to point out that we still don't know why the aliens are stealing people and blowing up cows and shit.

OLIVIA WILDE

They're... studying your weaknesses?

DANIEL CRAIG

Uh-huh. Well they know that tearing us apart and blowing us up kills us, that must have taken all of four seconds to figure out. They must want something else.

OLIVIA WILDE

They, er, want your gold.

DANIEL CRAIG

(pause)

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

OLIVIA WILDE

God, I wish. Let me just take you to them already.

CUT TO:

EXT. SERIES OF CANYONS NEAR THE BIG HONKIN ALIEN BASE SHIP

DANIEL CRAIG

So, Olivia, where's this secret entrance you told us about?

OLIVIA WILDE

Did I say secret? I meant to say magic. All you need to do is announce your intention to use it, then in the next scene you'll be deep inside the alien base.

DANIEL CRAIG

Sweet. So is it guarded or anything?

OLIVIA WILDE

No.

(makes "duh" face)

DANIEL CRAIG

So why don't we ALL use it instead of creating a huge diversion that will both lose the advantage of surprise and get two-thirds of us killed?

HARRISON FORD

Because, unlike SON people we could name...

ENTIRE CAST

(in perfect unison)

COUGHPRESENTDAYSPIELBERGCOUGHCOUGH

HARRISON FORD

...our director, SON Favreau, realized that I'm too damn old to actually do any action-movie stuff. But I still need to justify even being here, so I'm contributing a ridiculous plan instead.

ADAM BEACH

You mean the plan where we throw a crude explosive into their base, and then get massacred by their far superior weaponary?

HARRISON FORD

No, you see, my plan will draw them out. It's like how when human soliders in a fort get attacked, their first reaction is always to totally abandSON their defensive position and run around randomly in the open with no organization. Same principle.

SAM ROCKWELL

Well, I feel confident about this plan! My current ineptitude with a gun only guarantees that I will heroically make a crack shot at a crucial moment, with which I will surely save my wife, wrapping up that character arc neatly!

HARRISON FORD

(shiftily)

Ah... yes, your wife. That's who you'll save, yeah.

(pause)

Here, Stupid Kid, stand on this rock that somehow overlooks every canyon for miles around, and shout out any plot points you see at the top of your puny lungs, which we'll be certain to hear over the din of all-out pitched battle.

(directly to camera)

They have my SON.

ADAM BEACH

(aside, to SAM)

Remind me, why did we bring Stupid Kid along?

SAM ROCKWELL

Audiences reflexively care if children or dogs are endangered, which is why we brought one of each. They're sure not gonna give a fuck when you... er, one of us... buys it.

HARRISON'S BUTT-STUPID PLAN ACTUALLY WORKS! Soon, an ENORMOUS CONFUSING FIGHT has broken out that has NO SENSE OF WHERE ANYONE IS IN RELATION TO ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE.

ALIEN

Rarrgh, there's a pesky human in that crevasse! I'd better get him out with my auxiliary chest-claws, the use of which requires I expose all my internal organs! This can't possibly backfire!

STUPID KID

Gosh, an alien trying to get me, and all I have is this enormous knife and its exposed heart! WHAT CAN I POSSIBLY DO?!?!!?!????!!?!!!!!

(pause)

NO, SERIOUSLY, I HAVE THE I.Q. OF HALF A BOWL OF OATMEAL, WHAT CAN I DO?!!????

ALIEN

Oh for God's sake, kid.

(impales own heart on the knife)

(dies)

Elsewhere, ADAM BEACH gets mortally hit!

HARRISON FORD

Don't die, Adam! You're like a SON to me!

ADAM BEACH

(dying)

I'm honoured to be your SON! Now go get your SON!

(dies)

HARRISON FORD

I will, SON! Now hold on, SON, I'm SONNING to SON you or my name isn't SONRRISON FSONRD!

He RUSHES back into the TOTALLY ABSURD FIGHT between ALIEN LASERS and 1870s HANDGUNS that we are asked to believe isn't UTTERLY AND PATHETICALLY ONE-SIDED.

CUT TO:

INT. ALIEN LAIR AND OOH, I WONDER WHAT THE LIGHTING SITUATION IS, WELL LET'S FIND OUT ALONG WITH THE CHARACTERS, SHALL WE

DANIEL CRAIG

Big surprise, it's dark as fuck in here. So how are we going to deal with this alien base?

OLIVIA WILDE

I've got a plan. You see, your wrist blaster with its built-in targeting also functions as an incredibly powerful explosive device. So to answer your unspoken question, yes, it is completely stolen from Predator.

DANIEL CRAIG

Sooo, I guess one of us has to take it to the core of the base and detonate it?

OLIVIA WILDE

Right again. And since I am the last of my race and you are one of millions of humans, obviously I should do it.

DANIEL CRAIG

Don't be silly, I can't let you make such a noble sacriYOINK!

(drops blaster, runs off)

SCARRED ALIEN

(leaping in)

DANIEL, GET BACK HERE! YOU SAID BEFORE THAT IF I GAVE YOU A WRIST BLASTER AND LET YOU ESCAPE WE COULD RUN OFF TOGETHER, WHY YOU NO-GOOD TWO-TIMING...

OLIVIA WILDE

(derisively)

Oh, have some self-respect.

SCARRED ALIEN

(sobbing)

WHY DON'T YOU HAVE SOME FACE RESPECT, THUNDER-HIPS?!??!

(eats 40,000 Oreos)

OLIVIA WILDE

Fuck all this.

OLIVIA WILDE totally BLOWS UP THE ALIENS REAL GOOD just after they TAKE OFF, creating a BIG GREY EXPLOSION at the top of the BIG GREY SMOKE TRAIL tracing their ascent.

SAM ROCKWELL

I have an eerie premonition that in about 113 years something called "Challenger" will recreate this moment. But no, that would be horribly tasteless, I must be mistaken. Anyway, we're saved!

CUT TO:

EXT. STILL GENERIC WESTERN TOWN BEING UPGRADED INTO SLIGHTLY MORE AFFLUENT GENERIC WESTERN TOWN

HARRISON FORD

Well, Daniel, thanks for ensuring the continued safety of this town, and all humankind. I'm not at all worried that our only deSONt weapon against the aliens is now lost to us.

DANIEL CRAIG

I'm sure if they ever come back, they'll just drop another thermonuclear device in our lap like they did this time around. But I suspect that this one failed attempt by the aliens will discourage them from ever trying again, sort of like how the first dead prospector totally halted the 1848 California Gold Rush.

STUPID KID

But what if it's more like how no amount of crappy, failed blockbusters could stop the Comic-Book Movie Rush of the 2010s?

(sees entire cast staring at him)

...What?

END

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