So the buzz around the internets is that Gore Verbinski will be remaking The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp playing Tonto. Let us leave aside the fact that despite Depp being generally pretty cool he is still bleach for the purposes of whitewashing a character, because every other site talking about this seems to have forgotten that Johnny Depp, despite some purported Cherokee ancestry, is still basically a white guy.
No, let us instead discuss the merits of a Lone Ranger remake, which has not received entirely kind press from the movie blogging community, mostly because the Lone Ranger seems sort of corny. Which is ridiculous, of course, because the guy has the finale of the William Tell Overture – one of the most exciting bits of classical music ever – as his theme, and no trailer with a lot of explosions and horse ridin’ and shootin’ set to the William Tell Overture is going to be boring.
If they asked me to write it, I’d go to the Mask of Zorro well and make it generational. Have the original Lone Ranger emerge out of the Bleeding Kansas period – Texas Rangers were known to occasionally cross into Kansas, and the possibility that a group of Texas Rangers could have been involved in something horrific involving escaped slaves – or at least allowed it to happen – and disillusion the Lone Ranger so much so that he would abandon his unit and become, well, the Lone Ranger? That seems entirely reasonable.
Now, if the Lone Ranger gets his start in northern Texas and Kansas, that means he’s not very far off from the historic stomping grounds of several of the Apache tribes. So let’s say Tonto is an Apache. The Apache were, frankly, some of the baddest asses of the southwest native tribes of the time – a lot of other tribes thought, not unfairly, that they were kind of crazy. And they didn’t like anybody.
So why the Lone Ranger/Tonto partnership? Well, in Apache legend, there’s a pair of heroes/demigods/myths (their exact status is unclear) named Child-Born-of-Water and Killer-of-Enemies. These two always work as a pair. Were the Lone Ranger – not yet the Lone Ranger yet, not really – to stumble into an Apache camp, half-dead from exhaustion and thirst, in such a way as to resemble many of the legends surrounding the beginning/birth/genesis of Child-Born-of-Water, perhaps the medicine men of the camp would suggest that he not be killed off in the usual way but watched closely, to make sure this was indeed a child of Usen. Sticking Tonto – antisocial even among his own, but with the Power that very few Apache have, to leave no tracks and know men’s thoughts – with him to make sure he didn’t die of eating the wrong snake. Eventually sending the two of them off together to defeat the enemies of mankind, as the legends demand that Child-Born-of-Water and Killer-of-Enemies do. And thus begins a partnership that lasts twenty years.
Twenty years later, with the Ranger and Tonto in their late forties, it’s a new era: the peak of the Wild West, and not coincidentally the sunset of the Apache nations. Mangas Coloradas was killed in 1863. Cochise is jailed in 1872, dies in 1874. His son Taza dies in 1876. Geronimo lasts until 1886, but by the 1870s he’s reduced to small-scale guerilla raids and escaping from the whites on a regular basis.
This is when the Lone Ranger dies, in the course of protecting innocents (as you might expect). Tonto tries to go home, but by this point there’s not really any home left for him to which he might return. And one of those people is a young man whose family was murdered by a rail baron relentlessly expanding west, who only wants revenge – but, as Tonto sees, for a second time a white man satisfies the legends of Child-Born-of-Water’s birth…
See? You’d go see that.
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Why in god’s name haven’t you been hired by somebody yet? Are they afraid of decent story ideas?
The Lone Ranger is NOT corny and his original origin is perfectly serviceable. The Dynamite Comics series was actually quite good and offered a decompressed version of the origin and it worked. (It also made Butch Cavendish a bad-ass.)
That said, I liked your take on it. It could work. They’ll never do it, though.
… And now for some reason I see Chris Pine as the 2nd Ranger.
Sounds like you’re quite familiar with the period. Any good recommendations for reading about it?
I’d watch this, but I’d rather not watch it with Johnny Depp. Don’t get me wrong, I like Depp. But I’ve already seen Dead Man, and any standard western with Depp will just remind me I could be watching that instead.
I would see the movie made from your plot summary many, many times. Seriously, that’s the sort of story I’m dying to see.
Remember, his great-nephew is the Green Hornet. Who also has an interesting sidekick. It already runs in the family. 🙂
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches by S.C. Gwynne. It’s about the Comanche rather than the Apache, but if you’re looking for one book that will give you a good feeling for the decline of the great Indian nations, I vote this one.
I would arrange for the premier of this movie to be in a high mountain valley of the Rio Grand National Forest, with the film projected against the sheer cliff face of the northern end of the hidden canyon. A waterfall would mist gently down the vertical cliff face to a rough camp set up at the base, where attendees would be required to arrive on horseback, wearing black masks to hide their identity. A 40 piece orchestra seated precariously on a narrow trail above the camp would serenade them with the William Tell Overture, while chunks of venison turned on the spits over the fires burning brightly under a carpet of a thousand stars, and patrons passed around stone gallon jugs of smooth rye whiskey. Tickets would be awarded via a selection process of awesome comments left on a few select blogs.
Holy crap I would watch the hell out of that.
“…but with the Power that very few Apache have, to leave no tracks and know men’s thoughts”
And also to say wise things and care for the environment and cry whenever somebody litters.
And nurse Kevin Costner back to health.
I know “the Power” sounds odd, but that’s what the Apache called it. They all believed Geronimo had it, and that because of it he was also unkillable by bullets and had telekinetic powers.
Hell, bulletproof telekinetic Geronimo sounds like a pretty good movie too. X-Men: Wild West?
Oh yes, I’d watch the hell out of that.
The thing is, I don’t think the Lone Ranger concept is hokey or corny. I think that past execution of it strikes people that way.
Let’s be honest: any Lone Ranger remake is not going to have:
* a matching powder blue top and pants ensemble.
* a domino mask
* a literally white hat
* “Hi-yo Silver, away!”
It’s just not. You can’t do that today unless it’s a comedy. Those things ARE corny. If you were in a certain mood they could be the good kind of kitschy, but not for a serious movie.
I don’t see why anyone would imagine a 21st century movie remake would contain any of those elements, though. What you’re left with really is just the character concept, and most likely, a more or less “accurate” treatment of the West (at least in comparison with a 50s television treatment).
It could still be astonishingly bad. Depends on the treatment. As your outline here shows, there are ways to do it well. (I highly doubt that the Hollywood answer will be nearly as interesting as your suggestion, though.) Then it will depend on casting and on decisions made about certain details (look and feel, and so on.)
Let me be clear: Depp is the wrongest of wrong choices for Tonto. Any modern production of the Lone Ranger needs, IMO, to be aware that the original is racially problematic, and it needs to at least be trying, with that awareness, to do better. Casting a white guy (I don’t care how far back he’s supposed to have some drop of Cherokee in him) would NOT be a step in the right direction.
I am totally stoked to see The Lone Ranger make a comeback, and that “going to the Mask Of Zorro well” as you put it is an excellent idea. It’s kind of funny, I’d been thinking idly about what a Lone Ranger movie made today might look like, so this is an oddly coincidental post.
That’s better than any Lone Ranger movie Hollywood is going to cram down our collective throat. Too bad they won’t make it. Since Hollywood is going the whole Yellowface/Last Airbender route, that movie and Johnny Depp can go to hell. You should write your script or better yet as a novel just to show all those dumbasses how it’s done… properly!
Will it have explosions? Maybe the Lone ranger can have like explosing silver bullets that slow down time so we can see the silver shrapnel.
And Tonto can have dynamite arrows.
And they can fight a giant steampunk spider!
Yes I’d see your idea. But by sharing your awesome thoughts you’ve only doomed me to greater disappointment when the inevitably mediocre movie is finally released.
The Lone Ranger is a guy in a mask who protects the innocent. If people on the internet find that corny, then I officially don’t know what people on the internet like anymore.
The reason many poo-poo The Lone Ranger is the 1980s movie, and THAT isn’t because the movie was good OR bad. It’s because at the time, the studio that had the rights to LR had an injunction against Clayton Moore (1950s LR) from wearing his mask in public. Yes, HIS mask – he’s actor most known for the role, and he would often appear at events espousing the “Lone Ranger Code” to kids. Yea, corny – put a generation grew up with it.
When the 80’s movie tanked BADLY because of the negative publicity, they quietly let Mr. Moore wear the mask again, and the “unknown actor cast as The Lone Ranger!” seems to have left acting altogether.
As for Johnny Depp, I’d rather see him cast AS The Lone Ranger. (But they don’t ask me these things…)
I wrote a Lone Ranger fanfic a couple months back, actually. My goal was to see if I couldn’t create a take on the LR which could pass the Bechdell Test.
Annoyingly, my fanfic doesn’t, but, oh, well. I’m still rather proud of it.
http://xiphias.livejournal.com/579282.html
Rangers are not exclusive to Texas; each state or territory had them or the equivalent. There were Arizona Rangers and Oklahoma Rangers.
What are the chances of the trailer including some comic relief guy saying “If you’re the Lone Ranger, why are there two of you?” and then the music drops, and there’s a brief shot of LR and Tonto looking at each other in classic “whomp-wooowwww” fashion?
[i]Let me be clear: Depp is the wrongest of wrong choices for Tonto. [/i]
Oh, I don’t know. I can thing of wronger choices than that. Off the top of my head:
Jack Black
Micheal Cera
Carrot Top
Rosie O’Donnell
Johnny Weir
DC
Okay, the wrongest of any choices likely to actually happen.
Brian G: and the response should be “Does he look like a Ranger to you?” while pointing to Tonto.
The Lone Ranger’s mask is badass.
It’s made from the clothes his murdered brother.
The eyeholes are from the bullets that killed him.
I didn’t know that about the mask. Very cool.
I like MGK’s concept, even though I have a reflexive flinch at any “Look, a white man who fulfils our ancient native prophesies!” concept. But at least Tonto gets to fulfil half of it.
>> that “going to the Mask Of Zorro well” as you put it is an excellent idea
Indeed. And part of that well would include stoking up the action at the right spots. Opening scene action. Alejandro gets his horse. Zorro vs Elena. The horse chase. Zorro at the villa. And, of course, the final dual duel.
The movie got some criticism for being over 2 hours but, really, how would you notice?
>>It’s made from the clothes his murdered brother.
>>The eyeholes are from the bullets that killed him.
Dang. Didn’t know that. Badass indeed.
Let’s be honest: any Lone Ranger remake is not going to have:
* a matching powder blue top and pants ensemble.
* a domino mask
* a literally white hat
* “Hi-yo Silver, away!”
I’ll give you the powder blue. But if it’s not going to have the mask, the silver bullets, a horse named Silver, then it isn’t The Lone Ranger.
It’d be just another “why did you bother?” from the ilk that wanted The Flash TV series to feature a lawyer who wore a track suit.
or the lame Phantom show
aren’t silver bullets for killing vampires?
and damn i would watch this movie
you know what was cool? Sam Elliot as the old Western Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider. bring that back
I would watch the heck out of Rosie O’Donnell as Tonto. That alone would be worth the price of admission.
Huh, MGK’s take on how Tonto and the Lone Ranger met seems fairly reminiscent of the Lone Ranger-esque figure’s origin in Planetary.