Talk:The Book of Eli

I'm going to knock out "neo-western" again, because....
Like being cheated of a quater by a pop-machine, sometimes it's the littlest annoyances that irk you most, and so, while I choose not to die on this ridiculous hill, I'm going to empty one more magazine from atop it:
 * Let's run through the voluminous list to be as thorough as possible: Does The Book of Eli (TBoE) have anything in common with the two dozen other films listed under Contemporary Western (which is what Neo-Western redirects to)? Answer: not really.
 * - "...they utilize Old West themes and motifs...." Well, count these beans:
 * - "conquest of the wilderness" TBoE? No.
 * - "subordination of nature in the name of civilization" TBoE? No.
 * - "Native American, inhabitants of the frontier" TBoE? No.
 * - "society organized around codes of honor" TBoE? No.
 * - "depictions of feuds" TBoE? No.
 * - "personal revenge or retribution" TBoE? No.
 * - "centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter" TBoE? No. Eli is a wanderer, but the film does not "center on his life". He's just going from Point A to Point B, and plowing through obstacles. The director is acutely aware that Gary Oldman's character is much more interesting than Eli, and the focus of the film substantially shifts --for the better-- to what he wants the moment he's introduced. Contrast this with, say, Jeremiah Johnson, which is all about Robert Redford chopping down trees to build a log-cabin in five feet of snow, skinnin' bears, marrying hisself a fine Injun woman, smoking them peace-pipes, and growing the manliest beard this side of ZZ Top.
 * - "showdown or duel" TBoE? No. (There's fights, but they're not archetypal western encounters.)
 * - "tell simple morality tales" TBoE? No. (Eli is a moral character, but little on display is "simple".)
 * - "harshness and isolation of the wilderness" TBoE? No. (See below.) At the beginning of BoE, when Eli is hunting emaciated cats with a crossbow for dinner, we initially assume the film might be a lone "Man in the Wilderness"-type tale, but that is dispelled within ten minutes.
 * - "set the action in an arid, desolate landscape" TBoE? No, because the qualifier there is "the action, which in BoE takes place in highway underpasses, buildings, culvert pipe-sections, and moving vehicles. Arid desolation is just the back-drop, and the desolation is the result of a nuclear apocalypse.
 * - "(ranches, saloons, frontier towns, etc)"  TBoE? No.
 * - "(misc western tropes: whores, gambling, boozing, brawling, etc)" TBoE? No.
 * - "(western music)" TBoE? No.
 * - "(western apparel)"  TBoE? No.
 * - (a rebellious anti-hero...."'' TBoE? No.
 * - "...open plains and desert landscapes...." TBoE? No, and the reason I say "no" is because BoE doesn't have the cinematography found in a typical western. In fact, the converse is true: the film's color palette is desaturated to the point of deliberate, gray ugliness. The few wide shots are of apocalyptic destruction (annihilated cities, etc). Every bit of camera legerdemain employed by John Ford in his movies is not found in TBoE.
 * - "...and gunfights). TBoE? This requires qualification: Lever-guns, six-shooters, derringers, and dynamite are all western tropes, but AR15s and Glocks not so much. Of all the weapons utilized in BoE, about the only one I can think of evocative of westerns is a weird Gatling rig mounted in a van. Obviously a film isn't a western for simply having gunfights (because then every urban gangland drama would be a "neo-western"). But, so as not to say I'm being unfair, let's go with "Yes", due to the Gatling -- even though the fight in which it appears is finally settled by a rocket-propelled grenade.
 * - "...For the most part, they still take place in the American West..." TBoE? This is a qualified "maybe" because we-the-audience don't know where the setting actually is. It's never identified. It could be the Midwest. We merely know that Eli is headed west, and we know that a nuclear apocalypse obliterated everything thirty years ago and has apparently altered the climate enough that nothing still will grow. We don't see mountain ranges, buttes, salt-pans, mirages, rattlesnakes, jack-rabbits, cacti, pine trees, mustangs, bison, longhorns, or anything else evocative of "the American West". Nobody wears cowboy hats, and nobody drawls.


 * Moving on to the two sources, which I've visited and will pull bits from:
 * - Hollywood Reporter: "...The story is couched in neo-Western terms -- a solitary gunman comes to a town and confronts the corrupt sheriff and his maniacal deputies...." --This one we can straight punt because the author didn't watch the movie. Eli isn't a gunman (in fact it's an early joke that his gun is empty and the bad guys know so in advance because *everybody's* guns are empty now...well, except for those of the badder bad guys down the road, but we haven't met them yet). Gary Oldman's character isn't a lawman (and his men are saner than he is), and he isn't "confronted" by Eli. Per my gunfights reasoning above, simply having a bunch of bad guys with guns in a movie does not qualify it as western. Liam Neeson's Cold Pursuit ticks off at least a half-dozen items on the checklist above, and it's not described as a neo-western.
 * - ABC Radio Hobart: "...a rattling good post-apocalyptic neo-western where Eli stands in for Mad Max or The Man With No Name...." --Both Mel Gibson's character and Clint Eastwood's character in their respective movies are morally-ambiguous anti-heroes who'll do almost anything for money or fuel; neither of them are good analogies for the character of Eli, who is not an anti-hero, a renegade, or a bounty-hunter. That said, neither is he a paladin-like figure seeking out wrongs to right (in fact, it's a recurrent dilemma for Eli that his mission take precedence over the various evils he sees going on around him). As with the other source, I get the impression that the writer made broad-brush guesses after watching the trailers, then did his utmost laziest to collect his miniscule review paycheck. It's interesting that both cite Mad Max, a film which is not described as a neo-western in its article despite pegging many of themes and tropes listed above, certainly far more than The Book of Eli does.

Yes: I have way too much time on my hands. --Froglich (talk) 08:15, 11 August 2019 (UTC)


 * This should be discussed, not unilaterally changed when there is opposition. That's how you get WP:consensus. First, we have reliable sources (whether you like them or not) that say it's a neo-western. I can find several more sources; I just picked two. That, I believe, is your greatest obstacle. Because neither of us is an industry authority, our personal opinions are superseded by them. Next, it is Neo western, not a western. That means all the elements you'd like aren't necessarily included.


 * There is a showdown, sorry if you disagree. Personal revenge or retribution? - You have Claudia refusing to read the book. The wanderer? - again, like it or not, Eli is a wanderer. He comes to a crooked town run by a crooked boss. He imparts his form of justice. I don't know how you could see otherwise. From your own link (themes) "The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter". It's not a desolate landscape? Really? Then the weapons: it's not 1874, it's post-modern era so the weapons reflect that.


 * So, as I see it, it is a neo western, and reliable sources (would you like me to list more?) say it is. I would like to hear from other editors besides one, by his own admission, that has a personal dislike of the connection. MartinezMD (talk) 15:33, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2019
under Critical reception

47% of 203 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.43/10. Myselfjoker (talk) 16:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:39, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 April, 2021
I can't do it because the article is locked.

"Carnegie orders her daughter Solara to seduce Eli"

should say "his" not "her". Solara is his daughter


 * No. Solara is not his daughter and the "her" is referring to Claudia in the preceding sentence. MartinezMD (talk) 20:44, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Zatoichi
With the theme of the blind swordmaster, perhaps (rather than cutting each other to ribbons over western or Neo western), we ought instead to make a popculture reference to an Eastern, namely, the Zatoichi of Takeshi Kitano. Nuttyskin (talk) 20:50, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Suspension of Disbelief
It might be mentioned in a critical evaluation of the work, that there has been no industry in America for thirty years; and yet, we are supposed to believe there are thousands of bullets and no bibles? Then again, copies of the work of Sappho were once so common, that it did not occur to anyone that her work might ever need preserving. Nuttyskin (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2023 (UTC)