Star Wars quickly disintegrated into sci-fantasy, focusing on magic over the "western" elements.
Basically, we ascribe the term "Western" to stories/settings that have certain characteristics--many of which are echoed in post-apocalyptic settings:
- Small "towns" or "camps" in a somewhat desolate landscape, each very separate and exclusive of each other, often competing for resources.
- People surviving on remnants of modern technology, rather than the best and newest luxuries. The idea of "forging a living" in a somewhat hostile environment.
- A sense of lawlessness, or rather a lack of centralized authority. Local sheriffs (or outlaws) run things with their sphere of influence, regardless of what goes on outside it.
- Barter is more common than currency--though this is largely due to the previous point about no centralized authority to assign value to currency.
- People tend to be more stingy and skeptical because of all of the previously-listed features of society.
Post-apoc, as a genre, is often just a "return to the romanticized Old West." Firefly was post-Apoc, after all--we overflowed the Earth and had to abandon it. Instead of the cataclysm knocking us "back to the Stone Age," we're more willing (as an audience) to believe it knocked us back to the Pioneer Age... which we conceptualize through the lens of old Westerns.
Basically, we ascribe the term "Western" to stories/settings that have certain characteristics--many of which are echoed in post-apocalyptic settings:
- Small "towns" or "camps" in a somewhat desolate landscape, each very separate and exclusive of each other, often competing for resources.
- People surviving on remnants of modern technology, rather than the best and newest luxuries. The idea of "forging a living" in a somewhat hostile environment.
- A sense of lawlessness, or rather a lack of centralized authority. Local sheriffs (or outlaws) run things with their sphere of influence, regardless of what goes on outside it.
- Barter is more common than currency--though this is largely due to the previous point about no centralized authority to assign value to currency.
- People tend to be more stingy and skeptical because of all of the previously-listed features of society.
Post-apoc, as a genre, is often just a "return to the romanticized Old West." Firefly was post-Apoc, after all--we overflowed the Earth and had to abandon it. Instead of the cataclysm knocking us "back to the Stone Age," we're more willing (as an audience) to believe it knocked us back to the Pioneer Age... which we conceptualize through the lens of old Westerns.
