8. Django: Unchained (2012)
You might be forgiven for thinking that not much has changed in the western genre since the original Red Dead Redemption came out in 2010. In case you weren't paying attention to the other audiovisual medium, this happened: a groundbreaking spaghetti blaxploitation western written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Django: Unchained is at its core a universally relatable story of vengeance, love and freedom. As such, it is just an amazing movie, period, and anyone designing a narrative could benefit from analysing how Tarantino wrote it.
It’s also the first popular movie that depicted racial tensions in the Old West in a work of fiction meant mainly for entertainment.
Red Dead Redemption's producer and main writer for both games, Dan Houser, said back in 2009:
We didn’t fully represent era-appropriate racial attitudes because it’s too unpleasant to deal with, but we touch on those issues
The first game dodged this aspect of the Old West. In 2018 it’s safe to say that we’re ready to face at least some of that unpleasantness and that the general public appreciates inclusive stories that try to maturely approach all intricacies of their chosen setting.
Published Aug. 26th 2018
