Though they did get the stories kinda right, despite it being the completely wrong region/tribe. Tonto from the start talks about being a “Wendigo hunter” and that the bad guys are “Wendigos” and that “nature is out of balance.” Wendigos are a Eastern Woodlands (Algonquian/Cree/Ojibwe) thing. First off, we’re in “Texas,” except Texas is set in the iconic Monument Valley–Navajoland. Despite the Comanche involvement in the film, there’s still a lot of problems with conflating all Indians together. Here’s the part you wanted to hear about, and I’m trying to think of the best way to frame it. Part 2: The Indians–Let’s combine ALL the stereotypes! In case you missed it.)Īnyway, Tonto launches into the story of the Lone Ranger for the kid in the museum. So this is the “new” Tonto? Definitely an improvement, amiright? (that was sarcasm.
#WHO PLAYED THE LONE RANGER HOW TO#
This Indian is so silly and backward he trades a dead mouse for a bag of peanuts, doesn’t even know how to eat peanuts, and is feeding a bird, but it’s dead. To me it reinforces the idea that all the Indians are dead, relics of the past, which is actually a theme throughout. The very first scene we are presented with an image of a Native person, in a museum–which presumably we’re supposed to critique, but there’s no questioning of Tonto’s position there. I won’t go this in-depth with the rest of the film, but I wanted to set the stage. Then he proceeds to eat the peanuts with the shells on, crunching through them to the boy’s disgust and wonderment, while feeding the crumbs to the bird on his head. Then OMG he moves! and reaches out! and says in a croaky old person voice, the first words of the whole film: “Kemooosabeeeh.” Then there’s this whole bit where Tonto asks the little boy to “traaaade” (sounding like zombies and “braaains”) and points to his peanuts, which Tonto exchanges for a dead mouse.
#WHO PLAYED THE LONE RANGER MOVIE#
The movie opens with a Buffalo Bill-style Wild West Show, set up like a museum of Natural History, and a little kid wanders in dressed like the Lone Ranger, eatin’ some peanuts, lookin’ at the buffalo, then, oh hey! “The Noble Savage in his natural habitat.” Guess who that is? Part 1: The Opening Scene–Indians are so backward and funny, y’all! It’s not something I would want to expose my kids to, at all.Īnd for those of you new to the blog or need a refresher, here’s all my Tonto coverage over the last year or so, which covers the casting, the costume, and a whole bunch of other things: my initial reactions, why you should care about Tonto when there are “bigger issues” out there, tearing apart Depp’s reasoning over his costume choices, the controversy I dealt with for writing about Tonto, and Armie Hammer’s comments about Indians loving the movie. They have no qualms about shooting someone for the sake of shooting someone, and there are blood and guts and barn beams smashing people’s heads. Early on in the film the bad guy even cuts out and eats the Lone Ranger’s brother’s heart (yes, eats it). There is so much shooting and stabbing, and they show the aftermath. Don’t take your kids, despite the Disney label and PG-13 rating. This is also the most violent movie I’ve seen in awhile, and I’m a fan of Game of Thrones. By the time we got to the final big train chase scene at the end where the pair saves the day (accompanied by the aforementioned William Tell) I wrote in my notes: FINALLY! I AM SO BORED! and then that scene drug on for another 15 minutes and I just wanted it to end. Some quick overall thoughts: Like I mentioned above, this movie didn’t know what it was, and that was a problem. But you’re not going to see the movie anyway, so it shouldn’t really matter. So, if it even needs to be said: SPOILER ALERT–I’m about to give away everything. At points it was very hard to separate the stereotypical and hurtful from the bad script, bad editing, and bad character development of the movie itself.
It’s 2.5 hours of a film with an identity crisis, not knowing if it’s supposed to be funny, campy, dramatic, “authentic,” or what. But I think we need to start off with this: The Lone Ranger is just a bad movie.
I have so many thoughts on this film, and only maybe one of them is good. It’s like waking up with a Tonto hangover, I guess. It’s been 12 hours since I saw The Lone Ranger, and I still have the darn William Tell Overture stuck in my head.
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