Where the Frontier Meets the Galaxy: The Western Genre and the Moral Imagination of Star Wars (Cole Burgett, 1/21/26, Christ and Pop Culture)
But more than set dressing, it’s the moral architecture of the Western that gives Star Wars its discernable spine. The best Westerns understand that wide open spaces don’t make life simpler. On the frontier, there’s nowhere to hide who you really are. A man’s character isn’t protected by institutions or excuses. Instead, it’s revealed whenever trouble rides into town. A rancher who refuses to bend to corruption, a gunman who finally hangs up his weapon, a sheriff who stands his ground when the rest of the town scatters—these traits define them more than the outcome of any gunfight or duel ever could.
Likewise, Star Wars is filled with moral clarity born from the same crucible. Han Solo stands right where the Western and the space opera overlap. He begins the classic wandering gun-hand, cut from the same cloth as L’Amour’s Lance Kilkenny or Hondo Lane, self-reliant, suspicious, interested only in profit. He’ll draw his blaster in a heartbeat. He shoots first. He’s the man who insists he “ain’t in this for your revolution.” But like so many of L’Amour’s protagonists, Han is not morally static. Western heroes often start self-serving but become protectors when faced with injustice that threatens people they’ve come to care about. Han’s arc sees him become something even more recognizably Western: a good man forged in a bad land.