Space Cowboys 20 Year Anniversary

[Jed Cooper]

This film has one of my favorite Eastwood movie quotes:  “Clock’s ticking, Bob, and I’m only getting older.”  When I first heard about Space Cowboys, it was rumored that Jack Nicholson and Sean Connery we’re going to costar with Clint.  That would’ve been interesting, but Donald Sutherland, James Garner and Tommy Lee Jones rounded out the cast perfectly.  Sutherland had worked with Eastwood thirty years before, in Kelly’s Heroes.  Clint had also worked with James Garner as well, having appeared in an episode of Maverick.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christopher]

Space Cowboys was the first Eastwood movie I saw in the theater. I would have been going into my senior year of high school around the time I saw it. Can't believe that's been almost 20 years.

[Perry]

 I liked Space Cowboys. I always felt it would had been more interesting to have had Charles Bronson in the Tommy Lee Jones role. Oh Well......The worst thing about that movie is Marcia Gay Harden's hairdo....

[Christopher]

I would have liked to see Bronson and Eastwood work together. Bronson had already made his last movie by Space Cowboys, so I wonder if he would have been able to do it. From what I've read it seems people felt like Family of Cops III would probably be his last as they were doing it.

I remember enjoying Space Cowboys. It was fun seeing Eastwood and Sutherland work together again.

[The Schofield Kid]

Bronson did appear in Rawhide. Can’t remember if they had scenes together. I think there is a topic somewhere on the board about it.

[The Schofield Kid]

Found it.

http://www.clinteastwood.org/forums/index.php?topic=3329.msg218461#msg218461

[Gant]

I enjoyed Space Cowboys. That was around the time I discovered this board (at least it's earlier incarnation)
The cast are great.... but it's interesting to think of Jack Nicholson and Connery alongside a Clint...

[AKA23]

I think "Space Cowboys" would have been a better movie with Connery and Nicholson. As is, the cast is good, but Tommy Lee Jones was far too young for the role of Hawk. I also think Jack Nicholson would have been a better fit for the Lothario character than Donald Sutherland was. The role of Tank probably wasn't big enough, or didn't have enough character development, for Nicholson to shine. That may have been one of the reasons that it didn't happen. But, it's a fun, very rewatchable movie, and I did enjoy seeing James Garner reteam with Eastwood. I also think the first half of the movie was the most comedic movie Eastwood has done since, and I enjoyed having a little bit of a lighter story for a change. It's when they got into space and the movie started to become darker that it became tonally inconsistent for me and lost some of the appeal of what came before. The original story also had, I think, a CIA or military conspiracy as the foundation, and I think I would have preferred that to the story we got MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.... about the Russian communications satellite being a nuclear device.

[Perry]

I agree on Nicholson. Absolutely.