Rough riding cowboys. Wiley Indians. Ghost town shootouts and saloon sarsaparillas. These are the images that are wired into our brains when we think of the Wild West in American films. And while Wyatt Earp’s Tombstone and High Noon’s Hadleyville are certainly sites to behold, the surreal landscape of the southwestern United States offers more than just the backdrop for Westerns. From the haunting red rock formations in Monument Valley, to the rolling sand dunes of the Sonoma desert, the American west often serves as the perfect backdrop for science fiction or high fantasy realms…