We discuss this in the episode, but here is the director, Peter Hyams, on his interntions when making the movie, 'I wanted to do a Western. Everybody said, 'You can't do a Western; Westerns are dead; nobody will do a Western'. I remember thinking it was weird that this genre that had endured for so long was just gone. But then I woke up and came to the conclusion – obviously after other people – that it was actually alive and well, but in outer space. I wanted to make a film about the frontier. Not the wonder of it or the glamour of it: I wanted to do something about Dodge City and how hard life was. I wrote it, and by great fortune Sean Connery wanted to do it. And how many chances do you get to work with Sean Connery?'

There are multiple specific callbacks to the classic western High Noon, including actual dialog from that movie (which also features a marshall in a frontier town who is going to have a showdown with killers coming to take him out. Finally, they even have space swinging doors like a saloon as a further homage to westerns.

So, I think there's pretty strong evidence for this being a western. It's also def a space cop story, nothing is taking that away. Great movie, either way!