Rating: 
Summary: Visually beautiful with fine narration of an important story
Review: The expedition of Lewis & Clark is one of the great events in American History and is all but unknown today. This wonderful program is a great way to become more familiar with this fascinating story and that great band of explorers (including the woman on our Golden Dollar: Sacagawea). Hal Holbrook is a great narrator and the writing is quite good. The visuals are even better. It is stunning to view and brings some real appreciation to what the Corps of Discovery accomplished. Just taking that boat upstream for so many miles is stunning, let alone all the cataloging they did in the face of a very real struggle for survival. It is also amazing to see how many vistas Burns and crew were able to find in such a seemingly pristine state. One of the real shocks to me was to understand how nearly deadly the Great Plains were to the Corps because of the lack of wood. Growing up in Michigan with trees everywhere, we take wood for granted. On that expedition, its lack was a real hardship. While not as dramatic as war and without and the lack of contemporary illustrations requires a different presentation style than Burns normally provides, this is still a visual feast and good solid food for the brain. Worth viewing many times for many reasons. Don't forget to read Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" as well.
Rating:
Summary: Visually beautiful with fine narration of an important story
Review: The expedition of Lewis & Clark is one of the great events in American History and is all but unknown today. This wonderful program is a great way to become more familiar with this fascinating story and that great band of explorers (including the woman on our Golden Dollar: Sacagawea). Hal Holbrook is a great narrator and the writing is quite good. The visuals are even better. It is stunning to view and brings some real appreciation to what the Corps of Discovery accomplished. Just taking that boat upstream for so many miles is stunning, let alone all the cataloging they did in the face of a very real struggle for survival. It is also amazing to see how many vistas Burns and crew were able to find in such a seemingly pristine state. One of the real shocks to me was to understand how nearly deadly the Great Plains were to the Corps because of the lack of wood. Growing up in Michigan with trees everywhere, we take wood for granted. On that expedition, its lack was a real hardship. While not as dramatic as war and without and the lack of contemporary illustrations requires a different presentation style than Burns normally provides, this is still a visual feast and good solid food for the brain. Worth viewing many times for many reasons. Don't forget to read Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" as well.
Rating:
Summary: The best documentary regarding American frontier history.
Review: The story of Lewis and Clark is, by nature, a vital thread knit into the fabric of American History. There are some excellent books on the topic, but the most telling tale of the Corps of Discovery must be visual. They SAW so many new things; their observations were perhaps their greatest legacy. This video is beautiful. It tells the story accurately and convincingly, and captures the panorama that was Lewis and Clark.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENCE ON PARADE!
Review: This documentary of the Lewis & Clark expeditions is an outstanding example of excellence in film-making. The music, narration, choice of voices for the characters, the commentary by historians, and the photography are all extremely well-done. Even though I had listened to Stephen Ambrose's book "Undaunted Courage" on tape and knew most of the details covered in the video already, I was still thoroughly entertained and found it a thoroughly enjoyable excursion through history. I also appreciated the fact that the filmmakers avoided the usual liberal spin on history (i.e. all whites evil; all other races saintly)that so often infects presentations of this type; all subjects are shown to have good features and bad (where appropriate to the story and also according to current historical knowledge of the subject). In short, you will find the four hours of this 2 video set well spent time.
Rating:
Summary: An experience in its own right
Review: This film makes history live. The Core of Discovery expedition was more than a century and a half before my birth and yet, this film made me feel as if I were a member.
Like other Ken Burns films, it is long. However, like other Ken Burns films, it encouraged me to take my time. I watched the 4 hours one segment at a time in the evenings with dinner over the course of almost two weeks. And what a viewing!
I never knew that the Lewis and Clark expedition was a military expedition. I never knew that Lewis and Clark where military officers and that they took a platoon of soldiers with them. I never knew that they took plant and animal samples, including sending a live ground hog back to Thomas Jefferson.
I never knew that the expedition was called the Core of Discovery or that these two incredible military officers took so many soldiers such an incredible distance over the course of years and lost only one, who was lost to a disease that most likely no one could have cured at the time. I never knew that they drew the first map of most of the United States, using only dead reconning and were accurate to withing 40 miles of the actual distance despite their primative instruments and a distance of some 4,000 miles! I never knew these men were so incredible. And, I never knew that Merriweather Lewis was so incredibly depressed that he died, "I'm sorry to say," by suicide.
This film is so personal, I felt the tears that the historian on the film displayed when he told of Lewis' death. He died more than a century before my birth and yet, by the time I was finished with the film, I felt pain for his death, anger at York's difficulty gaing his freedom and sadness at the passing of the Shoshone Indian lady guide Sakajeya.
Films like this might actually make me like history, a topic I learned to hate in elementary school. I wish there were more historical films like this one. I wish I were on Ken Burns' staff. I'd love to do research like this. I'd love to bring life not only to history, but to the people who view it. What a great film!
Rating:
Summary: The best documentry I have seen
Review: This is a great film. It is an in depth look at the journey of Lewis and Clark. The best historians tell the tale of this great expedition.
Rating:
Summary: Another American History Classic by Ken Burns
Review: This is a pure classic of American History. Before Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin" walked on the moon, Lewis and clark began a journey of equal importance over 150 years before. We are now approaching the bicentennial of that voyage. This journey is equal to the United States quest of the moon. In the video they commented that during the Apollo 13 emergency JIm Lovell and crew were in constant communication with mission control in Houston. Lewis and Clark were completeley isolated from Washington. Any communication would take weeks to travel. In 1803 Thomas Jefferson Purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon. Jefferson Comissioned his friend Merriwether Lewis to explore this new territory. Being a naturalist, Jefferson wanted Lewis to record all of the nature of this new area. His main purpose was to discover the northwest passage. In 1804 Lewis and his partner William Clark set out along the missouri river. Ken Burns does a great job of capturing the beauty of this area. The Buffalo herds today were not any where near the size of the herds when lewis and clark first saw them. They also saw prarie chickens as well as prarie dogs. Lewis sent a couple of prarie dogs back to Jefferson. Lewis and Clark never found the northwest passage, but they returned as heroes. Ken Burns includes what happened to Lewis and Clark after their journey, including the tragic suicide of Merriwether Lewis. The journey of Lewis and Clark was a major accomplisment for the young United States.
Rating:
Summary: Even if you hate history class, you'll love this documentary
Review: This is a superb four-hour presentation of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, which was the first group of non-natives to cross the North American continent in the early 1800s. Thinking back, I remember seeing historical markers and signs for the "Lewis and Clark Trail" along various highways in the Midwest but, prior to viewing this film, I didn't really know where they went or what incredible hardships and risks they faced. This excellent documentary gives the full picture of these two explorers, including their personal lives and background. It also gives due credit to the corps of men (and two women) who accompanied them. Tape #1 traces their route as far as the Rocky Mountains, while tape #2 picks up from there and continues to the Pacific Ocean and back, with follow-up on what happened to some of the participants after the expedition was over. (Interestingly, many of the crew were unable to settle back into "civilized" routine again, and went West to become mountain men or settlers. Lewis himself, who seems to have had some sort of bi-polar disorder that ran in the family, fell into a deep depression and committed suicide -- a tragic ending to a brave life.) I found the presentation to be very well-balanced, giving the Native American viewpoints as well as the written records from the expedition journals. Some of the Native tribes have oral traditions about meeting Lewis and Clark which have been passed down through the generations, and it was fascinating to hear their perspectives. The film also gives proper credit to the role of Sacajewea, the Indian woman who accompanied them on much of the journey. Her presence on the expedition (along with her newly-born son) helped prove to possibly hostile tribes that Lewis and Clark came in peace, since a war party would not take a woman along. There was also a black slave on the expedition, and his story is well-covered, too. On the technical end, the photography is magnificent, giving a good feel for the awe that the expediiion must have felt upon seeing these sights for the first time. Ten stars!
Rating:
Summary: A movie everyone should see !
Review: This is absolutely the most moving documentary I have ever watched. Being a huge fan of american history, I purchased this dvd without seeing it first. I could have never been more pleased. Being a United Stated citizen, I can only say one thing... This is our story... It is a story of heros... of men coming together to struggle against the wilderness and sometimes dangerous forces to seek out the unknown... and the ideals to make the world a better place. Please watch this.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful telling of one of the great American stories
Review: This is another well-made documentary by Ken Burns. What I love most about his films is that they incorporate beautiful and relevant images and scenery with important quotes, figures, and anecdotes from the event in question. It would have been a difficult task to produce a four-hour documentary on this expedition--there were no photographs taken, and little physical evidence still exists from the trip. But the scenery is still there, and Burns makes ample use of it. The best part about this documentary, however, is the characterization--not only of Lewis and Clark, but also of their men. This film portrays them as a closely-knit family, a band of brothers. And, most importantly, it shows that they were ALL heroes, down to the last and weakest of the men. Lewis and Clark are portrayed as the extraordinary individuals and talented leaders that they were, but the ugly side of both men is also apparent. Lewis and Clark were human, and this is one of the things that makes them such spectacular models of American spirit and courage. This film helps us to see Lewis and Clark, as well as Thomas Jefferson, as the great heroes they were. Like Burns's documentaries on Mark Twain and the Civil War, this film successfully conveys the emotion, the feeling of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This is much more than just a rambling of dry historians or a rattling of dates and facts, this is a story. Most importantly, it is a true story, told in a true manner, one which will give inspiration and courage for many generations to come.
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