Gettysburg

Rating:
Summary: I could not imagine a better recreation.
Review: Hell, they couldn't really have used a better book than "The Killer Angels," and they got great actors for the principal roles. One of my cousins was a recreationist used for the film, and that just adds to my love for this movie.

Well done, well acted, well-PERFORMED, period. Truly captured the essence of the battle.

Rating:
Summary: Definitive Treatment of the Battle
Review: A "must have" for any military or war movie collection. The script is based on Shara's "Killer Angels" and one should read that book as well as see this movie. The plot focuses on the battle, with no gratuitous romance or other extraneous scenes.

The cast is great. At times found it hard to accept Berrenger as Longstreet (I keep seeing him as the psychotic sergeant from Platoon) and as Jeff "Dumb and Dumber" Chamberlain. However, both actors do a great job in the film. I enjoyed Sheen's protrayal as a serene Lee. Shara's book paints a much less positive image of Lee focusing on his ill health. Sam Elliot is the one character I felt was misplaced. Although a natural on a horse, he severely overacted. Also I felt he was too "Hollywood" handsome to fit my vision of Buford, a general that died from disease not long after the battle.

The scenes relating to the defense of Little Round Top rank at the top of any war movie footage. The historical accuracy is first rate. The camera angles and editing are perfect. Except for the blood and smell of fear, you are there.

Not just civil war grognards can enjoy this film. I recently rewatched this with my wife, who is not overly interested in the war. She enjoyed the film and was inspired to take a tour of the battlefield.

Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly the best war movie ever made
Review: This movie proves once and for all that you don't need a lot of blood and gore to show that "War is Hell." That fact is very apparent by the way the story unfolds, and by the way the characters interact, especially those on opposing sides. You don't need excessive violence to show the pain and heartache that is associated with war.
Rather than focus on the physical horrors of war, this movie endeavors to show the emotional terror, and does the job remarkably well. This is accomplished mainly by the development of characters on both sides. Upon watching this movie, it is impossible to decide who are the 'good guys' and who are the 'bad guys.'
This is the main reason why this movie is so great--it accurately portrays the underlying aspect of the Civil War; there were no 'good guys', and nobody 'won'. This movie shows this tragic fact--that even the so-called 'victors' (the North) lost a great deal from the war.
As mentioned, the use of characters in this movie is moving. There are officers who'd served together in previous conflicts, men who respected one another greatly, even two best friends. I don't think it was possible for anyone to hate the enemy, or even to rightly call him 'enemy.' They were simply fighting for a cause.
As has been abundantly mentioned in these reviews, this movie is over four hours long, but it does not become tedious. Every scene in this movie contributes to it's power, to it's message. It is worth watching over and over again.

I won't say that this movie is totally accurate (I doubt any movie is), but I will say that this is a fair portrayal of what happened. What this movie lacks in incidental details, it makes up in emotional power.
For an accurate narrative of the Civil War, and for a good look into how the men who fought this most tragic of wars and this most devastating of battles must have felt, there is no better film than Gettysburg.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid, Magnificent, Spellbinding and Deeply Moving
Review: A lot of folks have commented on this movie, so why should there be one more? Last night a friend and his wife joined me for dinner. Afterwards, I showed him the section where the Confederates form up for Pickett's Charge. He is a Korean War vet who wept unabashedly as the Charge went in. This is my all time favorite movie to the extent that I wore out the VHS tape with repeated viewings. It is a painstakingly yet loving and respectful rendering of the pivotal battle of the Civil War. It is well cast and well acted. Martin Sheen is not a favorite of mine, but he captures Robert E. Lee as well as anyone could. The film shows in moving detail how deeply the troops cared for Lee, as they did in reality. Tom Beringer, who is a favorite, is excellent as General Longstreet. The facial hair on most characters is obviously fake, but not to the point of being distracting. At four hours, it's a long, long film, but it simply never drags; it is in the details that the story line and the reality of the setting are maintained There are no computer enhanced graphics; the cast includes several thousand Civil War reinactors, which produces combat scenes of gut-wrenching realism. Some of them are interviewed in an "extra feature", and their reverence for the battle site is moving. "Gettysburg" permits the viewer to understand, through the onscreen exchanges between characters, what the Civil War was all about. But most of all, it demonstrates the unflagging courage which American soldiers have displayed since the birth of our Country, and it is probably that aspect of the film that I find most moving. The DVD needs a big screen to do justice to the panoramic scope of the battle scenes, but the disc is a marked improvement over the tape. If I have one reservation, it has to do with the sound. Dolby 5.0 is good, but to have the subwoofer kick in during the artillery firing sequences would have been better. If you want to find out a little bit about what this Country is all about, see this film

Rating:
Summary: Not completely accurate but great movie.
Review: A take from the book, "The Killer Angels," Gettysburg delivers an all star cast including Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger and the always delightful Martin Sheen. As a movie it's self this is enjoyable and the kids will enjoy all the action and the adults will like the story line and most will just love the fact that they're having fun and learning. The movie isn't word for word with the book but that's ok. It's also not word for word with history with 1 or 2 mistakes. Basic plot is from July 1st to July 3rd, 1863, the largest battle in the Western Hemisphere takes place in a small Pennsylvania town practically turning the tide of the Civil War. It was a battle not meant to be but it happened. I highly recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie! Bad history
Review: Overall this is an outstanding movie. It portrays some of the horror of civil war combat very well. It also faithfully follows Shaara's wonderful novel excellently. However, that is also the problem with the movie. Shaara in his book gets much of the history quite wrong, particularly in his portrayal of Lee. Because the movie faithfully follows his book, this inaccurate portrayal of Lee as an old, tired man ends up in the movie. Also, there are many other errors, such as the Stonewall Brigade appearing in Pickett's Charge as well as the scene where the orders go out for it, are completely wrong.
I think the movie would have been better had it used the dialogue formed by Shaara while gaining a better background for the characters involved, such as Lee, using other secondary sources by legitimate historians.

Rating:
Summary: Gettysburg - Visit the Battlefield
Review: For all it's worth this movie at least makes people want to study the civil war and perhaps gets them out to Gettysburg to learn how the battle really occured.

Even though the beards were at times badly done and the acting was over dramatic, this film will give you a good basic knowledge of what occured in July of 1863

Rating:
Summary: Where do we go from here?
Review: Gettysburg is by far probably the best Civil War movie ever made. I can't think a movie more quoted by fans of the Civil War and also a movie watched over and over again. Historically this movie follows a majority of the events at Gettysburg but fails to cover everything that happened at Gettysburg such as the Wheatfield battle, Cavalry battles and Culp's Hill. It is simply a movie based off of the book Killer Angels by Shaara. The host of famous actors in this movie and the filming is spectactular. Yes, this movie doesn't cover it all, but it is based from a fictional book that doesn't cover it all. Simply this movie has done quite a bit for educating people about the Civil War and also brought about more interest. It is a mainstay or "must have" for anyone who is interested in the Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: Snubbed 101
Review: Okay, okay, "Gettysburg" is released the same year that some blockbuster "Apollo 11" comes out and pretty much ousts the competition, but to leave this three plus hour epic totally left for naught at the Oscars is an extreme insult to everyone that took part in Ronald F. Maxwell's "Gettysburg".

Based from Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Killer Angels", "Gettysburg" brags an all-star (and heavily underrated) cast of Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger, Jeff Daniels, Richard Jordan, Stephen Lang, and Sam Elliott. The film was written and directed by Ronald F. Maxwell and scored by Randy Edelman. The film was actually more successful when it was put on television as a mini-series, but this incredible movie will be branded in my heart forever.

The story follows the main characters of Confederate generals Lee (Sheen), Longstreet (Berenger), and Union colonel Chamberlain (Daniels) as both their armies meet accidentally in a small town called Gettysburg in the heat of July, 1863. With effective supporting roles, Sam Elliott opens the story for us as cavalry general Buford, a hardened veteran who was the real hero of the first day, snubbed (ahem) from credit because the Union commander at the time did not favor cavalry. Stephen Lang plays Confederate general Pickett, one of the most famous (or infamous) generals ever to be known in American history. But, by far, the best role is that of fellow Confederate general Lewis Armistead, played (in his final role) by Richard Jordan. Armistead is a conflicted man as he must face his best friend on the opposite side of the battlefield.

"Gettysburg" wisely focuses more on the lives surrounding the battle than the battle itself, creating a heavy atmosphere. When there are battle scenes, they're more dramatized than anything else - focus again was supposed to be on the characters, not on the gore, so sometimes it seems a little fake. For we historical nitpickers, Sheen's Virginian accent is too heavy, and Longstreet's beard is horrible, but if you're looking for what could have easily been the best picture of 1993, buy this.

I believe their should have been four nominations: Best Actor (Daniels) who as Chamberlain, unquestionably gives the best performance of his career; Best Supporting Actor (Jordan), who would die of brain cancer before the film could premiere easily was given the most emotional role, and delivers incredibly. His monologues are performed beautifully, which leads to the next "snubbed", which is Adaptation Screenplay, for Maxwell. He surprisingly does a good deal of writing here, and of course, the last one, Best Picture...

Rating:
Summary: Not so good movie
Review: A momentous occasion such as Gettysburg deserves better. Hmm, let me see if I can guess the formula they used when making this film - Have a big hollywood name, playing a well known figure stare off into the horizon while delivering a monologue. If not staring off into the horizon, then the figure should be addressing a subordinate. Now apply this formula for 4 hours. Intersperse this with battle scenes that are shown several times but are passed off as unique scenes.

Uhhh, I think Meade and Lee where rolling over in their graves when this film was made.