NF Best 1st Bull Run/1st Manassas scenes on film

Non-Fiction

Best 1st Bul Run/Ist Manassas battle scene

  • North & South

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • Blue and the Gray

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • Gods and Generals

    Votes: 5 71.4%

  • Total voters
    7
Gods & Generals hands down as much as I don't like that movie overall. It did at least have good battle scenes. Those TV shows were very low budget and looked like small farby reenactments in my opinion.
 
I voted for Blue & Gray, but probably for sentimental reasons as opposed to actual quality. That battle scene was one of the first things to get me hooked on the Civil War.
 
I like the North & South rendition for one big reason.

It does an excellent job, and the best one, showing the rout aftermath. G&G doesn't even try to, and Blue & Gray only does an okay job.

Plus N&S has the old general, (I think a extremely skinny of General Winfield Scot) who's in complete shock when the battle is lost and is fun to watch anyway.

"Nonsense Colonel! Rebels can't stand up to a grandacious Army!" and "Run? From the d----- Rebels!?"

G&G is the only one that doesn't show the rout, something that always disappointed me.
 
Gods and Generals is by far I feel the best portrayal of the battle.

Class of '61 was ok but not great.

The Blue and Grey would be the best one. Except.....the rubber bayonets are among the worst rubber bayonets ever. The scene where the Union artillery battery decides to roll up infront of the Union regiment instead of behind it, leaving itself exposed annoys me. Although perhaps the worst part is where the Union and Confederate cavalry units decide to charge each other between the two lines of infantry and then instead of holding fire to avoid hitting their own cavalry, the two infantry regiments keep pouring in the fire! I mean, if the cavalry was attempting to attack the infantry on the flanks only to be stopped, that would be one thing. But in middle of a fierce firefight? And not one of them is seen being shot down even though guns are blazing all around them?

Edit: Just decided to watch the North & South version of it on youtube. I like just how grimy and dirty this portrayal of the battle is. Much more battle like than any of the others. What keeps it from not being the best is by having the US 1st Sharpshooter regiment being there. They weren't raised until later but it's far more realistic I think of just combat in general of this period than any of the others.
 
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Edit: Just decided to watch the North & South version of it on youtube. I like just how grimy and dirty this portrayal of the battle is. Much more battle like than any of the others. What keeps it from not being the best is by having the US 1st Sharpshooter regiment being there. They weren't raised until later but it's far more realistic I think of just combat in general of this period than any of the others.

I have to agree. I hadn't seen North & South when I voted for G&G but it's way better than I thought. It reminds me of Gettysburg.

I guess I had seen clips from Blue and the Grey and thought N&N was exactly the same. Maybe I should give the whole series a watch.
 
North & South is significantly different than The Blue & The Gray....

B&G is a mini series that saw what was happening with the first mini-series of N&S (they technically had three, and number three itself is a spawn of Satan in it horribleness) and said "Hey we got to make our own mini-series!" and tried to cram the pre-war period, and the war into one series. N&S took they're time, and while a soap opera, with a ton of historical mistakes, it has some awesome battle scenes, mistakes and all. The best one is Petersburg.

My criticisms of G&G's 1st Manassas are many. The normal for that movie bad dialog, no Henry House on Henry House Hill, no portraying at all of the famous citizens that came out to watch the war be won and ended up running for they're lives, and a slew of small details. B&G does okay, but the cavalry charge and many smaller details are vomit inducing to a discriminating historian, but N&S does pretty good to me. Berdan's guys there, ultra farby cavalry uniforms, a skinny Winfield Scott and all I go with it as the best.
 
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