Gettysburg back on the big screen

Legacy653

Cadet
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Everyone enjoys going to the movies and there are some movies that just aren't the same on the small screen.

August 3rd at 6:00 pm the first in a series of movies will be playing at Theater N in Downtown Wilmington, Delaware.

Gettysburg is the story of American history's bloodiest battle. Blending courage, faith and patriotism, Gettysburg is sure to captivate. If you haven't seen it on the big screen this is a must.

Dale Fetzer, Civil War historian and military choreographer for Gettysburg will give a behind the scenes talk during intermission. Cost is $7.00 per person, to benefit the Ronnie Williams Foundation.

For more info visit Legends on the Big Screen

Other movies in the series include;

The Patriot August 24th
Glory September 12th
Braveheart October 12th
Gladiator November 9th
 
Mel Gibson bashes the Brits again.............
Not to worry, Spirit. It's a national passtime. We actually bash the French more, but they've done nothing to elevate the entertainment to a national stage -- or to earn the underlying basis of friendship.
Ole
 
I'll be doggoned if I can figure out when the United States might have won its independence if the Marquis de Lafayette and his French countrymen had never come to its aid.

I'm inclined to think that ought to count for something along the lines of an underlying basis of friendship.
 
I thought The Patriot was a good movie as well. Good battles scenes and "guy stuff." The ending was a little hoaky with the former soldiers rebuilding Gibson's house.

I also enjoyed the trademark Mel Gibson "pained faces." It's almost as if I could close my ears, watch his facial expressions and internally hear him say, "I'm to old for this"... stuff.

Bart
 
The patriot

Well to be fair Mel didnt direct the above movie and the cinematography is especially beautiful. The battle scenes were also tremendous.

Just didnt like that scene of the people being locked in the church and burned..like the British were some sort of SS death squad. Sickening.

I understand that the Revolution was especially brutal in the Southern colonies...but dont think that happened.

Yes we owe the French much for helping our independance,and we paid them back in aces in '17 and in '44/'45.

Maybe they are just sick of war by the time of 9/11 and Iraq.

Notice who is with us in both Afganistan and Iraq? Our British brothers...thats who.

VS

:sabre:
 
VS,

Also, yes the doors were chained shut, but that church was full of windows. Couldn't they have just broken the windows to get out???

Bart
 
Us poor English.....

Hollywood always does us Brits down in stuff like the Patriot - I'm sure bad things went on but not all the Brits were into 'Ethnic Cleansing'.

On the subject of 'The Patriot', if 1776 was one side, some having slaves, wanting to break free from a Govt. it felt out of touch with its people, leading to a war of 'Independance'........

Why in 1861 was it a 'rebellion'? :confused:
 
In the 1776 vs. 1861 thread the similarities and differences are discussed. A little more noise than light, but some interesting stuff.

I think both events (CW and American Revolution) were revolutions.

My problem with The Patriot is its utter predictability and "Hollywoodism"

Mel is a reluctant but mighty warrior, unable to commit to the Revolution(some patriot!) until "its gets personal" He has a personal vendatta against an insanely evil officer, basically Darth Vader in a red coat. I wonder if it will come down to a duel between the two? I wonder if it look like the bad guy is going to win, but at the last moment, Mel will win!

In other words, I've seen it a thousand times!

The battle scenes, showing linear tactics are good, but a lot of the rest of it is junk.

Improvements: When the British officer tells the black men working on Mel's plantation that they are free, instead of them explaining that unlike the rest of the plantations, they are paid employees with health benefits, why not have them whoop with joy and take off, leaving Mel seething.
 
Also, in that ending duel between the British officer and Mel Gibson there was either poor acting or poor editing (leading towards the editing.) There was approximately half a second in between the time that the British officer said to end it here until he says that he thought that Gibson was brave or whatever he said. Then he swings his sword. Shouldn't there have been a "dramatic pause" in between those to spoken sentences by the Brit? Nah, just go try and hack his head off.

Bart
 
Continuity errors?

I found this info while surfing the net. Supposedly these are observations made by some guy, who apparently watched the film to find the mistakes. The continuity guy, I guess, was asleep at the switch, and some little miscues made their way into the film. I hadn't noticed any of these while watching the movie, but then I wasn't looking for them either. Just for the record I like the movie, love the soundtrack, and have it on DVD.


[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]Gettysburg (1993) - 25 mistakes


Just before Pickett's charge, there are a number of shots of drummer boys playing the drums. Their drums have plastic drum heads with the "Remo" brand name on them.

A jet trail can be seen just before the fight at Little Round Top, when Chamberlain and Tom are talking.

After Chamberlain's bayonette charge, he sees his aide wounded for a second time. The scene changes angles back and forth during their talking of how brave the boys were. An American flag is over the shoulder of the aide on close ups, but on a longer shot the flag is leaning against the tree.

During the engagement of the 20th Maine in defense of Little Round Top there is a tremendous amount of firing going on as they repel charge after charge of Confederates. Yet, there is not a single leaf, or tree branch, that falls to the ground. With that amount of lead flying around there would have been debris everywhere. There are actual Civil War accounts where whole trees were cut in half by bullet fire.

There are several scenes which show an American flag with way too many stars for that time period.

During the sequence at Little Round Top, the same footage is used twice. The 20th Maine soldiers discharge a volley of musketry and there is a shot of a Confederate soldier being bodily flung backwards. A short time later, the Union defenders send down another volley and we see a close-up of another Confederate falling. Only it's the same actor, same footage.

There are white wrist watch marks on the tan arms of the Confederate soldiers as they reach for Lee as he rides among the troops.

On the first day of the battle when Longstreet and Lee are talking, Longstreet's cigar is unraveling and in the next shot he has a new cigar.

In several scenes where the cannons are firing, they either don't recoil or recoil very little. In real life, they would have a bigger recoil.

In one Pickett's Charge scene the bayonets are obviously rubber.

In the battle of Little Round Top, as the Confederate soldiers are backing down the hill there is one man walking backwards and loading his gun. Behind him another soldier aims his weapon and fires, shooting the first man in the side of the head. The man then ducks and waits for the smoke from the shot to clear and continues down hill.

When the battle is happening at the end, the number of soldiers bodies after they have been killed varies from shot to shot. It shows them falling and dying in some shots, but the bodies are gone in later shots.

In the scene where Chamberlain is walking with his brother just after Little Round Top and before they get to the safe part of the battlefield, there is a jet trail in the sky.

In the first day's battle at Gettysburg, it shows John Budford's Union Cavalry defending their ground from the Confederate Army. Budford's boys use a stonewall for protection from enemy fire. The thing is that there was really no stonewall there in 1863 for Budford to hide behind.

When Buster gets hit in the arm the first time, he is busy tying the kerchief below the wound.

There is one shot where the camera shows the battlefield with a large tree in the middle of it. You can see that the tree has been cut away to make room for a power line, which has been removed for the movie.

The mane on Lee's favorite horse, Traveler, changes from gray to white to gray.

When Buford's cavalry is first riding into Gettysburg, he brings his men alongside a fence. On the other side of the fence, there is a trail with tire tracks from a car or truck. They can't be from wagon wheels because they are about a foot thick each too well formed.

When the Irish/Scottish colonel is lying wounded after the Battle of Little Round Top, the man on the far right helping him is breathing out vapor. I thought the Battle of Gettysburg was in the at the beginning of July, where they mention it's really hot.

In the opening, the spy is watching Union troops at dawn. He rides to Longstreet's headquarters and gets there in broad daylight. They then ride to Lee's headquarters and when they get there it is dawn again. Two sunrises in one day...

The real Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead was quite shy of hair at the front of his head, yet Richard Jordan, who plays him in the movie, has a full head of hair.

Pickett's charge moved from west to east and was made late in the afternoon. When Pickett rides down the line to encourage his men before the attack, it is clear from the shadows that the scene was filmed early in the morning.

When General Longstreet is trying to talk General Lee into redeploying from Gettysburg, General Lee refuses saying that he has never left the enemy in possession of the field. But General Lee did retreat from the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862.

When John Buford's cavalry are engaging Confederate infantry on the first day of battle, they are seen to be firing muzzle loading rifles, something which cavalry in 1863 would not be using. Rather, they would have had Sharps or Spencer breech loaders, the latter capable of firing eight shots before reloading. Later, when you see the cavalrymen firing from behind a fence, they now have breech loaders.

During one of the scenes where Longstreet is talking with Lee, I think on the third day, Longstreet's beard is quite a bit shorter than it was on the previous days.


:shrug:



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Great post!

I like Gettysburg, and have seen it several times, however...

The soldiers are too fat. Not just overweight a little, there are several really obese guys, especially the guy when Longstreet's men stop the spy Harrison. I don't mean to rag on people with weight problems, but its jarring to see.

The soldiers are too old. Its the gray vs. the gray. Some soldiers would have been older, but most would have been very young, including the officers.

Some politician before the fighting claimed he could mop up all the blood to be spilled with a hankerchief. In this movie that could be true. There is not enough blood. The terrible wounds caused by canister and the big, soft bullets are not in evidence.

During Pickett's charge we see lots of men being cut down by artillery, then rifles. But Armisted's reserve brigade never has to step over any dead or wounded men. Nobody ever has to. It would have been ghastly.

I'm reading "Debris of Battle" about caring for the wounded and the dead at Gettysburg. A couple of scenes of the locals and medical people overwhelmed by the numbers of injured instead of the umpteeth speech about how much Armisted and Hancock were buddies.

Basically, too many speeches, scenery chewing, posturing.

A couple of good lines: Kemper complaining the British were like a bank, "loaning you money when you don't need it anymore."

Longstreet compliments a general on his prewar scholarship and the man orders his aide to fetch his book(he obviously has a supply ready for distribution).

A disturbed, doubtful Longstreet asks Pickett if he can "take the ridge"(on July 3rd). Pickett just laughs. Of course I can!
 
Gettysburg

(Jabba the Reb is jarring...and the people are too old)...

There are a lot of nits to pick...but this movie gets better everytime I view it.

Longstreet is offered a book authored by General Pettigrew...its a humorous scene. Not sure it really happened that way...but Pettigrew was a brilliant man. He achieved the best marks ever...till that time...at The University of North Carolina. Dont see anything wrong with the scene.

VS..etc

:sabre:
 
Gettysburg was a great movie. Like some people, it is how I became interested in the Civil War. I've moved beyond since, but I love to go back from time to time and watch it.

I saw the website that listed the mistakes. The Confederate soldier on Little Roundtop who ducked after his linemate shot him...yeah, if this was anywhere close to reality, he would have had most of his head blown off.

I too would have liked to have seen a "realistic" canister fire shot from behind the gun. I think the movie had two or three upclose canister shots and not many people went down (between 1 and 3). Maybe the film could have shown the 26th North Carolina's final resting place, so to speak.

But ouch,put on a mistakes website that Richard Jordan's (Armistead) was too long should cut him a break!!! That was his last film role as he was dying of cancer at the time. Should he be forced to surrender (notice how I put a military tem in there to sound intelligent) his hair when he was on his deathbed?

Just a thought.

Bart
 
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