Member Review Gods & Generals

[rebelatsea]

Although I'd had the movie for many years, I'd never watched it until yesterday. Dug it out due to the sheer s***e on TV.

Hope this doesn't upset too many , but to use a very polite British phrase "What a load of utter tosh " !!
I hope Jeff Shaara chased the producers of this into the nearest dung heap.

 

[Library Lady]

I've become a big fan of Jeff Shaara. That being said, I had a hard time getting through his first book which was Gods and Generals. I ultimately had to decide that I liked the overall story enough to keep going even if some of the ways he was telling it were driving me up a wall and wouldn't be changing for the rest of the book. Being a writer is not what he trained to be in school. One hears how hard it is to become a published author by a mainstream press and yet he did it with his first book. I've always wondered how that happened. On the other hand, Gods and Generals did win the first American Library Association's Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. I guess this is the long way of saying that the quality of the source material for the movie was not the same as the quality of the source material for Gettysburg. Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Add in a screenwriter messing with lower quality source material and it doesn't surprise me that Gods and Generals wasn't a great movie. It was my understanding that Antietam was supposed to figure prominently in the movie but something went wrong with getting access to the military park. If that was, indeed, the case, then perhaps another reason for the movie to be lackluster. I do watch it now and again, largely because I enjoy watching Stephen Lang. I will also say that I find the opening titles/credits sequence extremely moving (not that that's a reason to pay to see or buy a movie). The combination of Mary Fahl's song Going Home, which sounds like an Irish lament, and the background of various regimental flags really tears at my heart because I know what's coming. I even got so I like Bob Dylan's Cross the Green Mountain from the end credits. It helped to see the lyrics sheet so I could understand what he was saying, but again, not a reason to pay to see or buy the movie. I think Mr. Shaara's writing has improved over the years and if war movies were to come back into vogue again, then a number of his books could be made into good movies by the right people, and that includes The Last Full Measure.

 

[Rhea Cole]

You may be the only person I am acquainted with who has seen the second half. I literally switched to another theater in the multi plex at the intermission.

 

[Library Lady]

You may be the only person I am acquainted with who has seen the second half. I literally switched to another theater in the multi plex at the intermission.

Not the first time it's been brought to my attention that I have unusual tastes.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Not the first time it's been brought to my attention that I have unusual tastes.

Among my Civil War & entertainment industry folks the question was always the same… how on earth did anybody screw up that material so badly? It could have been edited into a 90 minute movie… of course, Jackson was anything but a sympathetic character.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

I can't comment on God's and Generals as I've never read the book or watched the movie.
And yes ... over the years, I have seen many scenes from that film.

Actually, I've only completed two Jeff Shaara books:

To The Last Man and Gone for Soldiers
I enjoyed both novels !

I tried to read The Last Full Measure , but honestly couldn't get through the third chapter.
It was too boring and "drawn out" for my tastes.

But such is very subjective.
I'm sure some people loved it.

 

[Library Lady]

Among my Civil War & entertainment industry folks the question was always the same… how on earth did anybody screw up that material so badly? It could have been edited into a 90 minute movie… of course, Jackson was anything but a sympathetic character.

While I still maintain that his Dad's book was better, Gods and Generals could have been made into a decent movie of the week as you say. It was turned into more of a Jackson biopic. I don't have an issue with a Jackson biopic - he was an interesting, though as you say, not a sympathetic person - just don't call it Gods and Generals because that's not what the book is. Jackson was a part of it, but he wasn't the be all and end all of it. I know a lot of people wanted a film of The Last Full Measure - and I was one of them - but on consideration over time, perhaps it's just as well that didn't happen because who knows what they would have done to it, and it's a better book.

 

[Library Lady]

I can't comment on God's and Generals as I've never read the book or watched the movie.
And yes ... over the years, I have seen many scenes from that film.

Actually, I've only completed two Jeff Shaara books:

To The Last Man and Gone for Soldiers
I enjoyed both novels !

I tried to read The Last Full Measure , but honestly couldn't get through the third chapter.
It was too boring and "drawn out" for my tastes.

But such is very subjective.
I'm sure some people loved it.

I love Gone for Soldiers! I don't think the Mexican War has a lot of novels about it and, of course, it's where and how the gents who would become famous Civil War generals get their start - except Lee who is already middle management. That could be a good movie. I liked To the Last Man, and it won the American Library Association's Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. It has an interesting story behind it. Apparently, Mr. Shaara wanted to do two World War I books, but his publisher declined that idea, so he compressed the story ideas and put them in the same book. Now, even knowing this, the change from the air war story to the ground war story is kind of jarring, but the stories are good, and I would have bought both full books. I wanted more of each story.

 

[Rhea Cole]

While I still maintain that his Dad's book was better, Gods and Generals could have been made into a decent movie of the week as you say. It was turned into more of a Jackson biopic. I don't have an issue with a Jackson biopic - he was an interesting, though as you say, not a sympathetic person - just don't call it Gods and Generals because that's not what the book is. Jackson was a part of it, but he wasn't the be all and end all of it. I know a lot of people wanted a film of The Last Full Measure - and I was one of them - but on consideration over time, perhaps it's just as well that didn't happen because who knows what they would have done to it, and it's a better book.

There is always a challenge when the protagonist is a cranky geezer fighting to preserve the God given right to hold other human beings as property. That is a profoundly difficult narrative to sell to a general audience.

A really good story is very different from a story that is only interesting because Jackson is in it.

I don't read Civl War fiction or watch movie because I can't turn off the filter. Artillery crews using the reenacters drill with their hands over their ears & bending over backwards is something I can't ignore… no fun. Depictions of slaveholding are nothing but hooey as a rule… grump,grump, grump…..

 

[Library Lady]

There is always a challenge when the protagonist is a cranky geezer fighting to preserve the God given right to hold other human beings as property. That is a profoundly difficult narrative to sell to a general audience.

A really good story is very different from a story that is only interesting because Jackson is in it.

I think some of his religious beliefs, at least as I understand them, would be a hard sell, too. As I understand it, he wasn't afraid in battle because he believed that God had already decided when he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it, so just go into battle and do what you have to do. The other thing was that he believed that it was OK for people to own other people because it was in the Bible, but he was willing to break Virginia law to teach slaves how to read because he believed that inferior as they may be, they still had souls and would be destined for Hell if they couldn't read the Bible. Like I said, interesting person but hard to relate to.

 

[Library Lady]

Sometimes, @Rhea Cole , I'm grateful that I'm more of a dabbler/generalist because I think it's easier for me to watch a movie and concentrate on the story. I understand that people who have a high level of expertise about things like uniforms and guns are going to be upset when those things are wrong. Me? I'm not going to notice. Well, there are some things: Don't give Richard Sharpe a gun, any kind of gun, that he can load from the back. Don't give him or anyone in the Civil War a Tommy gun with the large capacity magazine. (That "round thing" is the only way I'll know it's a Tommy gun.) Don't give the Bismarck triple turrets (and don't make its admiral a flaming Nazi). I was going to say don't give a Civil War soldier an Iron Cross/Knight's Cross, but then I remembered the V Corps badge, so I guess just don't put it in the wrong place? The one time I asked if a uniform was correct, I believe one of our lovely members from Great Britain explained to me that, yes, that spectacular black and gold uniform jacket Charlton Heston was wearing as "Chinese" Gordon in Khartoum was correct enough.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

interesting person but hard to relate to.

Agreed.

He was a good commander, but he had some odd tendencies.

But back to the movie.

Which film had the worst fake beards,
Gettysburg or Gods and Generals ?

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

The endless futile assaults at Marye's Heights in the G&G movie become repetitive and tedious. It's probably good history but it was bad filmmaking.

Gettysburg works as an ensemble because it's a single battle. The entire events of the movie take place over a week, and mostly 3 days.

G&G could probably work as an HBO miniseries. Trying to cover both sides over two years of war as an ensemble is too much.

In theory, a dual biopic of Stonewall and Chamberlain: professors on opposite sides, motivated by their faith to take up the sword. But while the character comparison is interesting, Chamberlain simply didn't do much before Gettysburg besides being one of the futile Fredericksburg attacks - and not even on the part of the line defended by Jackson.

Alternatively, G&G focused on Jackson and Hancock, and their relationships with their fellow generals, could be interesting but it would have to be focused.

Heck, dispense with the Union side entirely and do a movie focused on the relationship between Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and Stuart from the Seven Days to Chancellorsville. That could be really interesting if you get four good actors who really nail the personalities.

 

[rbortega]

The endless futile assaults at Marye's Heights in the G&G movie become repetitive and tedious. It's probably good history but it was bad filmmaking.

Gettysburg works as an ensemble because it's a single battle. The entire events of the movie take place over a week, and mostly 3 days.

G&G could probably work as an HBO miniseries. Trying to cover both sides over two years of war as an ensemble is too much.

In theory, a dual biopic of Stonewall and Chamberlain: professors on opposite sides, motivated by their faith to take up the sword. But while the character comparison is interesting, Chamberlain simply didn't do much before Gettysburg besides being one of the futile Fredericksburg attacks - and not even on the part of the line defended by Jackson.

Alternatively, G&G focused on Jackson and Hancock, and their relationships with their fellow generals, could be interesting but it would have to be focused.

Heck, dispense with the Union side entirely and do a movie focused on the relationship between Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and Stuart from the Seven Days to Chancellorsville. That could be really interesting if you get four good actors who really nail the personalities.

I think the Fredericksburg section of Gods and Generals might have worked as its own movie. There was several similarities between the battles of Fredericksburg and Gettysburg (town caught in the middle of combat, unsuccessful assault of heavily defended position (Marye's Heights vs. Cemetery Ridge)). Besides this, Fredericksburg was the only battle in which all of the novels main characters were present.

 

[JTkentucky12th]

Love the movie. Lots of people hate it. I enjoy watching it every time.

 

[rebelatsea]

I've become a big fan of Jeff Shaara. That being said, I had a hard time getting through his first book which was Gods and Generals. I ultimately had to decide that I liked the overall story enough to keep going even if some of the ways he was telling it were driving me up a wall and wouldn't be changing for the rest of the book. Being a writer is not what he trained to be in school. One hears how hard it is to become a published author by a mainstream press and yet he did it with his first book. I've always wondered how that happened. On the other hand, Gods and Generals did win the first American Library Association's Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. I guess this is the long way of saying that the quality of the source material for the movie was not the same as the quality of the source material for Gettysburg. Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Add in a screenwriter messing with lower quality source material and it doesn't surprise me that Gods and Generals wasn't a great movie. It was my understanding that Antietam was supposed to figure prominently in the movie but something went wrong with getting access to the military park. If that was, indeed, the case, then perhaps another reason for the movie to be lackluster. I do watch it now and again, largely because I enjoy watching Stephen Lang. I will also say that I find the opening titles/credits sequence extremely moving (not that that's a reason to pay to see or buy a movie). The combination of Mary Fahl's song Going Home, which sounds like an Irish lament, and the background of various regimental flags really tears at my heart because I know what's coming. I even got so I like Bob Dylan's Cross the Green Mountain from the end credits. It helped to see the lyrics sheet so I could understand what he was saying, but again, not a reason to pay to see or buy the movie. I think Mr. Shaara's writing has improved over the years and if war movies were to come back into vogue again, then a number of his books could be made into good movies by the right people, and that includes The Last Full Measure.

I totally agree, there were excellent individual scenes as you say but in between them varied from unlikely Shakepearean soliloquies to the absolute dire and some awful acting.
I will have to replay it but there is one piece of music played by fifes on the march which I am nearly certain is Prussian in origin and I think modern German drum corps still use.
What we don't know of course is how much the dead hands of the bean counters were involved.

 

[rebelatsea]

Agreed.

He was a good commander, but he had some odd tendencies.

It seems his men adored him, but more than a few "raised an eyebrow " about his passionate spiritual ideas.

But back to the movie.

Which film had the worst fake beards,
Gettysburg or Gods and Generals ?

At one point I thought G&G descended into the battle of the talking beards !!
How Jackson's Wife found his lips to kiss I'll never know.

 

[James Brenner]

In regards to the GAG book, I am reminded of the adage that you never get a second chance to make a good impression. When it first came out, I tried reading it, primarily because of the Shaara name. I could not get past the first few chapters. From then until now, I have dismissed his books as not worth my time. After reading this thread, perhaps I should try reading one of his later books.

 

[Library Lady]

At one point I thought G&G descended into the battle of the talking beards !!
How Jackson's Wife found his lips to kiss I'll never know.

She was motivated?