Hatfields and McCoys

[bama46]

one of many things at the end that knots my gut is when that poor, slow boy is hanged.... he was in fact an innocent child placed in a situation he could never imagine, he did not have the mental facilities of a 'normal' adult person that would equip him to process things as an adult.
all said, i know he was to be the scapegoat, i believe costner agreed to do so? but he was just a boy in a hostile world.
i pray God this never happens again, anywhere to anyone.

It happens today on a regular basis. Persons who test as mentally retarded ( developmentally disabled for the P.C/ crowd here) are regularly sentenced to death in our courts and executed in our prisons.. Costner was reflecting reality

 

[bobs0651]

sad as it may be, i tend to agree bama, thank you for sharing.
perhaps this series will open up another reasonable argument for the many such persons still incarcerated.

 

[K Hale]

one of many things at the end that knots my gut is when that poor, slow boy is hanged.... he was in fact an innocent child placed in a situation he could never imagine, he did not have the mental facilities of a 'normal' adult person that would equip him to process things as an adult.
all said, i know he was to be the scapegoat, i believe costner agreed to do so? but he was just a boy in a hostile world.
i pray God this never happens again, anywhere to anyone.

Yep, like Devil Anse said, Cottontop had to be the leg left in the trap after the fox chewed it off. I didn't perceive a slant; it seemed like both Hatfield and McCoy wanted it all to end and knew that some kind of sacrifice had to be made. It's just too bad that it couldn't be Jim Vance. Insert cussword here.

 

[K Hale]

And it seemed to me that Anse reached a real turning point on the little fishing trip with Johnse. He was a bit of a different man after rethinking executing his own son.

 

[tmh10]

I had to work when the show was on so I recorded it on dvr and watched each broadcast when I got off. I thought it was very good and as others have said the success of it may inspire the history channel to do more projects like it. Im sure they will replay it a lot and sell a lot of dvds and poss bluray versions of it.

 

[mulejack]

I had to work when the show was on so I recorded it on dvr and watched each broadcast when I got off. I thought it was very good and as others have said the success of it may inspire the history channel to do more projects like it. Im sure they will replay it a lot and sell a lot of dvds and poss bluray versions of it.

I don't know the character's name, but when he used the word incognito it sort of soured it for me. I don't believe backwoods people in that day and age would have been able to use that word in a sentemce,

Mulejack

 

[Glorybound]

The challenged kid, the one who was hanged, the actor, I kept watching for him to 'break', show himself out of character for even just a millisecond, but he never did. That's true acting, he held the character for every second in every scene. Outstanding acting job in my opinion, outstanding. I hope he's up for some kind of award too.

 

[Nathanb1]

I think Tom Berenger should win something. Biggest SOB on TV or SOMETHING. I mean, this is his meanest character since Platoon. Oops, nearly typed Plantoon, as one of my kids used to mispronounce it to aggravate me.

 

[tmh10]

I think Tom Berenger should win something. Biggest SOB on TV or SOMETHING. I mean, this is his meanest character since Platoon. Oops, nearly typed Plantoon, as one of my kids used to mispronounce it to aggravate me.

That is one of the reasons I liked it. None of the characters were all good or all bad. Much like real life. The Pinkerton/bounty hunter/sheriff may have been the exception. I didn't see many redeeming qualitys in him.

 

[Glorybound]

That is one of the reasons I liked it. None of the characters were all good or all bad. Much like real life. The Pinkerton/bounty hunter/sheriff may have been the exception. I didn't see many redeeming qualitys in him.

Yeah he was a snake pretty much all the way through, not sorry he got his in the end. I was able to understand his speech better from the beginning of the second episode on. Another excellent actor, you weren't supposed to like him and I sure didn't.

 

[tmh10]

Yeah he was a snake pretty much all the way through, not sorry he got his in the end. I was able to understand his speech better from the beginning of the second episode on. Another excellent actor, you weren't supposed to like him and I sure didn't.

Another good job they did was in the way they portrayed the women characters. They could be just as deadly as the men in some situations.

 

[Lee]

I thought a powerful telling scene was where McCoy travelled unarmed and alone to the Hatfield's to plea for his son's release when Hatfield told McCoy that the blame for the feud rested primarily with the two of them. Another great scene was when Johnse told his Daddy that he never liked or wanted the feud then reminded him of a fishing outing when he was a child.

Another scene I liked was after the characters Jim Vance and Anse Hatfield basically executed the two union prisoners Anse asked Jim that if he hated the yankees so much why he didn't enlist to fight them in the war. With the exception of Jim Vance who murdered the wounded returning union soldier it seemed to me that the majority of the killing/murdering was the work of the younger family members especially the McCoys.

The ultimate irony was Johnse who impregnated one and married another McCoy woman. That had to drive both of the hate driven families bonkers. I had no idea both Hatfield and McCoy senior fought for the south. I had heard part of the feud had something to do with the war but I always assumed they fought on opposite sides.

 

[rhp6033]

real time captioning is always slow as the captioning people do not have an advance script to work from... Recorded programs, movies, shows and the like are captioned ahead of time and are usually much closer to the action than was the case with the Hatfields and McCoys.
If i did not have the captioning and my hearing aids, i would have no bneed whatsoever for the sound button... all consonants, all vowels, all musical notes and all thunder, trees crashing, bullets flying, bombs exploding and whatever else happens would be as silent as a ghost for me... stone, dead deaf!

I'm beginning to have some problems in hearing, myself. At first the doctors thought it was because I was around aircraft jet engines occassionally. But after testing it appears that it is nerve-related, a product of diabetes, and hearing aids don't help a bit with that. I just have to ask people to repeat things more often.

I'm told by some in my office that close-captioning is a big industry overseas, with much of it being out-sourced to Asia! It seems that they can do close-captioning faster, and for much less cost, than can Americans. That's why you end up with "phonetic" close captioning sometimes - it sounds right, but it's entirely the wrong word.

 

[Delhi Rangers]

It's got me twisted - Costner's the bad guy - No, Paxton's the bad guy - No, Costner's the bad guy (I never denied I have problems ). I think that is what makes this show so good (and the story) - instead of the old good guy in the white hat versus the bad guy in the black hat - this one is hard to tell.

I agree Pete. IMO, Both families had members who were in the wrong and had blood on their hands. No clear cut right or wrong here. Both families paid a hard price in the end. I think that Devil Anse pretty much summed it up in the end. There was a heavy price paid in lives and treasure. A real tragedy.

 

[Glorybound]

The firing squad scene really threw me. Honestly I thought it was all bluff by the Hatfields...until they pulled the trigger. Don't know why I thought that, but after they had tied the three McCoy boys up to the trees then started to form up in firing squad formation opposite them I'm thinking, "Surely they're not going to really shoot these guys."

 

[Delhi Rangers]

Yep, like Devil Anse said, Cottontop had to be the leg left in the trap after the fox chewed it off. I didn't perceive a slant; it seemed like both Hatfield and McCoy wanted it all to end and knew that some kind of sacrifice had to be made. It's just too bad that it couldn't be Jim Vance. Insert cussword here.

I agree. Devil Anse finally realized that he would have to compromise for the killing to stop. He decided to sacrifice the cottontop boy, his older brother who was the judge (Powers Booth)and the other two who were locked up with them. For the feud to stop, the Hatfields had to make another sacrifice in hopes that it would satisfy Randall McCoy.

 

[TerryB]

Is it just me or are the Hatfields coming across as sort of the victims who were pushed into the feud? To me Costner keeps coming across as the peaceful man who just wanted to make amends with McCoy but keeps getting pushed away..

Yeah, and he finally gets religion. I saw a definite "good guys/bad guys" slant.

 

[K Hale]

I think Tom Berenger should win something. Biggest SOB on TV or SOMETHING.

Yeah!

 

[K Hale]

Yeah, and he finally gets religion. I saw a definite "good guys/bad guys" slant.

Anse did a lot of bad things in the movie. Not as bad as some of the others, but he was not wearing a white hat, so to speak. One of the first things we saw him do upon his return home was murder a fleeing Yankee by shooting him in the back. Then he drove off a young woman carrying his grandchild. He sent men to capture Randall McCoy so they could murder him. Then he executed the three McCoys, and was going to murder his own son before changing his mind (IMO the turning point for him in the whole thing). And he did get religion in his old age in real life.

The only truly innocent people in the movie IMO were Cottontop and Roseanna McCoy. Everyone else, male and female, was some degree of SOB, some worse than others.

 

[Delhi Rangers]

I think Tom Berenger should win something. Biggest SOB on TV or SOMETHING. I mean, this is his meanest character since Platoon. Oops, nearly typed Plantoon, as one of my kids used to mispronounce it to aggravate me.

You live by the sword. You die by the sword. You reap what you sow.