I gotta a new nitpick about Gettysburg...

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I was watching the movie Gettysburg on Wednesday night, all this talk about polls and stuff gave me the urge.

I noticed one thing that bugged me. There was this one Confederate General, he was one of the ones assigned from A.P. Hill's Corp to Longstreet, who was meeting him before the July 3rd attack, there was something about his uniform that bugged me. Later in the scene I figured it out. He had Gauntlets hanging from his saber belt, but he was wearing them cuff side out. Now, as I know the Uniform regs, you only wear them that way in peace time, you wear them glove side out in war time.

Confederate regs were the same as Federal ones on this issue right? Well he is a general, who would tell him he was wearing them wrong anyway? I'm not even sure now if I'm right about this technically.

Anyway, that wasn't the big problem, later in the movie Col. Chaimberlain is wearing Gauntlets, and that's okay, but then they just disappear, no, he doesn't take them off, they aren't hanging on his saber belt, they are just gone. A man with gauntlets doesn't store them in his pants pockets, nor his coat pockets, the pockets are too small. He don't store them in a haversack unless he wants them greased up, but I don't think he even had a haversack. Where did he put them if not on his saber belt?

Then I had the same issue with Longstreet, no gauntlets anywhere when he wasn't wearing them on his hands... Seems like the wardrobe people would hold them for the actors between scenes, and it drove me nutty. I hope I don't notice this when I go to see G&G this winter...
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Mike, I'm sure Chamberlain's gauntlets ended up on the cutting room floor. It's an editing problem, and the continuity person didn't catch it (Or thought nobody would notice.) The Hollywood folks are not Civil War experts or reenactors, and that kind of thing goes right over their heads.

I would not hold my breath for things being better in G&G, but hey, we can all buy the DVD and watch it over and over and over, looking for flubs!

Zou
 
You know, there's a website for movie continuity. I can't remember what it is, so if someone knows, lemme know.
Anyway, the jist of the website is, people watch movies, and then write in to say if someone's glass was half full in one shot, and empty in the next. I know Spiderman had something like 200 continuity errors reported after the opening weekend. So I would imagine Gettysburg probably has an entry on the site as well...
 
Interesting, I didn't know that about gauntlets in time of peace and war, and certainly never watched too closely the gauntlets in "Gettysburg". I checked the pictures on the official site and Pickett is wearing them in his belt a couple of times, glove side out when talking to Longstreet (but I'm not sure of this), and cuff side out at the campfire. Guess I'll have to watch it again...
 
Cool site, Steve, there were some things I had never read anywhere. Hard to get everything right in a movie of that magnitude, but some mistakes are indeed funny.
 
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