NF Irrelevant Gettysburg Scenes

[wausaubob]

As the Fixing Gettysburg guy commented on Youtube: the whole movie is so sanitized as to be a fantasy. Everything from clean water, to latrines, to battle wounds, to field triage, was a dirty, gory ordeal. There was nothing redeeming about it. And McClellan, Lee and Grant, all wanted it over as soon as possible.

 

[KianGaf]

As the Fixing Gettysburg guy commented on Youtube: the whole movie is so sanitized as to be a fantasy. Everything from clean water, to latrines, to battle wounds, to field triage, was a dirty, gory ordeal. There was nothing redeeming about it. And McClellan, Lee and Grant, all wanted it over as soon as possible.

Id agree. What makes movies like 1917 for example so compelling is the elements of realism. The sight of dead soldiers half buried rotting in a crater in a desolate no mans land is horrifying and brings home the savage reality of WW1. Thats where Glory's depiction of the ACW is a lot more brutal and realistic than Gettysburg.

 

[Kurt G]

"Gettysburg" was a sanitized version of the battle . The ridiculous scene during Pickett's charge where Confederate soldiers simply fall backwards when a Union artillery piece goes off in their face is an example . I don't know if we'll ever see a Civil War movie with the realism of "Saving Private Ryan."

 

[mofederal]

SPR has it's share of garbage in it also. I like the movie, I prefer the full color, not the degraded color. The real story it is based on is good also, but you rarely see or hear of it. Every movie has it's flaws, how many years difference is there in the two. Spielberg is who he is, he is a movie maker not a historian, and as such was all about how it was filmed. As I said I like SPR, but it is still a movie. Gettysburg was a movie of it's time. We all like to compare movies to one another, but they have their own flaws, and they reflect their makers mindsets.

 

[Harms88]

SPR has it's share of garbage in it also. I like the movie, I prefer the full color, not the degraded color. The real story it is based on is good also, but you rarely see or hear of it. Every movie has it's flaws, how many years difference is there in the two. Spielberg is who he is, he is a movie maker not a historian, and as such was all about how it was filmed. As I said I like SPR, but it is still a movie. Gettysburg was a movie of it's time. We all like to compare movies to one another, but they have their own flaws, and they reflect their makers mindsets.

SPR I have always felt is over-hyped and the only reason most people like it has nothing to do with the film as much as how veterans cried while watching it. Which is what a lot who love it will say, "It was so realistic it made a WWII veteran cry!" We all know however that outside of the Omaha Beach scene, the movie is rather mediocre.

As for Gettysburg, the main issue with the movie I have is how Longstreet is portrayed as a prophet for modern warfare, a Cassandra pleading in vain with the Trojans Lee to not bring attack in the Wooden Union Horse line. Longstreet was one of the greatest assault generals of the entire Civil War, his assaults at Second Manassas and Chickamauga made Stonewall's Flank March seem like child's-play. He wasn't mad that Lee wanted to attack the Union, he was mad that Lee didn't attack where and how he wanted.

Maybe simplistic but I think it get's the point across.

 

[Kurt G]

SPR I have always felt is over-hyped and the only reason most people like it has nothing to do with the film as much as how veterans cried while watching it. Which is what a lot who love it will say, "It was so realistic it made a WWII veteran cry!" We all know however that outside of the Omaha Beach scene, the movie is rather mediocre.

As for Gettysburg, the main issue with the movie I have is how Longstreet is portrayed as a prophet for modern warfare, a Cassandra pleading in vain with the Trojans Lee to not bring attack in the Wooden Union Horse line. Longstreet was one of the greatest assault generals of the entire Civil War, his assaults at Second Manassas and Chickamauga made Stonewall's Flank March seem like child's-play. He wasn't mad that Lee wanted to attack the Union, he was mad that Lee didn't attack where and how he wanted.

Maybe simplistic but I think it get's the point across.

When it came out I still had a few WW2 vets in my family . None of them had any interest in seeing it or the really awful "Pearl Harbor". One surprising thing I did find out . We stopped to see my folks after seeing the movie and told them what we could about the movie . My mother got very quiet and softly said that the GI who was her boyfriend at the time was machine gunned on Omaha. I had never heard that before .

 

[infomanpa]

You are not alone watching it 100 times or more. Been watching it since it was released, first the theater, then the video, now the dvd.

I just have to ask....what is the difference between "the video" and dvd?

 

[infomanpa]

I miss the long version of Gettysburg they used to show on TNT around Jul 4th. It had more footage in it than the Director's Cut does.

Would you please elaborate on this? I have never heard of a version that has more footage than the Director's Cut. Maybe you can give us some examples of scenes that are not in the Director's Cut?

 

[Llewellyn]

I just have to ask....what is the difference between "the video" and dvd?

Video tape player.
Digital video disc.

 

[KianGaf]

Video tape player.
Digital video disc.

I don't miss the VHS days one bit. The quality was very low and the heads and tracking needed maintenance. The worst part was going to the video store, then going home only to realise the movie you picked sucked. The DVD years were much better but Ill take the new technology we have now any day. The wealth of ACW videos on YouTube for example is fantastic. The streaming services need to improve though, Prime is ok for ACW content,. Netflix is very poor and recently took down the Ken Burns series.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Gettysburg is a movie best viewed on a CRT television, preferably with a VHS recording. It's worth seeing on the big screen once, especially if you're a reenactor who can say "Hey - there's Ed!" or who has fond memories of the mega-events of the 125th, 135th cycle. Viewing it in hi-def is asking for disappointment because you can see every flaw. It's a much better movie if you accept going in that it has made-for-tv movie quality that's firmly rooted in the late 1980s, early 1990s tradition.

 

[Friction Primer]

I completely agree with @John Hartwell about all the campfire chat. In fact, a lot of the chat throughout the movie was an utter bore to me. I know a lot of it was written to explain to the viewer what they were about to see, why it was important to get into thus and such a position, when the long range artillery was going to open up, who belonged to whose corps, which soldier came from which fine family, etc. etc. etc. etc. ...but a lot of it dragged on and on. On the other hand, the sheer spectacle of a lot of this movie just left me awed and amazed. I have often said of this movie and of "Lincoln" that they're good movies and could be MUCH better if they were each edited to be about an hour shorter. Don't mistake me for an all-action fan. I despise more current movies that are too fast paced and look like video games.

One chat scene that I do like is when Armistead explains how he made an oath to God
that he never would directly attack his friend Hancock, on pain of death. He does, and he dies. By the way, the Union doctor/s treating him expected him to 'pull thru' . The severity of his wound/s not being deemed mortal. Also, I would have liked the film to have General Armistead speak what he actually said after being shot: "I am the son of a widow!" This being the universal Masonic cry for help. Of course, I understand the political incorrectness of exposing Masonic secrets, which undoubtedly overrides truth.

 

[FPT]

When it came out I still had a few WW2 vets in my family . None of them had any interest in seeing it or the really awful "Pearl Harbor". One surprising thing I did find out . We stopped to see my folks after seeing the movie and told them what we could about the movie . My mother got very quiet and softly said that the GI who was her boyfriend at the time was machine gunned on Omaha. I had never heard that before .

When my father (a member of the Greatest Generation and a WWII veteran) was still alive I rented SPR and we watched it together. I remember him commenting that he thought it was too violent and I think that it bothered him a bit. I guess that could be a difference between someone who served in a war zone and someone (me) who never served in the military, never mind during war time. In the movies you always expected John Wayne or Randolph Scott to be on the silver screen again at the next double bill but in real life you could not always expect friends that you grew up with or relatives to come home from war in one piece, or, at all.

 

[TerryB]

I must read up more on the real man. If he bought his commission like a lot of upper class or Gentlemen as they were known then he probably was an upper class Twit. I'd consider a few of his scenes as padding to the story aswell.

His book is quite a good read, showing that he was pretty bright. Upper class? You had to be to be an officer in the Coldstream Guards.

 

[Blockaderunner]

Its amazing what Ron Maxwell thought what was important and what wasn't. Id question the fact that George Meade gets around ten seconds of screen time. I'm not sure how much he gets mentioned in the source material as I haven't read the Killer Angels.

Meade doesn't feature much in The Killer Angels. The Union side of the story is seen through Buford, Hancock and Chamberlain. Mostly Chamberlain. The portrayal of the characters in Gettysburg is based very much on the book.
I should add that The Killer Angels is a must read. Has to be the best work of fiction on the Civil War. Unless someone knows different...

 

[TerryB]

Having the Fremantle character allows the director to explain events and Lee's strategy to the movie audience in the guise of explanatory conversation between Longstreet/Berenger and the slightly-out-of-touch Brit. It's a pretty common theatrical device.

Having said that, the portrayal of the man is teeth-clenchingly stereotypical. No doubt the actor, James Lancaster, was taking direction, but as a Brit I am always relieved when the movie narrative moves on.

Fremantle did not wear uniform at the battle; even so, the clobber that the movie costume department have him rigged up in is way, way off the mark.

Chances are that Fremantle had purchased his commission and advancement, and it is undeniable that the system led to incompetents achieving rank that they could never have achieved by ability alone. By 1863, though, the system was on its last legs, having been seen to fail disastrously in the Crimea. It would be abolished in 1871, but it's true to say that even though commission by purchase was no more, social status and family connections counted for a lot in the selection of British officers for many decades to come.

His picture reminds me of Billy the Kid, and he wore gray, making it easy to get a seat in a railroad car. I really like his book, being one of those I go back to often.

 

[rbortega]

Did anybody else think the scene with Armistead talking to Freemantle was irrelevant? I thought it slowed down the build up to Pickett's Charge.

 

[James N.]

This is more an editing error than an irrelevant scene, but if you watch closely, during what is supposedly Buford's stand against the Confederates while waiting for Reynolds to come up, there are several cuts showing Union infantry standing in line firing.

 

[Llewellyn]

Buford's cavalry dismounted to fight on the morning of the first day

 

[KianGaf]

Buford's cavalry dismounted to fight on the morning of the first day

In the scene I think some soldiers fire what looked like a Springfield or other muzzle loader. What where Bufford's cavalry Equipped with ?