You don't advertise a Civil War trilogy at the end of Gods and Generals and NOT make a third movie! I am a die hard Gettysburg addict and I loved Gods and Generals as well. Where in the HECK is the Last Full Measure?
And let me guess, because of pc, and anti confederate viewpoints it will never be made. Shame.
That, is my rant for the day.
Edit: And they lost money on G&G. Why? I loved it!
This is going to answer both why the movie failed in theaters and why LFM will most likely never be made.
I knew guys who were extras for the Battle of Fredericksburg scene and can actually be spotted behind Chamberlain when they are forming up after getting past the ditch.
The way they described it, even the Directors Cut did away with several scenes that would have made the movie more balanced. Such as scenes involving the Chamberlains marriage life with a Southern friend visiting them.
They were telling me that there were several battle sequences that didn't make it into even the Directors Cut. Such as there was a May 3rd battle scene which was a Hancock scene and he repulses several attacks on the Union line. And I guess Antietam was supposed to have been much better than what we got.
One of these reenactors told me that she was going to Harper's Ferry where they were preparing to film for LFM. Although I figure she may have been talking about
Copperhead.
The problem with G&G in my opinion and why it failed, is that the theatrical edition wasn't done as well as it probably should have done. What we were left with was a pretty boring cut. The Director's Cut is far superior and probably should have been released.
We can't get around the fact that this is
extremely pro-Confederate. Black men are seen eagerly volunteering their services for the CS army, slaves who love their masters as if they are family. The South is portrayed as these people who were horribly put upon by an aggressive Federal government and they are simply these morally superior beings. Even John Wilkes Booth is portrayed as a tragic hero, who saw what was becoming of his fair nation and that his later actions were not villanous but noble. Of course, they even in film acknowledge that when he's playing Brutus and asked if he thinks Brutus is a hero he says, "everyone believes themselves to be the hero."
This obviously did not go over well. Especially when the book itself is very even handed with how it deals with Northern and Southern characters.
But my understanding is that Maxwell did this with the express intent of making
Last Full Measure Union focused. So G&G was to be Confederate viewpoint. Gettysburg as equal focused between both side. And LFM as Union. In some ways doing a very larger version of the balanced viewpoint that the Shaaras did in the books.
But not only that, but several key plot-points that are heavily eluded to in Gettysburg were completely ignored in G&G. One being Hancock and Armistead's friendship. The was very Central to both characters in the first film, and should have been done in this film, but it wasn't. Or Lee's loyalty to the Union prior to the Civil War. Again, completely ignored by this film.
So not only are you not following the book, you are also making it clear that the Confederacy is the viewpoint, especially making slaves seem happy and even joking about the status, barely delving into that they may not like being slaves.
Had G&G followed (such as dropping the Fredericksburg family and the Wilkes plotline) and instead done more with the Pre-War US and giving the northern characters more to do beyond what may see like glorified cameos, you would have seen LFM already.
Perhaps the major thing that will hinder it's being made is that even in G&G, the returning actors are indeed showing their age. So, a decade later, trying to get Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels and the others to return may simply be no longer feasible and they'd need to recast.
The best thing to do would turn it into perhaps a 5 season Netflix series. With G&G being 2 seasons, Gettysburg 1 and LFM 2 seasons.