HF Last Full Measure? Hello?? Anyone???

Historical-Fiction
What you said. Giving Turner a chance to put on a Confederate Colonel's Halloween costume for a songest by the famous group Bobby Lee and the Rebs was just the tip of one very large junk-ridden iceberg. But it did show us that Chamberlain went on a significant diet between December 1862 and July 1863.
C'mon! That rousing performance of BBF was the most genuine thing in the whole movie! "Huzzah!"
 
@Ethan S., stay strong in your own perspective regardless of the vast majority of dislikes. It does give one a moment to consider personal tastes, and interests, and pursuits. I alone may be the last vestige of American humanity that has not watched this movie. I do remember the surprise I felt when returning moviegoers related a boring and sub-par movie, after all the acclaim made on Gettysburg. You have seen G&G, and your opinion is unbiased. If I ever do watch the movie, I will be pregnant with expectancy and chewing sour grapes.
Lubliner.
 
To me, here are the good aspects:

Battle scenes are decent, with the Sharpsburg scenes from Director's Cut in the cornfield being real good.

Uniforms and accoutrements on both sides are a BIG improvement over Gettysburg. Some farby outfits can be seen here and there, but altogether they get more right in that department than wrong. Though from what little I know of VMI headwear I expect the shakos worn in the Jackson funeral scene were made up.

Beards ain't as obviously fake in Gettysburg most of the time.

Background details are excellent most of the time

Just about all hats except the shakos during Jackson's funeral are dead on, and no cowboy hats, and isn't as bad as the headwear in Gettysburg.

Finally a real great touch in the Battle of Chancellorsville probably rarely noticed, most all the Union troops during the surprise attack are yelling and giving orders in German. A historically accurate touch most people don't notice. Funny part of it is when I was a kid watching the first time my very pro-Union Dad carried on that the movie likened the Union to Nazis and when Chancellorsville happened he exclaimed "Dad gum it! Now they have the Yanks speakin German like Nazis!!!!!"

The Bad:

The delivery of dialog, and a lot of the acting was HORRIBLE!!!!!!

It kept pumping up Robert Duvall playing Robert E. Lee, and baited folks into believing we'd get a lot of Lee scenes, and outright lied in the misleading.

The family scenes are a big case of "What in the ---- is this about and how is it relevant to the story?!"

Not enough of a balance on scenes, in other words very little Union in comparison to Gettysburg.

NOT ENOUGH WAR TO MUCH STALE QUIET SCENES THAT DO NOTHING FOR THE STORY AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN FILMED!!!!!

Promised more than it delivered in general.

Appently Chamberlain was a robust overweight person till I guess the winter of 1862? My God the Mud March and Union rations were bad on stomachs! :D

Probably a little too much bringing up slavery and Lost Cause notions. Now "Mr. Lewis" did exist, and accounts I've read of him have him as devoted, but from what little I've read he may have been a free man who volunteered for the job, but most Confederate accounts I've read mention him as a slave. But he does seem to have been devoted, after all the real Mr. Lewis was a devoted attendee of many reunions after the war. As for the slave mother and her children, I think they half-way did okay, I mean there is the dynamic of her being apparently very loyal to the family, but when they flee we see her espousing support for the Union and a DEEP desire to be free, but the movie is WAY too subtle in showing this and completely undoes what it was trying to show by showing the mother and her children waiting on their owners to return when the Confederate Army returns to the city. They never should have showed that! They should have either shown her and her children running away as the Union Army retreats, or not shown them at all after her talk with General Hancock and thus implied they escaped. To do what they did they solidified the movie as a Lost Cause epic to anti-Confederate/Southern viewers for all time, when that ONE detail could have gotten the movie a little more, (but not much) respect.

NO SHOWING OF MCCLELLEN OR JOESEPH JOHNSTON!!!

Heck very little showing of Union Army commanders at all.

Too many folks a little too old for their roles, though I will admit most folks aged faster back then, I think they were still WAY overboard.

The Ugly:

The band playing "Bonnie Blue Flag" period! Especially the Hispanic women present I mean seriously! Just have soldiers in for the band and show everyone singing along and it'd be believable.
 
On a note concerning Hollywood's supposed anti-Southern bias, trust me it only exists when there are journalists around, and one can't go by what actors say at all.

The first movie set I walked onto I spoke with one of the actors while unloading the props I hauled down to the job, I listened to what the actor said, and when I saw the director, (great guy who convinced me to attend a screenwriting class and still pushes me to write), and told him what the actor wanted, he got a weird thoughtful look on his face and told me: "Mike first lesson of filmmaking, actors don't know anything about what they're character is, they have no idea of what the story is, and most tend to not know anything except what they think will look good, that's why there are directors, and we go with what the director and producers say don't we?"

Hollywood, is in business to make money, sure they are famous for political commentary, but they are still out to make money, for instance, Hollywood is all about "gun-control" they say, yet they tend make most movies involving gunfights and guns. Why is this? They typically make they're movies to appeal to audiences, and guess what sells? Not their political views. Moral to the story, if it sells they'll make it.

When you make a Civil War movie, where do y'all think the biggest audience will be? The South. What will be the most sellable viewpoint? Ones featuring Southerners, and which side will most Southerners root for? Hollywood failed with G&G that sent a message as to what will sell, since then what few CW movies have come out weren't Lost Cause epics, excepting perhaps Ride with the Devil, which wasn't really a super hundreds of millions big name box office movie.

Now ever since the mass anti-Confederate hysteria, they've tried movies that are anti-Confederate, like Free State of Jones that obviously was trying to recapture the magic and big bucks of films like Glory. It flopped miserably. So I predict Hollywood will stay away from big budget CW movies for the near future. There are plenty of small budget films on it, but they're quality will be open to debate.
 
G&G -- some of the acting was wooden. Some of the camera work could have been improved. Maybe if someone would go back and re-edit the whole thing... They tried to stuff too much in. Gettys had a nice tight focus and told the story well.
 
G&G -- some of the acting was wooden. Some of the camera work could have been improved. Maybe if someone would go back and re-edit the whole thing... They tried to stuff too much in. Gettys had a nice tight focus and told the story well.


That's one thing, in the movie Gettysburg, it was a solid story that was narrow enough to make a great movie, yet big enough to make it interesting.
G&G just had too much story to tell, to an audience that didn't like long boring stories in too long of a timeframe I guess.
 
I agree with Ethan S. I like it. I own a DVD of it and watch it frequently. I thought the battle scenes were pretty good. The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg was great I thought, (very bias here, it's true).

However I thought some of the dialogs were way too long. Jackson praying and the like were pretty boring. Only an opinion, but I think that may be the cause of the movie's downfall.

Also the general look of things as they would have been in Victorian times seems pretty good.

Being an old guy and having watched a lot of war movies, I think the portrayals of civil war era combat in Gods and Generals and Gettysburg are greatly superior to any of the movie portrayals in previous Hollywood efforts along those lines, maybe excepting the 1968 version of Charge of the Light Brigade.

Having said all that, I thought Gettysburg was better.

John
 
Somewhere here on CWT, there was a poll about favorite/most accurate ACW motion pictures produced over the years by the various studios, whether they were American or from other countries. I have my own top 10 list; "Gettysburg" and "G's and G's" don't make it.
 
To me, here are the good aspects:

Battle scenes are decent, with the Sharpsburg scenes from Director's Cut in the cornfield being real good.

Uniforms and accoutrements on both sides are a BIG improvement over Gettysburg. Some farby outfits can be seen here and there, but altogether they get more right in that department than wrong. Though from what little I know of VMI headwear I expect the shakos worn in the Jackson funeral scene were made up.

Beards ain't as obviously fake in Gettysburg most of the time.

Background details are excellent most of the time

Just about all hats except the shakos during Jackson's funeral are dead on, and no cowboy hats, and isn't as bad as the headwear in Gettysburg.

Finally a real great touch in the Battle of Chancellorsville probably rarely noticed, most all the Union troops during the surprise attack are yelling and giving orders in German. A historically accurate touch most people don't notice. Funny part of it is when I was a kid watching the first time my very pro-Union Dad carried on that the movie likened the Union to Nazis and when Chancellorsville happened he exclaimed "Dad gum it! Now they have the Yanks speakin German like Nazis!!!!!"

The Bad:

The delivery of dialog, and a lot of the acting was HORRIBLE!!!!!!

It kept pumping up Robert Duvall playing Robert E. Lee, and baited folks into believing we'd get a lot of Lee scenes, and outright lied in the misleading.

The family scenes are a big case of "What in the ---- is this about and how is it relevant to the story?!"

Not enough of a balance on scenes, in other words very little Union in comparison to Gettysburg.

NOT ENOUGH WAR TO MUCH STALE QUIET SCENES THAT DO NOTHING FOR THE STORY AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN FILMED!!!!!

Promised more than it delivered in general.

Appently Chamberlain was a robust overweight person till I guess the winter of 1862? My God the Mud March and Union rations were bad on stomachs! :D

Probably a little too much bringing up slavery and Lost Cause notions. Now "Mr. Lewis" did exist, and accounts I've read of him have him as devoted, but from what little I've read he may have been a free man who volunteered for the job, but most Confederate accounts I've read mention him as a slave. But he does seem to have been devoted, after all the real Mr. Lewis was a devoted attendee of many reunions after the war. As for the slave mother and her children, I think they half-way did okay, I mean there is the dynamic of her being apparently very loyal to the family, but when they flee we see her espousing support for the Union and a DEEP desire to be free, but the movie is WAY too subtle in showing this and completely undoes what it was trying to show by showing the mother and her children waiting on their owners to return when the Confederate Army returns to the city. They never should have showed that! They should have either shown her and her children running away as the Union Army retreats, or not shown them at all after her talk with General Hancock and thus implied they escaped. To do what they did they solidified the movie as a Lost Cause epic to anti-Confederate/Southern viewers for all time, when that ONE detail could have gotten the movie a little more, (but not much) respect.

NO SHOWING OF MCCLELLEN OR JOESEPH JOHNSTON!!!

Heck very little showing of Union Army commanders at all.

Too many folks a little too old for their roles, though I will admit most folks aged faster back then, I think they were still WAY overboard.

The Ugly:

The band playing "Bonnie Blue Flag" period! Especially the Hispanic women present I mean seriously! Just have soldiers in for the band and show everyone singing along and it'd be believable.
So may defects, so little space. I have a (very) long list but a few more: if you're going to use CGI, try harder and also change it up. Don't throw in staged stereotyped scenes - the songfest at HQ and the Yank and Reb trading things mid-stream are just two. How many "popular history" junk images do you try to cram in? Gettysburg was made before Spielberg showed us how to make combat films graphic and realistic but G&G was made afterwards. We still get B Western effects. Civil War soldiers swore in combat and elsewhere. Victorians did not speak as they wrote. To be fair Maxwell was probably just following the lead of the Shaaras. Ralph Peters' series is far better in this regard - the combat scenes are realistic, as is the dialogue. That's enough for the moment.
 
Ralph Peters' series is far better in this regard - the combat scenes are realistic, as is the dialogue.
I agree. Seeing Cain of Gettysburg or Hell or Richmond brought to screen/TV would be awesome. They could even forego using the generals and just focus on the rank and file to create a series a la Band of Brothers (although seeing the battles from the generals' viewpoint has its uses too).
 
I don't think anyone is suggesting that the makers of G&G hate Confederates, rather that a pro-Confederate slant may not go over well with other Hollywood types - or a share of the public.

Well given that the pro Confederate thing didn't go over well with the public in the 1860s...
 
Let’s face it, those of us who find interest in the American Civil War are rapidly dwindling in numbers. Few schools teach anything about the Civil War any more than the standard one-liner that it was all about slavery and the North won. Talk to a millennial today and half have no idea when it was fought, who fought in it, or where the battles occurred.

The bulk of Hollywood consumers today are millennials. That’s followed by Gen Z and Gen X. Civil War movies would likely do better in Hollywood if the typical consumer was a baby boomer, but times have changed. Interests have changed. Movie goers today want fast paced, action oriented adventure flicks with lots of CGI and graphics. Unless you throw in a stereotypical BS love story too thicken the plot, it’s just not going to draw an audience, despite those of us who would definitely go see it. Hollywood won’t risk it, and the numbers just aren’t there. very sad to say, but look at what is happened with reenactments.... 50 years ago they would draw hundreds of reenactors and equally excited crowds. Today you’re lucky to get more than a handful of tourists watching 10 Yankee and 10 rebel reenactors on a field portraying an entire battle. America has been groomed to lose interest in anything historical in nature. While Hollywood can still generate interest in World War II flicks, I fear that too will lose ground steadily over the next generation or two as baby boomers day off and the American education system continues to downplay the importance of history in the classroom.
 
Let’s face it, those of us who find interest in the American Civil War are rapidly dwindling in numbers. Few schools teach anything about the Civil War any more than the standard one-liner that it was all about slavery and the North won. Talk to a millennial today and half have no idea when it was fought, who fought in it, or where the battles occurred.

The bulk of Hollywood consumers today are millennials. That’s followed by Gen Z and Gen X. Civil War movies would likely do better in Hollywood if the typical consumer was a baby boomer, but times have changed. Interests have changed. Movie goers today want fast paced, action oriented adventure flicks with lots of CGI and graphics. Unless you throw in a stereotypical BS love story too thicken the plot, it’s just not going to draw an audience, despite those of us who would definitely go see it. Hollywood won’t risk it, and the numbers just aren’t there. very sad to say, but look at what is happened with reenactments.... 50 years ago they would draw hundreds of reenactors and equally excited crowds. Today you’re lucky to get more than a handful of tourists watching 10 Yankee and 10 rebel reenactors on a field portraying an entire battle. America has been groomed to lose interest in anything historical in nature. While Hollywood can still generate interest in World War II flicks, I fear that too will lose ground steadily over the next generation or two as baby boomers day off and the American education system continues to downplay the importance of history in the classroom.

You're correct, of course.

That said, for most of my 58 years, I have eaten, slept and breathed the Civil War. I've published 20 books on it, and have another four coming in 2020-2021. I own over 2000 books on the Civil War. I've visited most of the battlefields. I am the program coordinator for an organization that presents several seminars per year on the Civil War. I serve on the board of one of the premier battlefield preservation organizations. And I do NOT want this movie to be made, largely because I cannot imagine another horrible movie by the horrible director Ron Maxwell. If given the choice of having Maxwell make it, or have it never be made, I choose having it never be made.
 
Let’s face it, those of us who find interest in the American Civil War are rapidly dwindling in numbers. Few schools teach anything about the Civil War any more than the standard one-liner that it was all about slavery and the North won. Talk to a millennial today and half have no idea when it was fought, who fought in it, or where the battles occurred.

The bulk of Hollywood consumers today are millennials. That’s followed by Gen Z and Gen X. Civil War movies would likely do better in Hollywood if the typical consumer was a baby boomer, but times have changed. Interests have changed. Movie goers today want fast paced, action oriented adventure flicks with lots of CGI and graphics. Unless you throw in a stereotypical BS love story too thicken the plot, it’s just not going to draw an audience, despite those of us who would definitely go see it. Hollywood won’t risk it, and the numbers just aren’t there. very sad to say, but look at what is happened with reenactments.... 50 years ago they would draw hundreds of reenactors and equally excited crowds. Today you’re lucky to get more than a handful of tourists watching 10 Yankee and 10 rebel reenactors on a field portraying an entire battle. America has been groomed to lose interest in anything historical in nature. While Hollywood can still generate interest in World War II flicks, I fear that too will lose ground steadily over the next generation or two as baby boomers day off and the American education system continues to downplay the importance of history in the classroom.


I'd say your mostly right, except on reenactments. Most events I get out too have way more spectators than reenactors, and we're still able to field between 120-200 reenactors to divide up at most local bigger events.

A good trailer used to could get younger folks out for a bad CW or WW2 movie, but no more. Nowadays the only movies younger folks will watch at all is Star Wars or comic book drivel.

Thankfully however we have the anti-CW history sentiment, too many younger folks rebel and the more leaders and celebrities talk smack of CW history, the more chance of there being a market. CW movies have already bled over into horror movies more and more, soon other CW films may have a good market again. But no Last Full Measure will ever be forthcoming, G&G ensured that.
 
I don't understand the kids my age. I've never seen anything so brainless, un-educated and dull in my life. They sit around, playing computer games, and speaking emojis and stupid phrases, like yeet. Whatever that's supposed to mean.


There is no interest, nothing taught in schools, and like VMI said, it's dying off with the older folks who care. I'm concerned about the future when the kids my age become the grownups of tomorrow. Scary.
 
The novel really isn't very good, but the movie would have been better if it followed the novel instead of including vast chunks of film - most of it involving Jackson - that weren't in the novel.
 
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