Auf der Spur des großen Bären

This is a great adventure, with big brassy exciting score. The golden leaves of autumn in the mountains are breathtaking. An unbelievably enormous bear attacks a covered waggon, and demolishes it, even breaking the axle, leaving the family in a major survival predicament.

The movie teaches some pretty silly lessons. It goes to great lengths to make this appear to be a true story. Yet it teaches fate -- that the outcomes of conflicts are decided in advance. It teaches there are bear deities who interfere in the affairs of man, both to destroy and help. It teaches that shamans have magic powers.

A boy is sent with the family fortune to buy a cow for milk for a expected infant. (I don't think people fed cow milk to infants back then.) Instead he buys a rifle. The second rifle comes in handy fighting off "burglars", and the boy is credited with amazing foresight instead of gross disobedience.

The "burglars" are mentally challenged, and over the top crazy evil in the style of Peter Pan's pirates or Blazing Saddles. They imagine a frontier family stranded in the mountains has sacks of gold, and cannot be dissuaded.

The director repeatedly puts small cuddly baby animals in the rifle sites, pauses, then the execution is aborted for a variety of reasons. It a mean-spirited teasing of the younger audience who think he will carry through.

The John Denver plays the bespectacled father, a secondary role. His kids won't mind him or respect him. His wife berates him for his lack of skill and their current predicament. His kids compare him with a mountain-man who helps them out, and Pa comes up lacking, though he eventually earns respect by defeating a desperado in a fist fight (though the desperado has a huge knife). This outcome is as improbable as Woody Allen taking out Mohammed Ali in 1972 given that Pa has never been in a fist fight before.

Mom wears lipstick. Dad and the mountain man are partly cleanshaven. A single barrel of something not destroyed by the bear seem sufficient for a family of four plus two guests for a winter. Really?

There are black, white, native, French, etc. characters, all living a somewhat dissolute and riotous life in shanty towns. There is one scene of drunken prostitution that might frighten off a Christian viewer. This melange is one part of the movie that was close to factual.

What can I say about this film? It is not a very well known film, but it is most definitely a more well known film than the films that I have been reviewing lately. I have three different years tied to this film but I believe this film was made in 1994, released in 1995, widely released in 1997. (Don't hold me on those). Walking Thunder notably stars John Denver in one of his final film roles before his death in 1997. Other than John Denver, Bart the Bear is the only other actor I noticed in this film.

Walking Thunder starts in the relative present day where a kid is visiting his grandma. His grandma decides to show him a box of old stuff from way back in the mid 1800's. She said that his dad learned about their family from way back when and she thinks that it is time that he learns as well. In the box is a journal which is what this story is. We see the McKay family coming from New Hampshire to California to start a new life. One night, their wagon breaks so they decide to build their home there. They meet a mountain man named Abner Murdock and a Sioux Indian named Dark Wind. Also, there is a bear named Walking Thunder. Both Abner Murdock and Dark Wind decide to help the McKay family get started on their new life.

I enjoy movies that take place in the mid 1800's It is just something about them that seem to appeal to me. Walking Thunder is one of those films that I find appealing. It actually is not bad. Not great, but still decent. The story is a typical story of a family moving to a new place to start a new life only to find that they need assistance from the locals. The part of the story that I do not like is that they add the kid at the very beginning and the very end reading the journal. To me, it could have been removed for the fact that those are the only two instances that it appears in. The beginning and the end. But with that being said, the film does have me invested (even though it does not have 100 percent of the time). But when it does, the film is quite enjoyable to watch. The acting is fine here with John Denver giving a really good performance. The only person was the kid playing the main character. Maybe it was his voice that I found annoying..... The film is called Walking Thunder which is the name of the bear in this film. It took me a while to realize (and only then it was the film that told me) what Walking Thunder represents. Walking Thunder represents the land. Honestly, I can buy that even though I would have loved to see a bear terrorize this family or prove troublesome in some way. But, it does make sense. This film has this theme about becoming a man with our main character having to step up. There are several instances when this does become apparent. I know several of the other films that I watched in the Echo Bridge 8 Adventure Collection, they try to have this grand theme (which in most cases is what makes the film not very good). With this film, the theme is not all that grand but much like everything else in this film, I can buy it even though I can have something a little better. The whole scenery in this film is fairly beautiful and I am glad that the people working on this film decided to use this opportunity to get some beautiful shots of the land. If you are someone who has not been in that area, films like this give you a viewing of what it is like. I suppose that is why films like this appeal to me. The score is fairly nice here as well. The characters here are alright. There are typical bad guys here and there is something that bothers me here. Why do they wear the brightest clothes they can find? They wear bright red clothing and it is like "Do you want to be seen?" That is one thing that I do not buy in this film is the bad guys attire. It really bothers me.

Walking Thunder is a decent film. It gives just enough that I buy it, but I could give a little bit more.

This was said to be John Denver's last film. As I watched it, I couldn't help but feel sadness over that aspect. I thought this was a wonderful family film with John Denver playing a role I had longed wanted to see him in. A pioneer. A man blazing a wild mountain trail in a covered wagon. Being in the Rockies, with native Americans, bears, eagles, wolves, and mountain men. The story was very well told. The actors all played their roles to perfection. I love these kind of stories. Whenever they are made on modern film, we are able to re-live the past with these stories. I remember seeing James Reed in the mini-series North and South. I liked him as the Union soldier. He was great in this as well. The boys who played John Denver's sons looked familiar, but I couldn't place them in other projects. Entertainment Tonight highlighted the story about this final film. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. When it was shown on cable, my sister taped it for me to see. All in all, this film will be forever treasured by true-blue John Denver fans. And we all wish, more than anything, that he was still around to give us more of the same. Ten plus in my book.

Entertainment Tonight previewed this wonderful little film as being the last thing John Denver made. It makes me sad to think this wonderful entertainer is gone from this world and will never make anything else for us to enjoy. I wish his role could have been larger and broader. He was a great actor in addition to being a great singer. We miss you in this world, J. D.

I had to laugh at the remarks of several saying "the cabin was built in one day". That is as ridiculous as the remarks were. The cabin was built over several weeks, those weeks not filmed. The oldest son went with the mountain man to get supplies. It took much longer in those days to get to places. They had no corner markets, 7-11s, etc. Come on. Common sense teaches you that much. What else did they have to do but work on the cabin from sun up to sun down? They sure didn't have a TV to sit and watch. The era they represented was done so accordingly. Do not be critical of this tale. Perhaps a lot more footage was left off. We do not know. I wish the DVD had the extra stuff in it, but it does not.