Gods and Generals

This entire effort is a major disappointment when compared to Gettysburg, what is remarkable its Maxwell who directed both, and the same writer too. Looking at this objectively, it just lacks focus; unlike Gettysburg (a single event in history) which Maxwell et.al. Could focus their energy on, Gods and Generals takes place over 3+ years. What ensues is 4 hours of rambling, disjointed made for TV mellow drama shlock with a Hollywood budget. So its just utterly confusing as a viewer.

I can go on and on, but for me, it falls apart with the sophomoric writing. I counted at least a dozen instances where they shoehorned in actual quotes from these historical figures into places where they made no sense. They even have characters steal each other's quotes which made me LOL hard a few times. Its distracting!

In fact, this entire script is just one scene after another which are structured around famous quotes. The worst example is JEB Stuart, quite literally out of no where, ending a scene with Stonewall Jackson saying "Oh by the way (even though this is very off topic and you did not ask), I will always tell my men to gallop toward the enemy, and trot away". Its stuff like that which makes this movie unbearable, especially when compared to Gettysburg, which had "some" of that but was balanced out by actual character arcs, impressive direction of masses of reenactors, and an A list cast which acted that entire film masterfully, e.g. Sheen, Berringer, Lang, and especially Richard Jordan r.i.p. Gettysburg was able to masterfully (probably in editing phase) take situations before and during the battle to shape a properly structured, easy to follow story despite there being 50+ main characters.

Gods and Generals is just a mess, the complete opposite. I totally understand the propensity for civil war buffs (like myself) to give this a high score (look how many 10 stars skew the results), but, I say quite literally the opposite, because we're civil war buffs we deserve a better film that isn't a mess.

10/10 stars? Is this as good as Glory? Gone with the Wind? Or even Cold Mountain?

The theater version was a snooze. It's much longer than what they released in theaters because people complained about the length of Gettysburg. But totally worth it. Watch it in two evenings, treat it like a miniseries, if length bothers you.

I remember reading about the Director's Cut on the old IMDb forums, they said the theater version left major important parts. Add those back in, and it clicks.

With the missing parts in, it's almost as good as Gettysburg, and Stephen Lang's "Sappy Stonewall" is much less irritating. In the theater we were counting the minutes until the next cry, and coughing to wake up the snoring history buffs all around us.

Ps I miss those forums. For things like this alone, they were gold.

This is a four and half hour long movie, which somehow seems to just barely scratch the surface of just about every subject that it touches is. It's a narrative mess that combines about a dozen different plot lines, and fails at executing any of them properly. The main character of the movie is Stonewall Jackson, yet even he feels like a minor character compared to the movie's story arc. Lots of attention in screen time is dedicated to the man, yet viewers still feel unconnected with him as they never really properly explain anything about the man, and we're largely bored and confused by his portrayal, despite even Steven Lang's masterful performance of the man. It's a great acting job yes, but we don't really know who it is he's portraying.

Instead of focusing on the main character, his background, why he was a truly great and complicated man, we're constantly distracted from him by many, many different plots. Jeff Daniel's Chamberlain, as seen in the previous movie, multiple unnamed union and confederate soldiers, townsfolk, lots of backstory of Robert E Lee, even John Wilkes Booth is portrayed, for some reason, for extended periods of time. All this time spent on story lines makes the viewer feel alienated and confused any time our main character, Stonewall appears, and we think, "Wait...who was this guy again?"

Jackson was indeed a fascinating character, probably the most fascinating of any of the confederates. He was modest weirdo of a man, employed as a professor at a military school, and was much despised by his students and fellow faculty because of his ineptitude as a teacher. He showed no sign of greatness, or even competence, whatsoever, before the war. He also seems to be a genuinely good man at heart, unconcerned with the conventions of the south aside from his ardent, zealous, devotion to Christianity. He created a bible school for slaves, teaching them to read, and the only slaves he owned were those he met through this, who actually came to him and requested that he buy them, knowing they'd be well treated under his roof. He was unconcerned with the politics of the war, and had always been against the notion of it. He fought for the confederacy simply because Virginia was his home, and that's what side it was on; which was the sole reason many other confederates fought.

What made him famous, however, was not his good nature but his absolute brutality, his single minded devotion to making his war as horrible and unpalatable to both sides of the conflict, in order, in his eyes, to reach the most humane goal of ending it quickly. Something dark and cold seemed to awaken in him, transforming this strange little professor into a rabid, brutal taskmaster of a general who saw men as merely a resource to expend in order to reach his next objective, which was always his sole concern. He forced march his men to death and starvation many times, in fact with regularity so, he constantly quarreled with his subordinates, court-martialing them for any perceived offense, openly admonishing their character and abilities, and he was an ardent believer in the "Black Flag," meaning no quarter for the enemy, all prisoners executed, no restraint shown in any way towards northern civilians (or even southern ones if necessary) or soldiers. He saw it as his godly duty to rampage, to show those who wished to see just what war was, and make them reconsider.

The film touches on the duality of the man, though very scarcely, very incompletely. It portrays him as basically a very good man, who just happened to be a successful general. When in reality he had become a deadly, horribly efficient destroyer of men, who just happened to be a very agreeable, if somewhat eccentric, good person at heart. The film, of course, doesn't get much into that dark side of him, which is shame because it's really the soul of the story, and we're left with a basic question that is never answered: why are we even watching this? What's interesting about him? Why are we watching a four and half hour long movie about this ultra-christian dork?

Of other note, Robert Duvall is pretty mediocre in is role as Robert E. lee, he resembles the real person more than Martin Sheen did, but lacks the command, the gravitas the later possessed. The film also has some of the absolute worst CGI scenes I've ever seen. In general ,the Battle scenes are more well done than Gettysburg, it does a much better job at depicted the massed numbers of men involved as opposed to the previous movie which seems to show Pickett's last charge as a couple hundred dudes marching through the field as opposed to the ten thousand or so it was in reality.

But at the end of it all, after watching this movie many times over the years, I'm left scratching my head, and trying to figured out: what story was it they were trying to tell here?

I first saw this twenty years ago and enjoyed it then. I took it for what it was as dramatized history. I saw it again via a streaming service that said it was an extended director's cut. This time it was 4 hours and 40 minutes long. That is one of my two minor complaints. I had to pause it for a break two times. The second thing for me was that some of the dialog was indistinct and difficult to understand. It was beautifully filmed and I thought it to be well cast. The music seemed to fit, but was sometimes too loud. This is all technical stuff, but sometimes that gets in the way of enjoying the movie. I was not there when any of this happened, so I cannot say how exact it was as to accuracy. In general it matched my memory as to the events from what I have otherwise read. My only observation about the cast members is that Robert Duvall is usually good, but he also usually plays Robert Duvall. I felt his Robert E. Lee was a little off. I believe that Lee began the war as a special advisor and was not immediately made Commander of the army. I think the movie is worth watching. Just remember that it is long and is more about character studies than battle histories.

Although Duvall resembles R.E. Lee much more than Martin Sheen in "Gods", Sheen gives a much more personified performance as Lee in "Gettysburg".

I find it interesting how almost no emphasis is put on any commanding Union general in either film, with only about 2 minutes of dialouge between Hancock and Burnside before the disaster at Fredericksberg. It should always be noted that Lee's early victories can be credited equally on the Union commanders utter incompotence as well as Lee's exeptional stratigic ability.

I'm sure "The last full measure" (the final film of the trilogy) will put a fair amount of emphasis on General Grant as he assumes command for the Army of the Potamac in 1864. I just hope we dont have another 10-year interval between films.

They are both great films. They have not been the box-office hits because of their legnth and a lack of hard-core history lovers to pay up at the theatre. I'm sure that "Gods" will be aired on TBS soon in a 2 part "mini-series" format to very good ratings as "Gettysberg" did.