Texas Rising

I started watching this with very high hopes. As a proud Texan I was happy that the rest of the nation would get to learn more about our history, not just that there was a massacre at the Alamo but the whole story of the fight for Texas freedom.

HOW WRONG I WAS. The History Channel has taken Texas history and made it into a truly God-awful soap opera with a few historical names and events sprinkled in here and there. The facts are so washed out that this shouldn't even be called history. The least the History Channel could have done was film in Texas!! Its like they just said "F*ck it, everyone thinks Texas looks like this anyways" This is such a poor and vapid representation of the struggles that men and women went through for the republic of Texas. The History Channel can not seriously be expecting people to believe this is really how it happened.

I may not be a historian but I have done more than my fair share of research on Texas history and I do not recall Santa Anna having a French accent. Someone must have been drunk when casting some of these characters. And the story line skims over most of the characters, not really giving the audience to know who they were or why they are important to the story-line. The writers end up losing many important figures by simply trying to fit too many into this letdown of a TV series. Sad really. Quantity over quality it seems.

The only shining light this series has is Brendan Fraser and the truly terrifying Ray Liotta. They make this worth watching.

Like what the two other reviewers' comments on this short TV drama by the History Channel, I have to say that this time, they've missed a great opportunity to glorify part of the history when Texas fought its independence and its future. A very bad screenplay tried so hard to dramatize that epic era had miserably missed the mark and turned it into a soap opera-like superfluous farce.

We have some of the better and great actors who signed up to play important historical characters in this one, but they were completely wasted and ridiculed by the lousy screenplay and its play writers. The scenes are great, the views are grand, but what a lousy arrangement turned this drama into the shallow marshland.

Why, I have to ask the History Channel, why you have to put two young jerks and clowns in such serious drama as members of the Texas Rangers? What made these two young stupid jerks qualified as Texas Rangers? Why the screenplay writer(s) you hired had to ridicule the name and the reputation of the Texas Ranger? These two young jerks didn't care about the future but only led by their dick heads to pursuit a young woman nurse in Sam Houston's degenerated and low morale camp. These two clowns segments in the first part of this drama had undoubtedly turned lot of viewers off to take this TV drama seriously.

Then, again, when the fall and slaughter of Alamo news reached Houston's camp, only a very short of moment we saw those street mob-like so-called Houston's fighting soldiers took off their hats to show their condolences and their respect for the fallen comrades, then when at the nightfall, we saw the whole camp seemed to celebrate Alamo falling into Santa Ana's control. We heard music and dancing all around in the camp. And Sam Houston other than did some lip services to his fallen brothers, only concentrated to reunited with his secret lover. At that moment, I just couldn't help hearing my curse and the only thing I remembered was "WTF?!"

Some of the Texas Rangers were played by several more matured actors who indeed did a great job to portray the tough life style of being a Ranger, their loyalty to their principles, their toughness also inevitably moved me for a few moments in the 1st part of this drama, but once those two young jerks appeared, it's all went into the drain.

I have to tell History Channel here: When you tried to revive or to repaint a history picture, dramatize it with unnecessary crap would only ruin every effort you guys have tried to do in the first place; and overly dramatizing the whole picture could only jeopardize the whole nine yards. But such stupidity could ever be improved or be cured, even you know it? I really doubt it.

The History Channel took a historical event and rewrote the basic facts of the Alamo, Goliad, events leading up the the Battle of San Jacinto and the characters involved and has presented them as fact to an audience who may not know what actually happened.

Now anyone who doesn't know the facts will think that:

1. Lorca survived the Alamo. 2. Emily was sleeping with Sam Houston. 3. Central and East Texas are full of mountains with hundred foot high cliffs. 4. etc.

Shame on you History Channel. You were to report History, not rewrite it. What will you do next, create a mini-series about how Adolf Hitler was really a secret spy for the American Army during WWII while sleeping with a British official's wife?

Can I trust anything else I see on the History Channel anymore?

First I must say it was well shot and decent to good acting. And I do plan on watching the entire thing. But to enjoy this film you MUST forget everything you know about Texas history.

It is as inaccurate as it gets. It might as well be set in space... I really don't understand why they did this, because they "mess up" on some of the most basic and common knowledge history. And the true story itself is already such a strong story to begin with.

I mean if they wanted to do something fictional they could have based it around a fictional person within the historical events themselves. Instead they tell the story as if that's what happened. When in reality it's pure fiction.

From the opening scene it is entirely false. The whole thing... The Alamo didn't even look like that. They have the Alamo with a domed roof, which wasn't added until long after the war. That was not he flag that was flying at the Alamo... How do we know this? Because the flag the production used is FICTIONAL. That flag never existed prior to this show. They just made it up.

They also have the barracks the same height as the Alamo, it wasn't. They also have it right next to the Alamo, again it wasn't. The walls don't have palisades, which they did have during the siege.

More disturbing is that they have Emily West at the Alamo, she wasn't and that she had a brother who was both free and died at the Alamo. As far as we know she did not have a brother, nor do we know of any freed Black men who fought at the Alamo. And Emily West did NOT have any relations with Sam Houston... utter nonsense.

In fact, if she did have a brother he would have been in Connecticut where she was from and not Texas. She was an indentured servant under a 1 year contract of employment to James Morgan at a hotel in Morgan's Point on the Gulf Coast of Texas outside of Houston at the time the Alamo fell. She was captured by the Mexican Army in Mid April, over a month after the Alamo and held as a sex slave by Santa Anna. She was not a spy for the Texas army...

Then there is the entirely fictional character Lorca... Who survives the siege and goes on a murderous revenge killing spree... He never existed.

They go even further from reality when they have the "survivors" of the Alamo being transported to who knows where by the Mexican Army. That didn't happen. They were just left there. And they weren't attacked by Kiowa Indians. And the Rangers didn't rescue them.

I must mention that someone stated "this is East Texas" in reference to where Sam Houston was... the mountains and such. No, that is not East Texas... But Sam Houston wasn't in East Texas when the Alamo Fell. He was in between Gonzalez and Austin in the hill country. So that's actually accurate.

Originally he was to travel from Washington on the Brazos (Austin) to meet up with the forces from Goliad to come to the defense of the forces surrounded by the Mexican Army at the Alamo. But Fannin had some troubles enroute with wagons and cannons so he turned around and went back to Goliad. Houston then sent word to the Alamo that no forces would relieve them and orders to Fannin to retreat East and awaited their reply somewhere around Gonzalez. That's what's going on when that scene took place.

It's laughable the number of reviews on this site from people whinging about inaccurate Texan history. It's the old story folks. When something is advertised as a 10 hour mini-series emanating from the History Channel and not classified as a documentary, I'm expecting, historical fiction, not an encyclopaedic regurgitation of a bunch of historical names and events. Texas Rising is a piece of historical fiction, based on the Texas Revolution against Mexico and how the Texas Rangers were created. If you like decent westerns, well produced with good acting and plenty of action, you should enjoy Texas Rising. If you were genuinely expecting some sort of doco, such as The Civil War, you'll be disappointed.

I've never quite understood why so many so-called educated people continually have this issue. Historical fiction is a recognised genre of literature and readers rarely raise an eyebrow when authors play fast and loose with the facts to achieve dramatic outcomes. The same thing occurs in Texas Rising, where plenty of liberties are taken for poetic licence. This includes characters being created, who sit alongside real historical figures in the narrative. At the end of the final episode, the production scrolled through the major real life characters represented in the series adding brief bios about their lives, during and after the events we see detailed in the show. Persona not represented were obviously fictional, for those viewers who were gnashing teeth worrying about that sort of thing, while continuing to watch what was clearly a non-documentary. But for one with a half-way educated mind, let's just say it's not rocket science difficult to generally discern between fact and fiction as to what you are watching.

I appreciated the opportunity to get a bit of an insight into the events occurring after the fall of The Alamo and to be introduced to President Andrew Jackson, General Sam Houston, the early rag-tag Texas Rangers led by the delightfully named Captain Deaf Smith and the legendary "Yellow Rose of Texas". I should mention Jeffrey Dean Morgan's outstanding and affecting turn as the consumptive, but quietly inspiring leader Smith and the terrific chemistry displayed between his character and Bill Paxton's salty, but confidently intelligent Houston. For those used to seeing Morgan bulked up in "tough guy action mode", your eyes may pop out, as you witness Smith's (real life) physical deterioration during the course of the series.

Dramatically and thematically I will agree with those critics who suggest that the overall tone of Texas Rising does appear to almost constitute "a love letter to the Lone Star State"and a conservative mainstream view of Texan history. In other words, there are few sympathetic perspectives to be seen from the Mexican or Native American fronts. They are largely depicted one dimensionally, as the villains of the piece, dispossessing the determined white settlers with their friendly, contented black slaves (some who were supposedly "free"). I did think this was a little unusual in an extended mini-series. There was a footnote after the final episode that a follow-up series concentrating on the Comanche Wars was planned, where one would think alternative frames of reference should well be approached.

Nevertheless, keeping the above in mind, I think those interested in a dramatic western perspective of lead-up events to the establishment of the Republic of Texas will not fail to be entertained by Texas Rising.