"Gods & Generals Extended Cut" Topic

I recently learned that the extended cut of G&G features Antietam. It perplexed me for some time that the theatrical version didn't cover one of the war's largest battles and certainly bloodiest days. I once emailed Jeff Shaara to inquire about the omission. His response several months later was that it was the wishes of the production company to leave this important history on the cutting-room floor, not his own. I found it to be an honor that Mr. Shaara even replied as I'm sure he's a busy guy. Anyway, I'm curious if the extended cut is worth the watch.

I hope they cut all 219 minutes out of it.

No, it is not worth the watch. The one thing I most remember from the extended version is the Black servant in an extended cooking scene.

That movie was difficult to suffer.

As a fan of history, I have to take what I can get.

But are you a fan of Hollywood, Tiger?

Not really.

I used it for background during painting. Actually got to like it. But then, I like "Battle of the Bulge".

I play G&G also while painting. But I like it for the most part.

Roy Blount, Jr. called Gods and Generals "The Virginia Monologues." I can't top that.

Roy Blount, Jr. called Gods and Generals "The Virginia Monologues." I can't top that.

I quite like Virginias so all good to me.

Someone made it LONGER????

LOL Wackmole. :)

I always considered it to be the "Battle of the Five Beards".

That film was one of the worst cinema experiences I've ever had the misfortune to suffer. I'm with Whackmole9, cut the lot.

When I bought the DVD of Gettysburg I got G & G with it in the two film card wrapped set. I sorted out my DVDs just last week, I threw away the card wrapper and G & G went to the Oxfam shop. I kept Gettysburg.

I'd pay extra to watch the shorter version.

Do they pray even more in longer version?

If they cut or shortened the Shirley Temple scene, the scenes of Stonewall Jackson and Chamberlain praying with their wives, Ted Turner singing, Jackson asking his "servant" if he really minded being a slave…

This movie should be in Hollywood movie editing textbooks as an example of what not to leave in.

There are probably few historical stories that Hollywood could not manage to mess up, so longer is seldom better.

"When I bought the DVD of Gettysburg I got G & G with it in the two film card wrapped set. I sorted out my DVDs just last week, I threw away the card wrapper and G & G went to the Oxfam shop. I kept Gettysburg."

I threw away G&G and kept Gettysburg too. The extended version of Gettysburg needed to be on DVD to start with. I wish someone could find the rumored extended footage of Waterloo.

Good Lord, what have I done?!

TigerJon,

Any thoughts on Braveheart? Duck and cover.

I don't think G&G qualifies as history.

No where near as bad as 'The Patriot'.

Somebody took the Hobbit movies and cut them into one better movie that followed the book closer, maybe that's needed here. Or just the battles.

I was given G&G as a gift sometime ago but, as it happens, I just watched most of it Sunday evening. A lot of unecessary BS, IMHO, but I thought the battle scenes were pretty descent, all things considered. John Miller

I'd agree, the battle scene of Fredericksburg is excellent. I rather like the opening scene with Lee and Fuss and Feathers (real name escapes me of course…)

The battle scenes were pretty good (and I'm in one! Look for me just beyond Jeff Daniels during the Fredericksburg charge) but the rest was pretty awful. OTOH, the nighttime talk between Jackson and his cook is (inadvertently, I'm sure) one of the most damning condemnations of slavery ever put on film.

Huh, I admit it was overly long but I liked the movie.

I should have walked out on G&G when the VMI Cadet Corps marched out of Jackson Arch and passed Jackson's statue. And everything else connected with VMI went downhill from there. One would have thought that having the VMI Museum program director as a Historical Advisor would have tightened that up a bit.

Well I hope someone in the future makes a movie about Antietam, as long as it is not the same knuckleheads that made G&G. Awful movie!

No where near as bad as 'The Patriot'.

Amen! Amen! Amen!

It was about 2 hours to long to start with.

actually really really like the opening moments of Jackson's Chancellorsville assault …love the energy

I've had tooth extractions that were more pleasant than that wasted effort.

I remember an interview with Robert Duvall sometime after the film was released. He was asked if he would consider a reprise of his role as R. E. Lee. I found his response telling. It was something to the effect of yes, if there was a script attached to it this time.

That comment kind of summarizes my thoughts on the whole thing. Let's see how many famous lines we can stuff in a movie in congruously. Then let's use terrible backdrops with a the same little train engine going back and forth. No one will notice it's the same graphic over and over. I don't think I have ever seen another movie that was such a sophomoric attempt at serious cinema.

And now for my real thoughts.

My copy also went to the charity store but they returned it, to many copies on the shelf already they said.

Still I would suffer this rather than watch any part of peter jack sons hobbit….one days hope someone makes this as a single film that tells an amazing story as the book does. Not a padded out load of reprising The Lord of the rings!

For it's many faults it was Gods and Generals that introduced me to the civil war period and created a passion to continually study it

I expressed the opinion above that IMHO, there were really bad parts of the movie. All that being said however, the really good parts made it worthwhile for me. John Miller

The one thing no one has mentioned is that Gods and Generals was a really bad BOOK, too. I loved Michael Shaara's Killer Angels, but was hugely disappointed with Jeff's attempt to channel his dad. The biggest problem with the movie is the same one that the book has: it tries to do way too much. The first two years of the war all in one book? Can't be done. Or it can't be done well.

Alamo with John Wayne … discuss

Scott- You are so right. Someone should tell Jeff that he definitely is not the writer his father was.

As for both movies: Don't blame Hollywood for these; these were 100% Ted Turner vanity projects. Gettysburg is ok; some good performances and a decent script (although it could do with some judicious editing). G&G is outright horrible. No script, bad acting (can't blame the actors; they had nothing to work with), pathetic direction, and on and on. There really isn't anything redeeming about G&G.

One thing great about G&G, after filming was over I bought a lot of surplus gear for real cheap. Like an infantry frock coat for $45 USD!

Royal Marine: Historical or not, a very entertaining movie, IMHO. (Only became familiar with some of these initials since going on TMP so I use them as frequently as possible).

Charlie 12: As a wargamer you don't see anything positive in the battle scenes?
John Miller

Battle scenes? Battle scenes? There were battle scenes? Is that what you call them? The worst was Jackson's Charge at Chancellorsville. It looked like an early morning jog. The Fredericksburg battle scene was way over the top.

The movie just tried to do too much. They got away from the Gettysburg formula. Do one battle only. I would have concentrated on Antietam. But whatever, just one battle.

No telling how many people were turned off of history and the Civil War in particular. There were so many parents who had taken their kids to see it. Expecting another Gettysburg type movie and those kids had to sit through that horrible movie.

I am a little angry about it. Such a golden opportunity. We won't see another ACW battle type movie for decades. As bad as "The Patriot" was it is way better than C&G. Which isn't saying much.

My disappiontment was that after all the fuss about puttng in the deleted Antietam scenes, they got the date of the battle wrong!

I think something is better than nothing. Also, look at the conversation that it has inspired.

Movies are made by Hollywood, Turner, or whomever, unless you are talking about a grad school art film, to make money. Hisorical veracity or experience doesn't enter into it because the vast majority of the movie going public doesn't know and doesn't care. You guys know and care. There's the problem.

Gifts are given to people by people who don't know and care to people who know and care because they are so happy to find something that they know the problem guy on the list (you) is interested in.

So the people making the movie are happy, they get money. The person buying it as a gift is happy, they got weird Cousin Junius something he likes rather than a shirt or a tie, and cousin Junius is not happy.

You are all lamenting the fact that no one knows and cares about history any more. Well.. History doesn't put any money in the pocket and being known to know and care about history puts you in the same class as cousin Junius, a weirdo, ao it's small wonder things are as they are.

I watched it today and thought it was ok. After all it is entertainment, not a historic tome!

I think you may have inadvertently hit on something Otto. Having talked with people in the industry I don't think it is a money issue. However by allowing ourselves to be defined as "history nuts", we have also given people a pass on addressing our interests. Can you imagine the response if Cousin Junius was as cavalier about gift giving as others were about his gifts?

Dear Bill N

I'm not sure on what you're saying about cousin Junius, but I think I have the gist.

Over the New Years Weekend I was visiting a friend who is a Civil War Re-Enactor. I mentioned this thread and was immediately bombarded by Mr. Friend, Mrs. Friend, Miss Friend (Miss Friend's daughter) now married to Mr. Buddy and Mr. Buddy himself, all of the avid re-enactors, and Miss Friend was a teacher by training, in history. All of them responded with opinions that held God and Generals was somewhat beyond execrable.

I pointed out the above points and how for the vast majority everyone on this thread agreed with them. Mrs. Friend and Miss Friend said they spent the whole movie simply watching for people they know in the re-enactment ecumene.

I pointed out to the Friends and the Buddy's, (and nee Friend) that the essential component of KNOWING history and CARING about history makes them able to see the gaffes and to feel upset about it, because history means something to them. They continued to vent AT me, though I was in agreement with them, and finally told them that these people were not really to be execrated but pitied.

In order for one to be outraged at these gaffe's and lacunae in Gods and Generals one has to know the history to recognize them. But when you know the history enough for that, you are well on your way to knowing what I call "The Secret History of Things." That is what it was really like and what really happened and the why and wherefore for which and why it happened, and that opens up to the person a whole, almost interdimensional world, a reality behind the reality that only the initiate knows. Napoleon's hat, the Paris Louvre, the little clump of trees at the high water mark on Gettysburg assumes an identity and a reality far beyond the mere artifacts and creates an indissoluable link with the past, past that YOU know about and it transforms the mundane space within it's proximity to a paradigmatic space communicating directly with "the other" the "eternal" the transcendent. The world for "those in the know" is therefore enriched, enlivened, and made-- yes-- almost magical.

This can best be illustrated by a vignette I once happened into. My wife and I were lounging at the Avenue Diner in Gettysburg having an extra cup of tea after our rather excellent breakfast, and we were there for just a fun trip. There was no event or ceremony going on at this time. the town had no re-enactors in it. A man walked across the street in a full union generals uniform carrying a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and his lap top under his other arm. In any other place on planet earth this would have seemed perhaps bizarre, noteworthy, or unusual. Here at that time in Gettysburg, it was about as normal as it could be. Remember, there was NO special event going on and the whole weekend we saw no one else so costumed.

Gettysburg is a place which exists in two times. One the present here and now and eternally at those three days in 1863 with which it is and always will be indissoluably conneted. We know that wasn't a real union general stepping through time, the laptop and the Styrofoam cup prevented that illusion, but the "fittingness " of it was eternal. This difference was eloquently explained by another incident form years before when I and the assistant producton manager from my then job were passing through Gettysburg in the middle of the night after inspecting and reviewing possible workshops and vendors to do packaging assembly for us. We were passing through Gettysburg at night and Kirshna was asleep, and he chanced to wake up as we were going down Steinwher and out past the round tops. He was struck by the profusion of monuments and he asked "Did something happen here?" Krish did not know. However later at Halloween, when everyone came into work in costume he asked me "Otto why are people dressed this way and doing this." I began to explain to him the practice of Halloween, but it was ONLY when I said that "It is a modern hold over from many years ago which was a pagan holiday honoring and propitiating the dead." Form that sentence it all made perfect sense to him.

So the real thing I think is to feel sorry for those who see these things and "Are not in the know" and enjoy and be tankful that we are.

My final point of this "knowing and touching the heretofore unknowable" was from Gettysburg. One year my wife and I went and took the guided tour with a guide in our car. Just ahead of us and stopping at each stop with us was coincidentally a busload of kids on a field trip. At first this was all a laughable, hokey, pile of bull to these kids, who were laughing and joking and ridiculing everything. But as the tour wore on, it gradually started dawning on some (I note that the girls got it first) that "something hand happened here." As it went on they become more and more subdued. Many of the young boys who were trying to make time with the girls were brushed off, and told to drop dead by them. At the high water mark they were silent, and most were sobbing.

And now they knew.

So when the film is an awful representation of history, just take it in stride. Look at the pretty uniforms, the stupid costumes, the anachronistic dialogue and absurd plot writing, and smile inside--- that you KNOW. And when you, Cousin Junius, get the gift that you absolutely hate, be gracious, say thank you, and when the holiday is over pack it away like the crown jewels and truck it out when ever the gift giver comes over, because they thought enough of you, Junius, to try.

Otto