GDG- Re: The Last Full Measure

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Jack writes:

>>>Gettysburg grossed over 10m.
Gods 7 Generals grossed  over 12m.
Glory grossed over 26M.
I think the issue here is a civil war  movie has to appeal to mass audience 
and, with apologies, less glorification  of the Confederacy.>>>>
 
The slant of the film has much less to do with it being popular at the box  
office than if the film is good, period.  Where was the Confederate slant  on 
"Glory", which was a far superior film to both of Maxwell's?????  That  was a 
fine film with fine critical reviews and loads of TV publicity (I forget  what 
Dan Rather show was on TV then but he did a piece on it) and other  publicity, 
and it still did $26 Million or so - and more on DVD.  That's  so-so for even 
back then.
 
For whatever reason, Civil War films just do not resonate at the box  office. 
 Of course that could change if one was done by Steven Spielberg  along the 
caliber of "Saving Private Ryan," but it would have to be of that  caliber on 
all levels - and Ron Maxwell ain;t the guy to do that caliber of a  film.
 
Then take the recent "300", about the Spartans at Thermopylae, which had  
going for it one of the great last stand stories of history and the fact that it  
was filmed like a big video game with loads of action.  Kids ate it up as  
did loads of adults that I know (me included - being a fan of the Spartans) and  
despite all the historical problems with it, the bottom line was that it had  
action, looked like the most awesome video game ever, showed what tough men  
could do when pushed and had arms and heads flying all over the place - and 
the  bottom line was still that the story of those few Greeks (about 7000 
actually)  standing firm against hordes and refusing to give up came shining  
through!!!!!
 
Whereas "Gods And Generals" had better battle scenes than "GB", it was  
loaded with preachy dialogue - one review I read stated that the characters  
preached to each other rather than talked - and, by comparison, "300" had much  less 
character development (other than describing Leonidas and the Spartan  
soldier's way of life) and far less dialogue that at least had some very  humorous 
parts to it and did not bog down like "G & G."
 
Who would have thought that "300" would do so darn well - something like  
$250 Million - on the big screen?  It is not even close to what the  definitive 
movie on that battle could really be (like if they film "Gates of  Fire"), and 
it was an early Spring blockbuster!!!!  Who would have thought  a 2500 year 
old story would do so well and one or two or three from 150 years  ago, and from 
our own history,  would flop?
 
It has nothing at all to do with the slant - it has to do with how good the  
film is.  There have been films from the German perspective in WW2 that  have 
done very well in theaters, so slant is not the problem.  "Das Boot"  comes 
right to mind - and excellent film in all of its versions (even the 6 hour  
version) and it did rather well in theaters.  Bottom line - a good story  with 
good acting and directing should do just fine.  "GB" and "G & G"  lacked badly in 
these areas.
 
Greg Biggs



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