Civil War Week

[Jack ONeill]

Now, to continue, the best part of the show was the Geico Ad with the Caveman as a Union Soldier dogging his comrades for not being authentic enough. As a long term reenactor, (and an actual historian), I laughed my ass off because I've actually seen all of the stuff he was ragging on them about. F-ing hilarious!
Now, I'm not saying I know everything about the Civil War, but it is obvious nobody did any research about this film. I will say the terrain graphics were rather well done, but not the location of shooting itself. Ted Turner's Gettysburg movie was better, and it was only a movie.

Jack

[SouthernSteel]

Gentlemen,

This is now online, if you know where to look. I won't say more than that at risk of bringing up something norb might not want on his forums.

[Jack ONeill]

SS,

Please forgive my sometimes breathtaking denseness. I am having the darnedest time deciphering your posting. I'm guessing it is so obvious a dullard such as myself will continue to remain mystified for days. Perhaps a PM to me might help unravel this?
Thanks.

Jack

[SouthernSteel]

Nothing of the sort is required. I shall send you a PM in a bit, although I may have to wait until after work.

Really, I guess it wouldn't be as much of an issue as the TV run already got its revenue, although they will no doubt hold some for ransom on the DVD. Still, I will wait for word from the dev team/mods before I post anything.

I will say don't get your hopes up. Don't read on if you don't want my opinion and a bit of spoiler for the docudrama/whatever.




The "gritty" portrayal of combat was a nice change and would have been welcome for, say, Gods and Generals. The explosions and blood effects added a nice layer of realism that we all know was missing from ol' Ted's movies.

The demonstrations of artillery shot types was lame, and I agree the ground effect detonation was a bit of a cop out. The crazy close-ups of the generals were at times, overbearing, and went from there to plain creepy (Sickles, anyone? yeesh). Mostly, what I rubbed me the wrong way was the constant re-use of footage several times in succession. If the budget was that low, why not cut the program to an hour? I don't need to see the same guy fall/die/run/etc 18 times (plus from reverse camera angles!), nor do I need a recap of what happened 30 seconds ago.
Also, someone on their team was obviously a fan of Mississippi. Apparently MS accounted for a major portion of the AoNV :pinch: Also, pretty heavy on stereotypes. If I had to see one more snaggle-toothed, grimy Southerner against the comparatively well-kempt Iron Brigade or the MD boys, I might have rolled my eyes out of my head. Also, I think they generally spread themselves too thin on characters, so none was given proper attention and the entire thing felt likes a series of anecdotes which lent themselves poorly to the larger narrative.