Gettysburg (Widescreen Edition)

Gettysburg is a stunning film with strong characterization, amazing action and enthralling epic atmosphere. Jeff Daniels does his best film work ever as the Colonel from Maine who does a desperate bayonet charge to stop the Confederate onslaught. That single event held the line. The other actors are stellar, including Tom Berenger, Sam Elliott, and Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee. I especially liked Richard Jordan (Confederate general Lewis A. Armistead) whose dearest friend was in the Union Army. The heartbreak that Jordan conveys in wanting to see his friend, separated by this war is so palpable that it's just heart renching.

This film is a Must See for anyone interested in America and American History.

The DVD arrived damaged. I returned it for a "refund" which was handled quickly. The movie itself was very good until it would no longer play.

The only wiff of turd in this whole thing was having Sheen play Gen. Lee!

I wonder if Ted Turner knew when he insisted on Sheen, he was sleeping with his Wife at the time! Hey, maybe I'm wrong.

With all the research that went into this to make it true and factual, this was a very riveting movie all people should see for a truer historical count as to what really lead up to this massive battle in Gettysburg, PA...

Not too many war movies can make you understand how brutal, exhausting, emotionally painful, draining, exciting, boring, glorious and ugly war is, but this is one of them. The scenes of the march starting Pickett's charge alone will blow you away - I understand thousands of men were crying just reenacting it. The combination of excitement and terror are caught so well at Little Round Top and Pickett's charge that you just can't stop watching. For the acting - Jeff Daniels nails Joshua Chamberlain - scholar, soldier and brother - so well, I couldn't believe it was Jeff Daniels. Richard Jordan as "Lo" Armistead - what can you say? The man was an incredible actor his entire career, and this, his last performance, a doomed man playing a doomed man - I don't know how he found the inner strength to do it, but it's the best work he ever did. And while I thought Martin Sheen was miscast at first, the more I watch his performance, the more subtleties I catch, the more I think this might have been his best work, too. The best thing was that this film made me understand the Civil War and the battle of Gettysburg with an intimacy I never knew before. It's like a million men from 1863 all looked me in the eye and said, "NOW do you understand?" Well, not as well as you did, but a lot better than I did before.