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Post by Allen Wiener on Jul 31, 2012 7:43:05 GMT -5
I agree that it is the best of all the major Alamo films. I think its worst flaws are the result of studio choices and really lousy editing than in the concept or filming. I'd like to see a fully restored DVD edition. After seeing what they did to the film I still think it would have benefitted from being shifted to an HBO miniseries, with all footage restored and no worries about a PG rating.
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Post by loucapitano on Aug 1, 2012 17:18:29 GMT -5
Allen - see my Dec. 7th, 2011 comment. No, I didn't win the Mege-million$ - I still would nominate people in the Forum, like you, to write the HBO miniseries. Also, I agree we need a Director"s Cut of the 2004 with all footage restored. Overall, I still liked the movie!
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Aug 1, 2012 20:03:36 GMT -5
Actually, I do quite like this movie, but the one thing that really drives me nuts is seeing the church and Long Barracks aligned somewhat evenly without the church being set back like it really was/is. Billy Bob's portrayal of Crockett is perhaps the best and most believable I've seen portrayed in an Alamo film.
Paul
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 7, 2012 15:13:56 GMT -5
I vote for a director's cut of THE ALAMO (2004). And I believe the *historical* story of the Alamo is best suited for a miniseries so that all the sidebars could be incorporated -- can't do that in a theatrical feature film.
Unfortunately, to say that the JLH film "would have benefitted from being shifted to an HBO miniseries" is like saying a filet minon would have benefited by being sold at McDonalds in a bun. The only problem is that the Mouse House gave up TRYING to sell the filet minon in a classy restaurant. Their lack of attention and support forced it down the path of hamburger meat, wherein it now goes bad in the alley dumpster. A fine film.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 7, 2012 16:11:08 GMT -5
Rich, I think it could have worked either way, but it didn't work either way in the theatrical release they decided to go with. It tries to include too much and too little at the same time. San Jacinto is included, when an onscreen graphic, lasting 20 seconds, could have done the job. Meanwhile, we never know who the Dickinsons are and Bonham is pretty much left on the cutting room floor. Although it does a good job with the main characters, think of how much more they could have been developed over an HBO series that was on a par in quality with "Rome" or "Deadwood." If they had gone that route, nothing would have been left on the cutting room floor, there would have been far better context, and we'd get to know the major characters a lot better. In fact, I think the reason that few Alamo movies work at all is the lack of context or the oversimplification of the background story.
Which is another way of saying what you just said.
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Post by gtj222 on Aug 7, 2012 18:19:45 GMT -5
I think Disney kinda handcuffed John Lee Hancock by forcing him to make a PG movie instead of just letting him make the best movie he could make.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 7, 2012 18:55:10 GMT -5
THe PG mandate may have been the kiss of death. Isn't that when Ron Howard pulled out?
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 8, 2012 15:27:20 GMT -5
Rich, I think it could have worked either way, but it didn't work either way in the theatrical release they decided to go with. It tries to include too much and too little at the same time. San Jacinto is included, when an onscreen graphic, lasting 20 seconds, could have done the job. Meanwhile, we never know who the Dickinsons are and Bonham is pretty much left on the cutting room floor. Although it does a good job with the main characters, think of how much more they could have been developed over an HBO series that was on a par in quality with "Rome" or "Deadwood." If they had gone that route, nothing would have been left on the cutting room floor, there would have been far better context, and we'd get to know the major characters a lot better. In fact, I think the reason that few Alamo movies work at all is the lack of context or the oversimplification of the background story. Which is another way of saying what you just said. Allen, I am not arguing that the story of the Alamo couldn't best be told as a miniseries -- have one half written myself. I am saying that the Ron Howard/John Lee Hancock film could only be the format that it was designed for. The concept from the get-go in Ron's mind was to make a theatrical motion picture about the Alamo -- to provide the next step after John Wayne's, if you will. Not to make another Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, Lonesome Dove or Deadwood. Theatrical motion pictures and TV miniseries are practically two different industries with little in common, and definitely different styles of writing, directing, casting, producing, finishing and marketing. I just don't see the cross-over in this case.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 8, 2012 15:40:56 GMT -5
I think Disney kinda handcuffed John Lee Hancock by forcing him to make a PG movie instead of just letting him make the best movie he could make. This is true for Ron Howard, not John Lee. Ron's style is R, and he does that with much integrity, IMO. Ron (IMO) would have definitely had his creative hands tied if he were to have tried to do HIS Alamo film as a PG-13 and on a lower budget, as Disney insisted. John Lee, on the other hand, had just made Disney 80 million on a 20 million dollar budget for The Rookie, which, I believe is G-Rated. His scripts are character driven, not action driven, and thus do not need to tell their stories in R formats. Again, the problem as I see it is that John tried his damndest to fit the Ron Howard plan in his own style, and Disney abandoned him and then cut his throat with the forced deletions.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 8, 2012 16:28:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the clarification, Rich. I recalled something about Disney stepping in and screwing up the whole project and this fits the general idea I had about what went down. I also agree with you on the mini-series as a concept and the difficulty of trying to shoehorn the original idea into that format. They made enough of a mess of it by trying to cram it into a PG format. I agree that Hancock did the best he could with the hand he was dealt and the film IS still a good one; probably the best Alamo movie to date. However, given the territory they ended up covering, I think they would have been better served had they started out with the idea of a quality mini series, rather than trying to cover what they did on a theatrical film.
Now that you mentioned all this, I wonder if the whole thing might have worked much better if they had used the old 1950s-60s Hollywood large-scale blockboster format that Wayne did; a longer film, broken into two parts, with an intermission? If it ran 3 to 3 1/2 hours, the whole thing really might have worked. We'll never know now.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 8, 2012 20:26:50 GMT -5
Now that you mentioned all this, I wonder if the whole thing might have worked much better if they had used the old 1950s-60s Hollywood large-scale blockboster format that Wayne did; a longer film, broken into two parts, with an intermission? If it ran 3 to 3 1/2 hours, the whole thing really might have worked. We'll never know now. Sure. I'll buy that (well, maybe not literally ;D). The only trouble is, without relying heavily on CGI for armies (which both Ron and John Lee vowed not to do), it is nearly impossible today, or so it seems. First, that IS somewhat the film Ron was planning -- if they had allowed him the luxury. His $125,000,000 didn't float. Disney refused more than $100,000,000 -- plus insisted on doing that with the PG-13 rating. By the time John took the helm, Disney had slashed the budget to $75,000,000. The New York Times did a study and determined that Duke's Alamo's $12,000,000 (1959) would have been $68,000,000 in 2004 dollars -- and he could NEVER make that movie for that money today. That was back when you could cast four major stars in a film and still have nothing like the expense for just one star today. Too, Ron Howard (being one of the few A-list directors who has "final cut") could have made a 3-1/2 hour film and the studio could not have cut it. Unfortunately, John, as a "first cut" director, must only be allowed to deliver the version he wants and then walk away from it. The studio can cut it into TV commercials if they want to, and he has no recourse. In this case, he believed in it so much that he pressured Disney to allow him to recut it after the previews. That meant delaying the premiere and release dates. They agreed to another three months and he did the best he could with the externally-imposed shorter form, but they lost all faith in the movie as their "tent-pole" movie of the year and didn't put any more money into advertising -- except for a dumb multimillion dollar, fifteen second ad during Superbowl three months before the film's release. Then, I'm pretty sure, they brought in two editors to trim it further -- and released it on Good Friday opposite Passion of the Christ. It all makes one's head spin. Oh, and another thing about long three hour movies today. The multiplex concept apparently has eliminated any possibility of having intermissions in films. I found that out the hard way: Going to see Titanic in the theater in Austin -- after a schooner of Michelob with dinner! Talk about FLOATING!
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 8, 2012 20:49:17 GMT -5
I am hoping against hope that John Lee will follow through with his earlier comment to make a director's cut of The Alamo a clause in any future contract he might get with the Mouse House. I know that may be a wish he won't be able to fulfill when the opportunity is there, due to the needs of his career, but the opportunity may be there now. He is in preproduction as director of Saving Mr. Banks, the Disney movie about Walt Disney's many-year attempt to convince P.L. Travers to allow him to buy the rights to make a movie version of her Mary Poppins books.
If you haven't heard, the cast is Emma Thompson as P. L. Travers, Colin Farrell as Travers Robert Goff and... Tom Hanks as Walt Disney.
Michael Corenblith is production designer and Dan Orlandi, costume designer. Including The Alamo and The Blind Side, this is the third movie uniting this creative team.
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Post by loucapitano on Aug 10, 2012 10:08:01 GMT -5
That sounds like a good idea since they could never improve on Mary Poppins, so they make a movie about the "making" of Mary Poppins. Mentioning Mary Poppins let's me rant about one aspect of the film. I never though Dick Van d**e got enough credit for the part(s) he played in that wonderful movie. From the day my kids saw it on HBO in the 1980's, they were totally enamored seeing Van d**e play so many characters. I'm not knocking Julie Andrews, I just think Van d**e deserved much more credit.
Back to the topic, every year that goes by takes us closer to the next Alamo Movie. Whether theatrical or mini-series, the day is coming. I'm 63, and I plan to live long enough to see it. May we all live long enough...Hey Hollywood! Get crackin!!!!!
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Aug 10, 2012 18:25:54 GMT -5
Speaking of cuts, I guess the porn-editor feature doesn't like the spelling/use of Dick's last name, since it's is inserting asterisks in place of certain letters. Ironic, given the discussion of the 2004 Alamo.
I would like to see a director's cut of the 2004 film as well. All I know is what I've read here and heard about what went on the cutting room floor.
But Allen makes a good point about an HBO-type mini-series. Can you imagine what they could do to develop properly characters such as Crockett and Bowie in regaqrds to the roads they followed that brought them to the Alamo. I'd like to see well-developed characterizations of the Dickensons and Bonham, as well. I mean, I love the Wayne and 2004 versions, but you somehow get the sense that the entire movie in each case is built around a "wicked good and bloody battle" with all the other stuff just peripheral to the story. Imagine what they could do in the span of, say, two hours a night over three nights? Twice the length (more or less) of Wayne's epic. So much of the story, characters, events that led up to the Alamo, could be developed and told. While I don't expect to see another Alamo movie on the "big screen" in my lifetime (if ever), you'd think someone could argue the value of a historically accurate telling of the Alamo to the folks at HBO, or a similar entity.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 10, 2012 19:01:08 GMT -5
Back to the topic, every year that goes by takes us closer to the next Alamo Movie. Whether theatrical or mini-series, the day is coming. I'm 63, and I plan to live long enough to see it. Hey, I'm 65, and I plan to live long enough to MAKE it! ;D The first hint that another Alamo movie will be made is that everybody is saying, "After that last one, NObody will make another Alamo movie." Think how many times you heard that in the sixties, seventies, eighties........
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