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Post by valerobowie on Mar 15, 2009 4:49:32 GMT -5
i know the alamo set wasn't very accurate based on the real alamo but what about the aging and detail work that was done,was that in any way similar to what the real alamo could have looked like,just curious
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Post by cougar on Mar 23, 2009 16:38:08 GMT -5
There is a lot of information in Clark and Andersen's book, "John Wayne's "The Alamo". (1995) See if you can get a copy at your library or via library loan. Cougar
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 28, 2009 13:54:44 GMT -5
It's ironic that the recent Alamo movie had a terrific church replica, and marvelous buildings for San Antonio proper, but somehow missed the mark when it came to the rest of the fort where limestone and adobe were concerned. It just didn't look real. Compare that to the realistic, actual adobe walls of Wayne's film, and the phony yet very convincing limestone of "The Last Command."
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Post by Jim Boylston on Mar 28, 2009 14:09:54 GMT -5
Welcome, Gary, I'm glad you joined us! When I visited the Dripping Springs set in 2004 I found the Bexar area to be convincing, but upon entering the compound it just felt wrong, and not just because of the position of the church. Bracketville, for all its inaccuracies, gave me a much better sense of what the compound must have been like in 1836.
Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Mar 28, 2009 16:59:22 GMT -5
Welcome aboard Gary; it's nice to see you here.
I haven't been to either set, but the Wayne set gave the impression (on film) of a large compound with fewer men than it would require to defend. The 2004 film's Alamo looked cramped; in fact, I got a kind of cramped feel to most of the film. Whether this was a result of the sets or photography, I can't say. The 2004 film had a more somber and realistic feel to it, regardless of historical accuracy or inaccuracy; Wayne's film always struck me as a lost opportunity that looked like an attempt to make a John Ford cavalry picture and also express a vision of what the Alamo means. I think Wayne's direction and a weak script were the film's most serious weaknesses. Actors in the film claimed that Wayne wanted everyone to play their role the way Wayne would play it; a cast full of John Wayne impersonators, in a sense. I think that a different director and a better script would have done wonders for it.
AW
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Post by rriddle3 on Mar 28, 2009 21:54:32 GMT -5
It's been 10 years since I was at the Wayne set, but from that visit, I would say that the Wayne set definitely gives the right impression size-wise (though even it was scaled down). The south wall area never did not look right to me, nor did the Convento, and it looks different today than back at the time of filming his movie due to other production work that has used it. With the issues of the Dripping Springs set (down-sized, church in the wrong place), it still seems more historically correct in its finishings based on the works by Nelson, Lemon, Huffines, and Zaboly. Of course, none of us know for sure since there is so little accurately detailed appearance information from that time.
And welcome, Gary.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Mar 28, 2009 23:48:14 GMT -5
With all the historical mistakes and flights of fancy, I never really notice the inaccuracies in Wayne's Alamo set. It seemed good for the time and the structures photographed well. I found the 2004 film much more accurate and enjoyable even if the Alamo compound was a little small.
PS. Welcome to the forum Mr. Zaboly. I'm a big fan of your fantastic ink drawings.
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 29, 2009 5:32:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the welcome mat, guys...this looks like a worthy place! It's an inescapable fact that each Alamo film has its set of glaring faults and virtues. My main beef with the 2004 compound is that the adobe bricks just didn't look right: everything had a phony, box-like feel, hard to describe. It all looked like papier mache. And you guys are right: I also got that sense of claustrophobia looking at the 2004 compound: poorly conveyed was the fact that the fort was simply too big for 200 men to hold...and Wayne's film, even if his compound was still smaller than the original, at least got across a bigger sense of sprawl, and too few men to defend it. Of course Wayne made most of his church of adobe bricks, which gets back to the faults/virtue thing. We're a bunch of nitpickers, huh!?
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 29, 2009 7:37:02 GMT -5
Welcome old friend Gary!
If you could take the Dripping Springs Bexar and combine it with the Alamo Village Alamo you might have a better feeling 1836 set.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Mar 29, 2009 10:31:58 GMT -5
I visited the Bracketville set in 1995, so it's been a while. In fact, it was only about two weeks after filming of another movie which included the Alamo siege as part of the story. I have not been to Dripping Springs but would like to, before what is left crumbles completely.
My sense about Waynes Alamo set is that it felt pretty darn real. I could imagine being on the walls looking out at the San Fernando church, and gorwing number of Mexican soldiers. The compound felt "right", as others have said here. This may sound nuts, but I eft Bracketville with a truer sense of what the coumpound was like in 1836, than from the real Alamo in downtown San Antonio.
The fact that the Wayne set is still standing, says alot about the way it was built. From what I've read read, much of the construction was done using old adobe-making methods. The set has changed over the years, and, yes, there are other basic innacuracies in the way it was built, but it still offers a pretty darn good representation of how it must have been in 1836, and how it must have felt to have been holed up in there during the siege.
I think Quincey is right. Marry the two sets up, and you might be pretty darn close to the real thing.
Paul
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 29, 2009 12:07:33 GMT -5
I remember visiting the ruins of the other San Antonio missions in 1992, nearly all their remains being of limestone, and thinking, "Well, looks like the construction crew on 'The Last Command' got that much right"---as least far as limestone walls went. One also wonders about the gun ramp stakes: did Cos' Mexican Army of 1835 really have a sufficient number of saws, if indeed it had any, with which to cut cleanly and squarely those supporting stakes for the ramps, as we see in the 2004 film? Or, were the ends made like most palisade stakes, even through the Civil War---hacked by axes to sharp points? Takes thinkin' on!
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 29, 2009 12:20:54 GMT -5
We were talking about this on the John Wayne the Alamo forum. Noticed that the gate in Last Command is very close to the reconstructed gate at Mission San Jose and Presidio San Saba. Both were WPA/CCC projects.
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 29, 2009 12:59:51 GMT -5
It definitely is, Quincey. Now of course we must also wonder: how much whitewashing, or outside plastering and painting, was still visible during the siege of 1836? Al Ybarra showed a lot of it in the Wayneamo, as does Gentilz in his San Antonio oils. Perhaps some of the houses in the compound, occupied by civilians prior to the siege, might have been in better condition, and still had such coating.
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nybob
Full Member
Posts: 26
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Post by nybob on May 8, 2009 23:46:50 GMT -5
Just a thought on the wayne alamo. I recently saw the alamo price of freedom film again in san antonio. I really liked the look of the compound. Maybe it was the large imax screen which brought everything into detail. Bob
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Post by busychild04 on Jun 22, 2009 23:54:35 GMT -5
The thing I liked about the 2004 version was the fact that it did feel claustrophobic. Throwing out all the historical accuracy/inaccuracy, film-wise and artistically it worked for me. It gave me a feeling of "nowhere to run, nowhere to hide". A feeling of the walls closing in on you with enemies on the other side that want to kill you. A sense of anxiety, frustration, and fear that I am sure a lot of the men in there felt during the siege.
I love the Wayne set though. It did look grand and larger than life. My only problem with it is that it looked too clean and freshly built.
I've never seen them in person so I know I might be talking out of my behind. But just my 2 cents....based on film alone.
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