Mira Sorvino Movie:

		List Price: $28.99		Label: Warner Home Video Salesrank: 77130 Released: September 25, 2007
		Our Price: $31.62
		Used Price: $17.37
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: HD DVD

Editorial Review:
A sweeping epic charting the early years of the Civil War and how campaigns unfolded from Manassas to the Battle of Fredericksburg, this prequel to the film Gettysburg explores the motivations of the combatants and examines the lives of those who waited at home.

Description of Gods and Generals [HD DVD]:

The more you know about the Civil War, the more you'll appreciate Gods and Generals and the painstaking attention to detail that Gettysburg writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell has invested in this academically respectable 220-minute historical pageant. In adapting Jeffrey Shaara's 1996 novel (encompassing events of 1861-63, specifically the Virginian battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville), Maxwell sacrifices depth for scope while focusing on the devoutly religious "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang), whose Confederate campaigns endear him to Gen. Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall, giving the film's most subtle performance). Battles are impeccably recreated using 7,500 Civil War re-enactors and sanitized PG-13 violence, their authenticity compromised by tasteful discretion and endless scenes of grandiloquent dialogue. Still, as the first part of a trilogy that ends with The Last Full Measure, this is a superbly crafted, instantly essential film for Civil War study. For all its misguided priorities, Gods and Generals is a noble effort, honoring faith and patriotism with the kind of reverence that has all but vanished from American film – but provides abundant proof that historical accuracy is no guarantee of great storytelling. --Jeff Shannon

Gods and Generals [HD DVD] Reviews:
great movie on civil war
2009-11-05 - this is a great movie but must be linked with Gettysburg..it's too bad the third part was never produced

Good historical movie
2009-10-23 - I felt the movie did a good job of following the historical novel. Both Robert E Lee and Jackson portrayed close to what I felt their character was shown in history. Their were a few places that the movie was less captivating which is why I lowered its rating slightly. Very enjoyable!

Gods and Generals
2009-10-12 - I liked this movie very much. Movies about how this country was formed and it's history are very pleasing to me.

Not quite Gettysburg, but good in its own right
2009-09-27 - This movie is the prequel to the popular civil war classic Gettysburg. Gods & Generals covers the two years before Gettysburg, particularly the battle of Fredericksburg. It stars most of the same characters as Gettysburg and was produced with the same care to historical attention. Robert Duvall and Jeff Daniels are both excellent as General Robert E. Lee and Colonel Chamberlain. The settings beautifully portray the historical era and battlefield sites.

However, Gods & Generals wasn't quite as satisfying as Gettysburg. It focuses much more on the Southern forces than the North. It presents a distorted view of the South, almost to the point of taking the Confederacy's side. It presents African American slaves as sympathetic to the Confederate cause. Much of the film stars General Stonewall Jackson, an annoying Southern fanatic who spews out religious fanaticism. In one long scene, he claims that the South was considering liberating the slaves, but this scene overshadows the fact that the Confederacy never came even close to this (and that after the war, Southerners spent decades harassing African Americans). Meanwhile, General Lee, a more sympathetic character, is more marginal than in Gettysburg.

I don't mind a movie that shows the Southern point of view and doesn't demonize them - Gettysburg did a good job of presenting Southern soldiers as human beings. However, Gods & Generals goes a bit too far.

Many Things Worked Against the Movie Not Succeeding as Well as the Novel
2009-09-09 - This is probably one of the most difficult and involved assessments of any product I've reviewed here at Amazon.com. Rather than critiquing the movie from either the controversial politically-correct or conservative viewpoints, I will try to point out some things about why I feel the movie failed to succeed at the box office (or on DVD) vs. the actual Jeff Shaara novel, which I have read, and I feel is more successful.

We must remember from the outset that the Jeff Shaara novel was likewise written in the same vein as father Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels". Both essentially are narratives and character studies of the participants' thoughts, responses, and reactions to historical events that they were jointly a part of.

First, the movie does not faithfully follow the Jeff Shaara novel as did father Michael Shaara's novel, "The Killer Angels" in the movie, "Gettysburg." While the vast majority of events presented in the movie are historically accurate, the movie emphasizes the Civil War service of Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, whereas Jeff Shaara's novel gives equal character treatment to Jackson, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Union Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancock. While the first three are dealt with rather well in the film, worst of all, the movie pushes Hancock into the background as a minor character vs. his being a significant contributor to the action as was in the novel. Much of Hancock's involvement in the novel as a battlefield general is given in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign of General George McClellan (omitted from the movie) and at the Battle of Antietam (also omitted), of which other reviewers lamented its movie exclusion.

Second, there is the timing of appearance of Shaara's novel on the market and that of the mammoth, authoritative Jackson biography by Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. of Virginia Tech, who is featured in the extra features on the DVD. Shaara's novel appeared in 1996 and Robertson's Jackson biography appeared in 1997. When the time came to make the movie version of the novel, the attendant excitement of the discovery of a tremendous amount of information about Jackson's life from Robertson's biography in the intervening years probably somewhat affected the decision to make the switch in emphasis for a movie version to make Jackson the main character. In addition to the appearance of the Robertson biography, there had to have been the intervention of Executive Producer Ted Turner to make this so. What puzzles me is why novelist Jeff Shaara allowed this to happen, even though he seems enthusiastic in the DVD extra features about it happening as it did.

Third, while admirers of Jackson were pleased to see Jackson the Confederate become the main character in the film, this obviously would not set well with a movie-going public, the vast majority of which would know little about Civil War history and also which the majority would prefer to see themes in films dealt with in a politically-correct manner. While Civil War enthusiasts can carp all they want for the politically-correct element's failure to study their Civil War history before delivering judgment on a part of the war's history that is not to their liking, that realistically is something that would and will not happen.

Fourth, with the switch in character emphasis to Confederate Jackson as opposed to an evenly-distributed one amongst four characters, significant screenplay modifications needed to be made. The first major change in the movie from the novel action deals with the First Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, which is dealt with only in passing in the novel. Jackson is the only character amongst the four major players in the novel involved at Bull Run. Obviously, if Jackson has now become the major character in the film, a significant departure from the novel needed to be made to depict how Jackson got the name of "Stonewall" at Bull Run. This departure from the novel is dealt with rather expertly and is historically accurate, even if not to the liking of the politically-correct.

Fifth and last, I don't know how or why two folk/rock singers (Mary Fahl and Bob Dylan) were allowed to contribute two songs to the beginning and ending of the movie that seemingly were opposed in approach and tone to each other. Of the two, I feel that Bob Dylan's contribution was the least meaningful, and didn't contribute to the tone of the sad moment at the film's end that viewers had just experienced with the death of Jackson. If anything, I would liked to have had a reprise of the Fahl song, which seemed better to fit the sobering ending. Rather, I could have done without either singer's input, and relied on the contributions of film composers John Frizzell and Randy Edelman. The input of Mary Fahl and Bob Dylan was likely Ted Turner's decision to attempt to generate a wider appeal for his film.

In summary, if the film had been more faithful to the novel, I think it would have had a better chance of succeeding as "Gettysburg" had. Still, as other reviewers have stated, there simply was too much history to cover in what had already become an extremely long film (three hours and thirty-nine minutes), with no intermission. "Gettysburg" covered only four days, whereas "Gods and Generals" covered two years. "Gettysburg" was originally conceived and filmed as a TV mini-series, and with proper editing, succeeded as a long movie (four hours and fifteen minutes) with intermission. "Gods and Generals" should not have been conceived as a movie and would have been more successful as a mini-series, following the novel more faithfully than it did. But as it is, it was good in accurately depicting the historical events of the time period it covered.

The unfortunate lack of success that "Gods and Generals" suffered was a financial setback for Ted Turner, which resulted in his decision not to fund filming of the last part of the Shaara trilogy, "The Last Full Measure." This is stated at Jeff Shaara's web site in response to the many inquiries made by those who want to see it made.