re: Dances With Wolves gets too much undeserved shite

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DWW is a cheap knockoff of Little Big Man and not nearly as good. Downvote away beeotches!

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I love Little Big Man, but this comment is dumb.

- DWW is not “cheap”

- It has a very similar theme as LBM but it’s not a “knock off”

- The best part of LBM is the back and forth between the two worlds of the main character, even though it’s a little cheap and overly flattering of the Indians, and over critical of the whites. It also has outright comedic elements that are only incidental to DWW.

- I like them both, but DWW is a better film.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the buffalo hunt scene is in the running for greatest movie scene of all time. It was a practical effects scene on as big a scale as possible.
A herd of 3,500 bison were used.
Go read about the logistics of planning and filming that scene.
It’s unbelievable.

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Wind In His Hair at the end gets me every time

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When he shared how he realized that his friend had to go away so that Dances With Wolves could come ...

The topic of expansion out west and what it did to the folks already living there isn't a fun topic for most. The history isn't pretty, and has generally been swept under the rug. Unlike slavery, there's no nation wide push with high profile public figures to make their case. Especially for most who live in the Eastern part of the country.

So with all that as a backdrop, it's commendable that such a great movie was made.

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Meh - it's a mediocre epic with some good moments. It's one part Little Big Man, two parts Fergully. It's attractively shot. Costner was trying too hard to be Clint Eastwood at that point in his career (and it showed). Much like Titanic, it suffered from poor acting out of the romantic leads. The supporting cast, particularly the actors portraying natives, was excellent and really saved the movie (as the supporting cast attempted to do in Titanic and Armageddon). The score was great. The pacing was off, overall direction was just off.

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First time I have ever had to dv an Ace post. I feel like I just had to shoot my favorite dog.

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Would've been a more compelling film if it didn't portray the Natives as helpless pacifists.

There was a concerted effort obviously to rebuke old Westerns and the antagonistic savage Indian but it went too far in neutering them.

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never took that from it or really paid attention to the human stories. The scenery was so mesmerizing (for me) I was locked into that.

I once read a review on A River Runs Through It, and it basically said that it was an imbalanced film. That stuck with me, because something always felt off about it. So imbalanced was a good way to describe it in my opinion.

That said, I did yet another rewatch of DWW not too long ago, and it felt like a perfectly balanced film. Everyone and everything came full circle. There are so many scenes in that film that tie up loose ends or show character arc. I could do an entire thread on the balance of the characters, plot, etc.

Eastwood had the script for Unforgiven years beforehand. He wanted to wait until he was older to portray his role correctly.

That movie would have gone straight to streaming today