fxlafferty Lots of pretty, gentlemanly Southern dialogue interspersed with battle scenes where hardly anyone dies until close to the end. No mention of Dan Sickles, or much at all about General George Meade. Yes, the fight scenes become more intense during the final 60-90 minutes, but this was the bloodiest battle on American soil, 620,000 plus American lives lost, yet this reminded me of a Disney production. It should be remade in a grittier style, like Saving Private Ryan, then we'd see what it was really like. Better still, want to learn about the Civil War? Go to Gettysburg!!!

hgieselmann As Gettysburg tries to be very accurate on what happened on the battlefield when you look at the formations, historic weaponry, correct uniforms etc. it utterly fails to show the psychological "cracks", the inconsistencies, the doubts that every participant in a war always has. Even when the men are exhausted and deadly wounded, there is always a general in this film with some heroic words that can keep the moral of the troops up. Under the utterly heroic tunes of the pathetic soundtrack you see thousands die, just to make a few hundred meters on some grassland hills. Nobody deserts, nobody goes crazy by the horrors. This is as glorifying as the Riefenstahl-Movies in the 30s.This might work for civil war romantics, but as a propaganda movie its a bad one. Its at least two hours too long, badly edited, it has no tight rhythm and only alternates between overlong large battlefield scenes and heroic speeches on both sides.So I think the only ones I would recommend this are film-buffs and historians, who are interested in how even badly made propaganda movies about the civil war get so much praise from their fans.

johnvernick3 I found the movie very interesting especially how well the attacks were planned by both sides before battle also the mind set of the soldiers both for the north and the south impressed me. They showed just how much they cared for what they were fighting for and what they wanted as a result from this war. This movie also shows just how bad the civil war really was. Also I didn't realize that so many generals and high ranking officials died during this war. It just shows that they didn't put their lives before the lives of the soldiers that they were commanding. One other thing I was surprised about was how Robert E.Lee didn't really listen to his fellow generals about how they feel they should attack the Union instead he felt his way was always the best but that proved to be wrong at Gettysburg.

Tanner Metcalfe Although I am not usually interested in history movies, the movie did a good job of keeping me interested throughout in the Civil War. It also opened my eyes to the true horrors of the Civil War. Although not gory or graphic in any way, the movie depicts the high death rates in the war and how it deeply affects the soldiers and especially the generals. I thought the acting in the war was good as well. Sheen's portrayal of Lee was very good, I thought. The movie has some good scenes as well, the action scenes especially. However, the movie fails in some parts, too. Most noticeably, it was obviously too long. It has the record as the longest American movie ever made, I think, and it shows. It could have easily been cut down by at least an hour, by shortening some of the seemingly endless marching scenes. There was one marching period that I timed to be nearly six minutes long. This had no dialogue and just showed people walking and bring on horseback. Overall, I thought the movie was good and kept me interested throughout, but it could have been much better. It remains, to me at least, a good movie, but more for people who are very serious about history.