4 and a half hours of drivel. While accurate on the timeline and events, the dialogue and acting in this made for TV turkey are hideous. And those beards!! Who did the make-up? Didn't anyone see how laughably awful they were. Watch something else. This is an over-long, over-boring soap opera that's DOA.

Although it is long, the movie builds up a lot of characters and gives background to the battle occuring around them. Good movie with great historical accuracy, recreation of battles were realistic.

The music and melodrama in this movie, make war seem like a glorious event. In fact, of course, war is foremost horrific. All the men in the movie, act like little boys and murder each other. But this no less true in real life, so one could say it is a realistic representation of war, or men fighting each other. Still, murdering and wasting lives is kind of depicted as meaningul and heroic in these movie. Typically American and totally moronic and detrimental to society's values.

This movie was extremely well done with many memorable quotes, the movie does take a very long time to reach its point but it does relive many skirmishes of the Gettysburg battle. All casting choices were great especially with Martin Sheen as Robert E Lee. The movie reviews the rise and fall of the great military leader "Stonewall" Jackson and the charge of the Confederates farthest advancement into the northern states. This is a relatively accurate representation of the battles and the book written by Michael Shaara. If you are looking for a good film with accurate battle descriptions then this is a good movie (If you have the time that is).