History Film / Gettysburg

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: It rates a 6, mainly because of the bloody Confederate field hospital scene, which features a wagon full of sawed-off limbs in the background. There is usually a visible spurt of blood when someone is shot with a bullet, but the effects of cannonfire are reduced to men getting flung in the air with a shower of dirt rather than gory, brutal dismemberment. (That said, it still gets the point across.)

** In fairness, Longstreet’s BizarroUniverse “We should’ve freed the slaves, then fired on Fort Sumter!” is original to the movie. The book has him think that the war was about slavery, not why he fought, but there it was. When various characters defend the cause, such as the prisoners asserting they fought for their [[FunetikAksent rahts]] without being able to name them, or [[TheDitz Pickett’s]] idea that it’s all like quitting from a club and the club thinks it can make you stay, the impression is that, no matter what the individual thinks, the underlying engine behind it all is slavery. Which is still to an extent DatedHistory, as it seems even the enlisted were conscious of it at the time.

* BadassBeard: ''Every'' man (which is to say, [[ChromosomeCasting every cast member]]) has extremely luxuriant facial hair, which is TruthInTelevision for the era, albeit not always a credit to the make-up department. General Longstreet, in particular, looks like a beard with Tom Berenger attached to it.

* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Sgt. Kilrain to Col. Chamberlain after being severely wounded at Little Round Top. Doubles as a TearJerker.

* NotSoDifferent: A major theme of the movie.
** Armistead and Hancock are by far the most prominent example.
** Fremantle sees great similarity between England and the honor-bound, aristocratic South.

** Chamberlain's actually happened in RealLife, only there were actually three brothers present. The third, a medic who didn't get mentioned in the book or movie, was sent to a different part of the line than Tom, for the same reason.

->''"The same God, same language, same culture and history, same songs, stories, legends, myths... Different dreams. Different dreams. So very sad."''
-->-- '''Col. Arthur Fremantle'''

** The real Col. Fremantle was more of a tourist than an official representative of the British government and did ''not'' wear his scarlet tunic, though he did write a book about his travels in which he predicted the Confederacy was sure to win -- which was published about three months before they lost.

----

--> '''Chamberlain:''' Tom, stay away from me. Another one of those [shells] a bit closer and it could be a hard day for mother.

** Confederate General Isaac Trimble is shown in a scene criticizing General Ewell for failing to take a hill on the first night of the battle, but after this his fate is not shown. The real life Trimble was wounded so severely during Picket's charge on the following day that Lee had to leave him behind to be captured when the army retreated back to Virginia. He lost a leg and spent the rest of the war as a POW, but survived his wounds and lived until 1888, passing away that year at the age of 86.

* CantCountBullets: Happens a few times when dealing with revolvers (rifles at this time were still single-shot, by and large). Tom Chamberlain runs out at a crucial moment, having no time to reload and about to be shot when the 2nd Maine deserters save him. Shortly after this, there's a brief stalemate between Colonel Chamberlain and a Confederate officer. Arrested in his charge, Chamberlain stands and waits for the Confederate to fire; when the revolver simply clicks, the officer surrenders.

* PowerTrio: Pickett's brigade commanders; Armistead is the ego, Kemper the id, and Garnett the superego. Could also be said for the leaders the divisions in Picket's Charge as a whole (Pickett, Trimble, and Pettigrew).

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: The short version of Longstreet's explanation of what is going to happen when they attempt Pickett's Charge: the troops will be facing a unsurvivable storm of firepower beginning with cannonballs and rifled musketry bullets, then when they closer they will face grapeshot anti-personnel cannon ammunition and then all that plus canister ammunition (Basically turning field cannons into giant shotguns).

** Confederate General James Kemper says the doctors have told him his wound taken during Pickett's charge is fatal, but his ultimate fate is not mentioned in the ending, implying that he died at Gettysburg. In real life, Kemper survived his wounds and the war, going on to become governor of Virginia in 1874.

* DeathByCameo: Ted Turner plays Waller T. Patton, a Confederate colonel (and great uncle of ''[[USefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton that]]'' [[USefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton Patton]]) who gets killed during Pickett's Charge.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: Armistead gives one to Fremantle before Pickett's charge.
--> '''Armistead''': Colonel Fremantle... it does not begin or end with my uncle... or myself. We're all sons of Virginia here. That major out there, commanding the cannon... that's James Dearing. First in his class at West Point, before Virgina seceded. And the boy over there with the color guard, that's Private Robert Tyler Jones. His grandfather was President of the United States. The colonel behind me... that's Colonel William Aylett. Now, his great-grandfather was the Virginian, Patrick Henry. It was Patrick Henry who said to your King George III, "Give me liberty, or give me death." There are boys here from Norfolk... Portsmouth... small hamlets along the James River. From Charlottesville and Fredericksburg... and the Shenandoah Valley. Mostly, they're all veteran soldiers now; the cowards and shirkers are long gone. Every man here knows his duty. They would make this charge, even without an officer to lead them. They know the gravity of the situation, and the mettle of their foe. They know that this day's work will be desperate and deadly. They know, that for many of them, this will be their last charge. But not one of them needs to be told what is expected of him. They're all willing to make the supreme sacrifice... to achieve victory, here... the crowning victory... and the end of this war. We are all here, Colonel. You may tell them, when you return to your country... that all Virginia was here on this day.''
** The real Fremantle was so impressed by Pickett's Charge he wrote a book predicting that the South would win the war. It was published a few months before the South surrendered.

** Pickett generally receives the TragicHero treatment, noticeably downplaying the fact that historically he was at best a mediocre commander and wasn't really tragic in any sense beyond the bare fact of leading one third of the charge.

Particularly known for its extremely long Pickett's Charge sequence, and for just being extremely long ''period'', clocking in at ''four hours''! (Four ''and a half'' in the Blu-Ray release, which restored all the deleted scenes including some that had been in the trailer but [[NeverTrustATrailer didn't make the theatrical cut]].) This is because the film was originally intended to be aired as a miniseries; when Turner, who had just acquired the film's distributor Creator/NewLineCinema, saw part of the film during production, he realized it was ''much'' bigger than your average miniseries, and thus had the film released theatrically.

* HollywoodTactics: While ''today'' we would call frontal assaults like Pickett's Charge ludicrous, and the film goes out of its way to put this sentiment into several characters' mouths, the fact is that in this era massive frontal assaults were an entirely acceptable tactical doctrine used by even the most cautious commanders on ''both'' sides, and remained so really until the invention of reliable wireless communication. Pickett's Charge was far from the first or the last such assault of the war, and not even the largest or bloodiest, just the most famous (ironically because it ''almost'' worked). Moreover, Lee and his men had seen such attacks work at Gaines's Mill, Second Bull Run, and Chancellorsville, and Pickett's Charge actually had fairly good odds of success had the Confederate artillery not overshot the bulk of the Union forces hunkered down tight to the line on the ridge, making it far more of a ForWantOfANail than a ForegoneConclusion. Another part of the difficulty, which is implicit but not directly pointed out, is that most of the commanding generals mostly received the same education and were personally familiar enough with each other. This helped them get into bloody stalemates because of the way they predicted their foes and were predictablly countered, and so on and so forth.

---> '''Longstreet:''' You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell you what's gonna happen. [Our] troops are now forming behind the line of trees. When they come out, they'll be under enemy long-range artillery fire. Solid shot. Percussion. Every gun they have. Troops will come out under fire with more than a mile to walk. And still, within the open field, among the range of aimed muskets. They'll be slowed by that fence out there, and the formation -- what's left of it -- will begin to come apart. When they cross that road, they'll be under short-range artillery. Canister fire. Thousands of little bits of shrapnel wiping holes in the lines. If they get to the wall without breaking up, there won't be many left. A mathematical equation. Maybe, just maybe, our own artillery will break up their defenses. There's always that hope. But that's Hancock out there, and he ain't gonna run. If they get to that road, or beyond it, we'll suffer over fifty percent casualties. But Harrison? I don't believe my boys will reach that wall.

---> '''Longstreet:''' You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell you what's gonna happen. [Our] troops are now forming behind the line of trees. When they come out, they'll be under enemy long-range artillery fire. Solid shot. Percussion. Every gun they have. Troops will come out under fire with more than a mile to walk. And still, within the open field, among the range of aimed muskets. They'll be slowed by that fence out there, and the formation -- what's left of it -- will begin to come apart. When they cross that road, they'll be under short-range artillery. Canister fire. Thousands of little bits of shrapnel wiping holes in the lines. If they get to the wall without breaking up, there won't be many left. A mathematical equation. Maybe, just maybe, our own artillery will break up their defenses. There's always that hope. But that's Hancock out there, and he ain't gonna run. If they get to that road, or beyond it, we'll suffer over fifty percent casualties. But, Harrison, I don't believe my boys will reach that wall.

* BadassBeard: ''Every'' man (which is to say, [[ChromosomeCasting every cast member]]) has extremely luxuriant facial hair, which is TruthInTelevision for the era, albeit not always a credit to the make-up department.

* TheAce: General Hancock is viewed as this by both the Union side and the Confederates. Armistead may be a little biased when he says that "God don't make 'em any better," but Hancock's corps being on top of Cemetery Ridge is another blow to Longstreet when he considers the cost of the forthcoming charge. This one is TruthInTelevision. Winfield Hancock was one of the best Union corps commanders, especially in the Army of the Potomac. The fact that he was never promoted again is still considered by many to be a political decision since he was a known Democrat, though this overlooks [[IllBoy the debilitating nature of his chronic wounds]] and the fact that his II Corps ''was'' nearly tripled in size, meaning any ostensible promotion to command an Army would entail either ousting fellow Democrats like George Meade or William Sherman, moving to a comparative backwater like the Army of the Gulf, or accepting a far ''smaller'' command the like the 10,000-man Army of the James.

* TheAce: General Hancock is viewed as this by both the Union side and the Confederates. Armistead may be a little biased when he says that "God don't make 'em any better," but Hancock's corps being on top of Cemetery Ridge is another blow to Longstreet when he considers the cost of the forthcoming charge.
** This one is TruthInTelevision. Winfield Hancock was one of if not the most successful Union corps commander. The fact that he was never promoted beyond this point was considered by many at the time to be a political decision as Hancock was known to be a Democrat.

''Gettysburg'' is a 1993 BattleEpic film about the pivotal battle of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, financed by UsefulNotes/TedTurner, directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, and closely adapted from the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize-winning 1974 novel ''Literature/TheKillerAngels'' by Michael Shaara.

** While the Armistead/Hancock relationship was the most famous of these sorts of conflict, it was actually fairly common occurrence among professional officers (though it was much less common among citizen volunteers like Chamberlain), as many of them were West Point classmates who gained their fighting credentials in the war with Mexico. The movie itself notes the fact that Longstreet was good friends with UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant. And enlistment records of the units that fought at Gettysburg reveal that four brothers fought at Gettysburg. Three for the Confederacy, one for the Union.

* DeathByCameo: Ted Turner plays Waller T. Patton, a Confederate colonel who gets killed during Pickett's Charge.