Texas Rising (2015)

Texas in the 1830s offered a brand new start. It seemed as if anything was possible in Texas. MAny an Outlaw or poor man with debt collector scrawled those letters on a door GTT or Gone to Texas.But in Texas President Santa Anna declared war on those arriving from The States calling them Land Pirates. It got so bad that President Andrew Jackson stepped in and Named Sam Houston as the General of the Army of the Republic of Texas to Fight Santa Anna and create a New republic of Texas free from tyrants.Houston sent Colonel Travis and Crockett and Bowie to their deaths at the Alamo. He asked them to buy him time to create a Army for Texas and in a way they did. The Slaughter of The Alamo and The Massacre of Goliad. Sparked such outrage that Houston had his Army.A untrained and undisciplined Army. Houston also picked his battles and chose the ground for his showdown against Santa Anna. Altho it took many months and many wasted Chances. Houston became hated for what was seen as cowardice. When Houston finally confronted Santa Anna He won the War and the Battle for the soul of Texas.Texas Rising begins after the slaughter of the Alamo and Houston's struggle to create an army and to come up with a battle plan to defeat Santa Anna. The film borrows heavily on history. and yet it remains fresh. The Story is compelling. And the acting marvelous. Is this the "True "Story ? I doubt it although it does lean heavily on the facts. It's an enjoyable movie to watch.I watched it at first for Kris Kristofferson in his altogether brief role of The president But I found myself won over by Jefferey Dean Morgan's portrayal of Deaf Smith. Morgan makes Smith vibrant and a incredibly sympathetic character as well as the toughest of the early Texas Rangers.Texas Rising is in my opinion must see . A fantastic feat of story telling all around and a still exciting story filled with some of the most colorful heroes to ever grace a history book.

I was an oilfield brat from Australia who landed at Angleton Junior High (about 50 miles outside of Houston) in 1970-71. At the time, it was compulsory to study Texas history. I was absolutely fascinated with the sheer excitement and adventure surrounding the rise of the Republic of Texas. I even got the only A+ in the class for my Texas history scrapbook... absolutely jam-packed with any bit of memorabilia or promotional pamphlet (thanks Mum) I could find.Unfortunately, this version of the story bears about as much similarity to the truth of the story as the history the small-town of Texas in northern New South Wales. C'mon... anyone who has even flown over southeast Texas knows that most of it is as flat as a pancake. Most days I could see the smog in Houston from Angleton. Why did that same rocky outcrop keep showing up? Come to think of it, there is one very much like it in Texas, N.S.W. The real story is so gripping, there was absolutely no need to put together this soapy pre-fabricated crap. Shame on the History Channel.

This is a good show if your not to anal about facts. The acting is decent and it is clear that a strong effort has been made to bring very good action scenes. The story is based around what happens after the Alamo and freely makes up story lines without much obvious research into what actually took place. This is obviously to allow creative freedom when producing future story lines and as a result the first series has led into an exciting subject for series 2, a much neglected part of American history and film making, Indian Wars. This show has been criticized for it's terrible disregard for fact and rightly so, but these critics do not seem to be able to see the bigger picture. It has been made well, it's interesting to watch and most importantly it has massive potential. The potential series 2 is set to tell the story of the cowboys struggles with Indians which has a depth of untold stories with countless battles and endless struggles to be told.Hopefully this program gets the chance to fulfill its potential but if it does what I would say to the producers is more detailed story lines and war scenes please.

We were extremely excited for this mini-series. But I live in San Jacinto and Victoria coastal plains region of Texas and there are not mountains and bluffs to hide in. Its wetlands and a lot of trees and FLAT. It was hard to connect to the story knowing it probably wasn't even shot in Texas. Sims Bayou Bridge is near downtown Houston for crying out loud! Also, a lot of liberty was taken in telling Emily West's story. I don't recall reading she and Houston were romantically involved.The series had too many side stories and plots going on as well and it was hard to keep up with what was going on. In my opinion this would have been great, with the existing cast, but made into 10 episodes. They kinda wrapped it up at the end, they hardly gave people time to read the final summary of the characters. Seems like the principle characters we were given 1 second to read a short paragraph and the smaller roles, with only one or two sentences the viewer had 5 seconds to read.Lastly, my wife, who cries about anything, shed not one tear during this series, which means it failed to make an emotional connection. That is sad commentary in itself considering how passionate many of us native Texan's are about our history.