Son of the Morning Star (1991)

Taking this movie for what it is, a movie about an historical event, it's pretty good. The scenes, settings, and dialogue all work towards looking and portraying the events documented in history. Because it's a movie, it is more of a play about real events. The music is the most disruptive and annoying part. It heavily detracts from watching the story. The dialogue is spoken as actors would speak it, with drama, rather than the conversational tone it was surely truly spoken as. The Indians, many of them, are fat, way too unbelievable for people who lived off the land, and Crazy Horse, while thin and muscular most likely didn't have the six pack of someone who works out, but maybe he did. Most disappointing is the portrayal of Captain Benteen, who, according to the movie, callously refuses to go to Custer's aid. I think in truth he didn't know Custer's location or true predicament. Though no love was lost between the two real men, Benteen was a brave soldier who would have come to the aid of other 7th Calvary soldiers. That said, it's a good reenactment movie with real or real looking historical sets, and I love the replacing of the famous Custer picture with Gary Cole as Custer in one of the closing shots. I believe that Custer, as a personality, was more likely a self-centered quarterback type, instead of the pretty boy he's played as. He sounds like he as a pretty ruthless killer, not very Errol Flynnish.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on this subject, but the fact is that none of us were there when it happened. Many of us think we know the truth more than others because we are historians, teachers or history buffs. We can research it to death as I have throughout my life and read all the books. (see "Where Custer Fell" by James S. Brust). But we can't go back in time to 1876 and watch it unfold before our eyes and see what really transpired. So if you think Custer was a hero or idiot or goat during the LBH battle...well no one knows for sure. Reno and Benteen did not know what wrong either and they WERE there.One story said that the Last Stand battle itself took about as much time as it takes for someone to eat lunch."Son of the Morning Star" is the best movie version yet of the battle. At least it looks like the Greasy Grass plains of Montana and not in the desert area of Monument Valley!!! Custer was not fighting southwest Indians like the Apaches either (see earlier film versions) So at least this film attempts to be accurate in some ways.Is Oliver Stone going to make his version or is that a tossed script?Where is the DVD?!!!!!! My VCR broke and I don't plan on replacing it. This movie I can watch numerous times, so again, WHERE IS THE DVD???!!!!

This movie was very historically inaccurate creating a monstrously flamboyant and cocky Custer. Yes he was arrogant and irresponsible but this movie went way over the top. Also it removes identity from the Indians by simply making them victims not in charge of their own destiny whatsoever. The actors were alright and it was somewhat interesting to see the story told from two opposing seemingly unimportant characters. The actions in the movie are very unrealistic however and cause me to rate this lower. Also the battle scene follows history closely but it is difficult to understand. It appears that Custer has about 100 soldiers involved total.

To All Son Of The morning star fans"this is a great war movie especially one made exclusively for TV. It needs to be released on DVD soon!!!!!! What needs to be done to have this film released on DVD? Very few films have capture the historic facts of this time period while also creating a very exciting film. We all really want this movie released on DVD! what's the problem? is Republic pictures still a viable entity? Is there someone we can contact to encourage them to release this film on DVD? What about the actors and actresses that were in this production possibly they could use their influence to persuade the producers to release this movie on DVD are there any plans from Hollywood to create different movies from the same time period? That would be exciting and something to look forward to.We hope it gets released very soon!!!