I thought I would try something completely different. I don’t normally go to movies. It is not what it used to be. For reasons I won’t dwell on, I have more time and freedom to actually go now.
Of course, the first thing I did was go see the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings play on the big screen for the first time and for only one weekend. Yep, I sat through, The Fellowship of the Ring (3 hours and 15 minutes) on a Saturday followed by The Two Towers (3 hours and 45 minutes) on a Sunday and the finale, The Return of the King (4 hours and 15 minutes) on a Monday night. Not for the faint of heart.
Yes, I geeked out on that. I am not a Peter Jackson hater, as so many Tolkien purists are. But I do have to agree the theatrical releases flow better than the extended editions. I love the additional footage, but they don’t make the triumph of the trilogy of films better.
Which leads me to Kevin Costner’s passion picture, Horizon, An American Saga. I have read a bit about his trials getting this picture made and while I have never seen an episode of Yellowstone, I do admit to being a fan of his other work.
A little about the movie, with no spoilers, and then I will connect the dots to my particular empathy with what he is trying to accomplish. It is a massive undertaking and an enormous risk. The kind we seldom see in Hollywood any longer.
The movie is visually stunning. It is clear he loves the west. This being the first installment of a four movie story, it is logical he has to set up the foundational elements of his characters and their various stories. I draw parallels to Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and that excellent mini-series of an equally excellent book.
Being foundational, Horizon chapter one starts slowly. There is not a lot of narration or exposition on who, what, where, or why. The story plays out on the screen and requires the viewer to experience of just what it means to be a pioneer in the untamed west of the early 1860s.
Without divulging too much, with multiple stories set in various locales ultimately converging in the future movies, there are lots of threads being picked at and crumbs being dropped to pick up further down the trail. This is absolutely necessary and cannot be accomplished without the level of detail and backstory laid out in this first chapter.
You cannot view this as a self-contained movie, but merely as the first reel to which we are now busy running to the restrooms and concessions for the upcoming second reel in August. The most satisfying part of the movie was the final five minutes of ‘previews’ of what is coming in the second part. This last is delivered without preamble and may confuse some while providing some satisfying glimpses of the upcoming payoff for our initial three-hour investment.
It will remain to be seen if this will be more popular as a binge watching twelve hour session once all four are in the can versus the piecemeal delivery in the theatre. I am certainly interested enough in the story and the characters to see where it is going.
As I watched, I was filled with a strange empathy for what he was trying to accomplish. I felt what he must have felt knowing many viewers might be put off by the non-standard delivery of this first episode without a clear storytelling formula of beginning, middle, and end.
I can only imagine Costner in his script meetings and storyboard sessions trying to rationalize how to end the movie and where, since it really is not the end of anything. When I started writing my saga, America at the Brink, the first Nick Turner book, What Can One Man Do?, stands on its own. It has a clear ending, but with a tease of much more to come. Costner just ends his chapter with the ‘much more to come’ ending. This is apparently too jarring for many critics.
When I wrote the second novel in my saga, Our Choice: Freedom or Obedience, it reminds me of the same challenges of Costner’s chapter one. So much to tell. So much to set up. Like a solid foundation on which to build a skyscraper. No matter how much you wanted it to go faster, it was necessary to take the time to get it right so the whole thing would not collapse as the building rose.
My novel Our Choice certainly still has a beginning, middle, and end structure and stands on its own as a complete story. But is also tasked with laying the foundational structure for the entire future of Nick Turner after book one. Foundational information, characters, backstories, plus mysteries and unanswered questions are all planted to be referenced throughout the rest of the saga. Just like Costner’s first chapter.
This is not easy as the author or director. Especially when you are trying to keep a reader (or a viewer in Costner’s case) interested enough to stick with you for the payoff later in the journey. Telling a story that is satisfying at the end of the last page of the book and also laying the foundation to entice the reader back for more in a saga is the balance you have to find.
My third installment, The Cost of Standing Up, was easy by comparison. It moves at a faster pace, primarily because it is not foundational. It is floors being built on top of that foundation laid in Our Choice. The same is the case for the forthcoming fourth and final book of this first part of the saga, Whatever it Takes to Win. Adding floors to a rock solid foundation is fun and satisfying.
Once I looked at Costner’s movie in this light. Not as a story with a conclusion, but as a series of tributaries that eventually come together to form a roaring river. This is his foundation on which he will build additional floors in the second, third and fourth movies. It gives me hope he will achieve his goal of a cohesive and comprehensive magnum opus. His homage to the American frontier west being opened up.
We’ll know in mid August if I am right in this belief or not. If chapter two is more foundation and not instead adding floors and building up, he will fail to grow or hold his audience for chapters 3 and 4. As I mentioned, he might have been better served to warn the audience when he shifted from the end of chapter one, to his glimpses of the future in chapter two and potentially beyond.
I fear some viewers had difficulty shifting their viewpoints from the foundation story of chapter one to the payoff of advancement and resolutions he began hinting at in this extended trailer. By the time you figure out what you are seeing, you want to rewind so you can pay a bit more attention to the glimpse you saw but didn’t understand were snippets of the next chapter.
Ultimately, it is a story of human nature and humans making choices. How they chose and the consequences of these actions, good and bad, are their own. I applaud Costner for not pulling punches and resisting the current Hollywood trend preaching revisionist history. Hopefully, this continues through the remaining three films.
My only reply to the haters is try to view this as the first couple episodes of your favorite eight part binge watching series. The payoff comes at the end. You have to get through all the setup, backstory, conflict, and heartbreak before you get to the satisfaction at the end. There was plenty of this in Costner’s first chapter.
I am confident he knows this and will deliver in his later movies. Costner is risking his own money, so he has much to lose if he doesn’t deliver. Cut him some slack, have some patience and pay attention. If we don’t support these kinds of risks with our patronage, we will get nothing but Iron Man 12, Despicable Me 27 and Deadpool 14.
WST4Y
P.S. I showed up ten minutes late and still had to sit through 15 more minutes of incredibly inane and bombastic trailers for seven or eight more movies. It is clear I missed little by not going to the theater in the last ten years except to watch Top Gun: Maverick and two Dune pictures in IMAX.