This is a long, poorly done, badly miscast movie.
If you are a fan of historical western persons, such as the earps and doc holiday, then this is ok to watch.
Costner is not a believable Wyatt Earp, nor are many of the other actors and characters.
Even the OK Corral shootout is lame......
This movie deserves it's cinematic failure.
Rent tombstone, or just watch an actual historical documentary instead.
The was about the most perposterous combination of drivel I have EVER read, and your mother is a BIG FAT KUNTH for bearing you.
Tombstone is comical at best.
You apparently have ingested too much lead......
And to quote Roger Ebert:
"Wyatt Earp" plays as if they took "Tombstone" and pumped it full of hot air. It involves many of the same characters and much of the same story, but little of the tension and drama. It's a rambling, unfocused biography of Wyatt Earp.....
Your mother is such a dummy for having you. "Much of the same characters and story"??? Of course you dolt, they were real characters and real events. Stick to Michael Bay movies you rubber cone.
shareDon't worry about anything Corky says, you might call him the Ike Clanton of this message board.
shareWhy is that? Because I put you in your place regarding history? Hmm. Yeah, sure!
shareThe why is because you are a blustering blow-hard who has no good info to submit and instead just calls people names and antagonizes, trying to bully people who you disagree with.
And since I enjoy your comment about putting me in my place regarding history so much, why don't we revisit it together? You never even replied to any of the follow-ups pertaining to your ridiculous claims. The threads are all still at the top of the message board; I'll go read through them again, and you do the same, and when you come to the end please, PLEASE, show me where you educated me on anything other than your inability to back up anything you say.
Does that sound like a plan, or will you once again make a squawk and run off, just as Ike ran away from the gunfight?
As a courtesy I will hold off calling you Ike Clanton until I have finished reading through the threads again.
lol You didn't put anyone in their place. You just came off looking like an idiot to anyone who reads your childish nonsense.
shareYou add nothing. You should really kill yourself
share[deleted]
Technically he's added more than you have by substantiating a claim, even if it is fairly minor. Wheras your input has all been outlandish attacks with nothing to support anything you've ever said; just nonsesne.
Its like I said before, you're the Ike Clanton of this message board.
have you ever replied to someone's comment without insulting them, or without nasty name calling?
shareplz consider this staement carefully. then kill yourself
uselss ugly paki. let s pray ur mom gets cancer
ugly cow
My husband and I moved to Arizona in 2007 and have been touring the state off and on ever since although summer is NOT the time to visit Tombstone. Anyway, when we did check out Tombstone we accidentally found out that it was a big celebration weekend having to do with a rose bush that is the size of a city block. But I digress . . . We went to the reenactment of the fight at the O.K. Corral which was excellent and we excited through the gift shop. I wanted to buy the film Wyatt Earp as opposed to Tombstone and there were several people working there who said, "well, she knows her stuff!" What they were talking about is historical accuracy as compared to Tombstone. No, not everything is in there or is somewhat modified, but it is FAR better done than Tombstone, IMHO.
I think I love you
shareI think it's hard to say that one is better than the other. There are things that each one gets right, and of course, they each have glaring omissions. But one is not really superior to the other except by personal preference. It'd be impossible for a film to get in all aspects and do it in a well told format.
shareTombstone is pretty bad in my opinion. it is basically a chance for Kurt Russel to give longing glances at Josephine.
And the gunfight in Tombstone was also lame. honestly, it was like this buildup to what you think is gonna be a big deal but the way they led up to was nothing.
you never had a feeling of suspense or even WHY they gun fight happened.
But in Wyatt Earp it was done so much better. II am partial tho to Kevin Costner. He tries for accuracy and gets it right.
Everything in this movie was correct.
Well i guess Id argue that everythig was correct, but i suppose thats just a bit of hyperbole. But I think thats a real fair assesment. I really appreciate that Costner was willing to do a 3hr in depth look at the character. Id love a ten episode cable shiw devoted to it even.
shareIt's impossible to say in how many ways the OP is wrong. I've loved Tombstone for years, but it is romanticized, made for the American movie-going public. Wyatt Earp is a dark character study with superior acting in almost every role and very brave in what it attempts and succeeds in doing. Russell is a super-hero; Costner is tortured, having had almost all the emotion burned out of him. Costner has been criticized as "wooden" in this role. In fact, almost every move he makes after arriving in Dodge City is that of a man who is almost dead inside. His Earp is an anti-hero, and it works. As brilliant as Val Kilmer is--and it's one of the two or three most electric performances by a supporting actor that I've seen--he is over the top, too cute by half. Dennis Quaid's rail-thin body and racking cough are really painful. Despite Kilmer's brilliance, it's Quaid's Doc Holliday that I can believe. Dana Delaney's sass beats Joanna Going's more placid lover; otherwise, the women in WE are all better played. Mark Harmon is simply the best Johnny Behan, ever. He's a smarmy posturer, a mere mercenary with no bite behind his threats. In fact, the only thing I don't think this movie doesn't get right is the gunfight at the OK corral. The scene is shot with so many quick cuts that continuity is lost. I'm sure it is meant to mirror the chaos of the moment, but it does not work for me. I like the fact that, in both movies, people can stand feet apart and not hit anybody with a .45 revolver; few could with such a weapon under such pressure. In WE, Doc Holliday misses a lot more than he hits. These are nice antidotes to the legions of westerns in which good guys shoot bad guys out of there saddles at fifty yards, all from the back of a galloping horse. So, while Tombstone is hugely entertaining, Wyatt Earp is the better film. Just as Hamlet is a greater play than Romeo and Juliet, and I'm not comparing it to WE, the latter is better than Tombstone.
shareAgreed with everything except for the gunfight. And yes, Dana nailed the sassy personality. WE rules
shareI don't really disagree with most of what you said, I just think that there's too much subjectivity to declare one better or worse; it all really depends on what one wants to get out of their movie, and the criteria for achieving that. I made thread earlier about my thoughts on the Doc portrayals since I love both and think they are both hugely appropriate. But all-in-all, good write up on the movie. I'm pretty even, I think, on which I prefer, but what I do hate is people that proclaim one is the best movie ever and the other the worst.
shareKilmer's portrayal was a joke. Yes, he was funny but way over the top. It helped among other things Tombstone a joke of a movie
shareHow was he over the top? In what way was his portrayal so egregiously inaccurate that it was a joke?
shareYou my friend have a ton of reading and research to do on the WE saga. Stop depending on movies to educate you. Kilmer was fun, but he didn't nail the Doc Holliday character at all.
shareSo do you feel that Doc Holliday had one form throughout his roughly 14-15 years on the frontier? That from the day he stepped off the train in Texas he was a debilitated, hacking, ill-tempered drunk?
I guess in all your research of Wyatt Earp you've skipped over the pages that covered Doc Holliday. If you studied Doc Holliday then you would know that there are accounts of him as a fun and pleasant person at times. That he could be witty and charming. The worse life got for him the worse his disposition became, until, it seems, roughly the late years in Leadville where he was more feeble and lost a lot of the bite in his personality.
The script! Judas Priest, it was horrific. It sounds like it was copied from Godey's Lady's Book. Stilted is being kind. Costner appears to be reading from a piece of paper; not a script, not cue cards, but a piece of paper. And he doesn't read well at all. This was not written as a script; this was someone's creative writing assignment. Prose; flowery, bloated, unnecessary. If it had been edited with a heavy hand, it still won't be good, unless it's edited again with a heavy hand.
Did you ever work at Pizza Hut? No, but I ate there a lot.
I actually like Going's Josie a lot better than Delaney. Going as Josie was pretty sassy herself, just not overly so, like Delaney. Josie in Wyatt Earp struck me as a woman who didn't take crap from anyone. She, like all other characters in Earp, felt like real people. Also, I didn't think Delaney was incredibly attractive in Earp. She looked too "dressed up". Going was far more appealing and sexier.
shareKevin Costner was closer to the real Wyatt Earp both in appearance and demeanor. "Wyatt Earp" came across as more biographical and "Tombstone" more of an action flick.
I've always preferred the Kevin Costner version as I am fascinated by history. Tombstone to me was more entertainment like a classic western.
Both movies were good in their own way, but I think "Wyatt Earp" was seriously underrated as a movie.
Tombstone is incredibly overrated. That movie borders on the comical at times. Actually, Kurt Russell isn't believable as Earp. I actually like Costner better. Key example/scene: Russell's overacting when his brother Morgan dies, all the crying and yelling, while in the same scene Costner internalizes everything and is more subtle and nuanced. In fact, in addition to Russell, all the characters act way OTT. Tombstone feels like a stage play. Wyatt Earp more like a film.
shareTHIS ! YEAH !
I've been saying the exact same thing for years ! It's amazing how the majority of people seems to like Tombstone better than Wyatt Earp - it just does not make sense.
Ever since the first time I watched it, Tombstone felt like a cartoon, with oever the top acting by everyone involved - I don't get how it can be taken seriously. It doesn't even feel like a real Western, more like a parody.
Wyatt Earp is infinitely better - everything about it is superior.
I own an original quad poster for it that I recently had framed :)
I've just finished reading this entire thread, and felt I had to point out some specifics. First let me say that I enjoyed both movies, for different reasons obviously, and have both in my collection...along with pretty much every other movie on the subject I'm aware of. Several good books as well.
I liked Kurt Russell better, but I admit my taste on that is completely subjective. A agree that while Val Kilmer's Holliday was a lot more fun, Dennis Quaid's version seemed to be closer to the reality, at least as I understand it. As much as I love Sam Elliot, he was far too old for the role of 38-year-old Virgil Earp, and Michael Madsen not only did a fine job but actually looked somewhat like pictures of Virgil.
My biggest problem with Costner's movie is what others seem to be praising - the history. There was both good and bad.
1. Wyatt rolling (killing?) the man in the street. Nothing like that is mentioned in any records from the time. Wyatt was charged with horse theft at one point, along with two others. It didn't stick.
2. Bat and Ed Masterson. Probably my favorite part of 'Wyatt Earp'. The Buffalo-hunting scenes are a big plus. The death of Ed Masterson, "getting the guys who got him", was right out of history as I read it.
3. James Earp. This is the only movie that mention the oldest of the five full brothers, which is a huge plus. A couple of earlier flicks have events set in motion with the murder of "young Jimmy Earp", but only 'Wyatt Earp' shows the wounding of James in the Civil War and the role he played in his brothers' lives.
4. The ongoing hostility between the Clantons and the Earps. Neither movie really delves into the full cause of the fued, but 'Tombstone' seems to come closer.
5. The death of Marshal Fred White. 'Tombstone' gets it right. 'Wyatt Earp' is nowhere close. One thing not mentioned in either movie is the fact that Wyatt Earp himself heard White's dying words, and testified in favor of Curly Bill Brocius at his trial.
6. The final shootout at Iron Gulch. Again 'Tombstone' is much closer to the events as described, while 'Wyatt Earp' has almost nothing to do with the reality...at least as described.
7. The closing scenes. 'Wyatt Earp' has a much more believable ending, with the nephew of "Johnny Behind The Duece" relating the story. Wyatt himself said it didn't really happen that way, but that's the way the books all tell it.
So yes, 'Wyatt Earp' tells much more of the story, and for that deserves praise. I only wish they hadn't got so much of it wrong. 'Tombstone', on the other hand, tells a tightly-woven story of a specific period. I only wish they had filmed the original planned opening, with Robert Mitchum as Newman Haynes 'Pa' Clanton.
For the best book on the subject I strongly recommend 'Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind The Legend', by Casey Tefertiller. It's the only actual biography I've seen, relying on hundreds of newspaper accounts of various events and numerous court records.
You obviously have no idea about wyatt Earp if you think this is wrong
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