MovieChat Forums > Meek's Cutoff (2011) Discussion > I have a number of questions regarding t...

I have a number of questions regarding this movie [spoiler alert]

posted 12 years ago by mlinick
8 replies | jump to latest

I just wasted about two hours of my time watching this movie. i thought it was boring, that the dialogue was impossible to hear, let alone decipher, and that the ending was an absolute letdown.

i also found the movie script to be questionable for the following reasons:

1) There was absolutely no reason for any of the settlers to be hungry, let alone starve, once one the wagons got crushed, as they could have eaten one or both of the extra oxen. The meat may have been tough but it would have been a whole lot easier to swallow than the meat the Donner Party ate.

2) It didn't appear that any of the settlers tried communicating with the Indian with physical gestures [excepting when one of the male settlers gave him the blanket(s). Why didn't one of them point to a bit of water in a cup and then sweep their arm over the landscape or something like that. People who don't speak the same language generally figure out a way to communicate through physical gestures.

3) Wouldn't you think that you would empty out wagons before trying to take them down a steep embankment via rope - it sure would make them lighter and easier to hold back and keep from losing control of them. If the settlers had, they wouldn't have lost the barrel of water that remained. They could have hand carried all their meager earthly possessions down to the wagons after getting the wagons safely down the embankment.

4) How does a mountain man lose his sense of direction in the desert? Or even the settlers? Didn't they know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? In the mornings, they should have walked with their backs to the sun, and in the afternoons, they should have walked towards the setting sun. i would think that if they had done so, they would have eventually seen the Cascades, e.g the Three Sisters, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood - they are hard to miss from a very long distance away.

5) i was just waiting for one of the women to step on a rattler when they went out to collect wood. i would think that there would have been an abundance of rattlers where this movie is supposed to have taken place. Yes, the rattlers would be asleep, probably under a rock, during the day but you would have thought that the women would have disturbed one or two of them, especially in the cooler evening hours when they would have been stopped and settling in for the night - the time they would have been collecting wood for the evening fire for cooking and warmth.

6) Once they found a tree, don't you think, in their state of extreme thirst, that they would have dug around the tree to see if there was moist soil and therefore some water they could have strained out. That tree was green with foliage. If it hadn't rained there in a long time, there must have been some moisture in the soil, keeping the tree alive and healthy. If it had rained there recently, i would think there would have either been some pooled up water in places, or the settlers themselves would have been rained upon and could have collected rainwater themselves.

7) How did the oxen survive without water? Would the settlers give their precious little water to the oxen? i would doubt that. So while the settlers had a little water to drink, the oxen would have gone a long time without any water. Plus, they are pulling heavy wagons, and if i remember, their coats were black, which absorbs the heat of the sun, rather than reflect it. Seems to me they would have fallen over dead and thus provided food for the settlers. And for that matter, what water was Stephen Meeks' horse drinking to keep alive? How does a horse gallop through the desert and survive without water?

8) I just watched this movie one time, and could not bear to watch it again, but i seem to recall seeing a bird, [a vulture?], flying overhead near the end. What water was this bird drinking? i guess a bird can fly a long distance without any water, but do they?

These are just some of my thoughts about this movie script. i may be wrong regarding the above points but i would appreciate if someone would correct me if i am.

[–] duerden60 12 years ago

I agree with your points and found much wrong with this movie. At first, the slowness started to draw me in, but I gradually realised that I wanted something more to happen. It also occurred to me that the oxen were sleek and fat, and if needed were food. No one seemed to go hunting, for a supposedly pristine wilderness,(it's 1845) where was the wildlife? To go on an adventurous journey such as that, the people would have to be very self sufficient types, but apart from feisty Michelle Williams nobody seemed anything but resigned to their fate. Could they not see that the guide with his fund of wild tales was a bulls*****r? To me the ending showed that it ran out of ideas, I felt badly let down.

[–] AssetsonFire 12 years ago

I query how much of those wasted two hours was really spent watching the movie.

[–] campbecg 12 years ago

1) the real problem wasn't food, it was water. The oxen were more valuable as farm animals (i.e. a means to move stuff, like a plow) than to be eaten.

3) Yes, they could/should have unloaded most of the belongings before the descent, but then, how do they get the barrel down the hill? They could not roll it down, no seals to keep the precious water in.

6) This was the 19th century. How do they know to dig for water? How far do they dig? Can't look it up on the Internet.

7) You weren't watching the movie, were you? They discuss given some of the dwindling supply of water to the oxen. How about watching it again. Since it generated so many questions from you, obviously you were more interested than you let on.

8) Yes there was, but a bird can fly 20 miles in a few minutes. The wagons were moving 4 miles an hour.

4) Um, that's the whole story. By the way, the basis of this story, and the existence of the real Mr. Meeks is an actual historical event. Meeks said he knew a 'shortcut'. He did not.

[–] mlinick 12 years ago

Thank you Campbecq for answering my questions. It is a while since i watched the movie but i watched it carefully when i did - i had to in order to hear the dialogue which was difficult on the DVD copy i viewed.

i do need to respond to several of your points.

Yes, oxen are generally valuable for settlers, to pull plows, etc and are not meant to be killed for food, but this is true IF the owners are not starving to death. Oxen are not valuable to the owners if the owners do not survive.

Yes, you keep the barrel of water, your most valuable commodity, on the wagon, tied securely to the middle of the wagon, with its lid tied down [which they should have had to keep bugs and other things out of it - so you have clean, drinkable water] but you hand carry the other items that aren't too heavy to do so. Reducing the weight of the wagon before taking it down a steep hill is only common sense, not rocket science.

i believe people have known for centuries that plants need water, and that there is usually water under the ground around trees. Do you believe people only started digging wells after the internet was founded? People have grown gardens, mostly for their food, for many, many years - far before the time this movie was set, and they most assuredly knew that plant life meant a near by water source. It didn't matter how deep the water for that solitary tree was in the ground - if you are dying of thirst, you try whatever you can - digging one foot, five feet, or twenty feet. If i recall, i did not learn that there is water under trees with foliage from the internet, i learned it long before there was an internet [yes, i am that old]. i also learned that moist soil is far easier to dig in, than dry, hardened ground.

Not only did i watch the movie carefully, though not enthusiastically, but i knew it was based on a totally true story. After watching the movie, i looked up Meek on the internet and learned the details of the real Meek and the ill-fated trip. Meek survived as did some of the others [it has been a long time since i did look up the details of the real Meek's "shortcut" expedition so my memory is a little sketchy].

Just because i am not interested in a particular movie does not mean that i am not interested in the subject matter, esp. if it is based on a historical event or events. Indeed, i detest movies that are supposedly based on a history event but then take liberties as to what really occurred - i do not like viewing fictionalized story telling of real events as it distorts my understanding of what really happened - i far prefer documentaries. i want to know what really happened, not some imaginary story. i can understand dialogue being made up, and how characters relating to each other being dramatized, but i do not like scripts that distort known facts. Meek's Cutoff would have been better in my opinion if it had continued, showing that some of the trek did survive and how they did so.

By the way, a great movie, based on a true set of events, and which stuck to the truth, is the movie "Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2007)", based on the 1972 rugby team plane crash in the Andes, where some the survivors ate some of the bodies of the deceased. Of course there were no survivors of the ill-fated Meek's expedition that could be interviewed by the film makers but i am sure there are plenty of research resources that are available - it is even described in detail on Wikepedia!

[–] schumithecat 11 years ago

re: unloading the wagons, I imagine if I were half starved and dehydrated I would not be eager to carry heavy objects rather than roll them in a wagon. It is easy to sit on the sofa eating Pringles and blast them as lazy. Removing the lighter objects wouldn't make a significant difference. You also risk injury (twisted ankle, etc.) carrying stuff downhill.

by leaving the ending the way it was, you were in the same boat as the protagonists, not knowing what was over the hill or whether they would live or die. the same reason what the Indian said wasn't subtitled, they didn't know what he was saying and neither did we (unless you happen to speak Nez Perce).

[–] lorelei1-1 10 years ago

I feel like I just wasted 2 hours of my life, too. This movie was extremely slow-moving, even plodding, yet I watched it to see what happened to them and then the ending was so abrupt it didn't even seem like an ending. I'm really sick and tired of movies that say "well the viewer can make up their own ending--it just depends on your point of view". To me all that really means is "we've written ourselves into a corner and so let's just be ambiguous because we don't have an ending" or "If we make an esoteric film we'll stand a better chance at Cannes". In this case the movie was based on a real incident so there is no excuse anyway.

I can go with symbolism in a movie but it seems anymore that it is either indecipherable as in the old David Lynch kind that makes sense only to the writers and directors or it is used whenever the film makers need to explain away inexplicable or non-existent endings.

I agreed with all your points. Some were ones I was pondering during the movie (2, 5, 6 and 7) and a couple were ones I had not thought of but realized right away they were valid.

I thought I was going deaf during this movie until I read here that a lot of people found the sound to be horrible. I missed a lot of dialog even though I turned the volume up.

Lorelei

"I don't take this sh*t from friends--only lovers."

[–] infinity8 8 years ago

1. The pilgrims' main problem wasn't hunger; it was thirst. Killing the oxen might have given the settlers a little liquid, but A) Kill your draft animals and you have to leave your wagons behind. As the wagons contain food, blankets, and other survival gear, provide shelter from the elements, and carry the only items that the pilgrims own in order to make a new life in Oregon (How will they build a home without an ax? If they leave the ax behind, how will they pay for a new one once they find civilization?), killing the oxen would be practically guaranteeing their deaths.
2. I assume that eventually the pilgrimss got their point across. They were hostile and cranky when they first captured their guide.
3. Answered already. Everyone was too tired and time was too short to empty out the wagons. Moving forward as quickly as possible was more important.
4. Just because the pilgrims and Meek know the general direction of where they were going doesn't mean that they knew how far away it was, could travel in a straight line (lakes, canyons, etc. get in the way and need to be gone around), or, as we saw, that the pilgrims could find water on a regular schedule. Also, going in a straight line could expose the settlers to other dangers, real or imaginary. They were obviously afraid of and trying to avoid Paiutes, for example.
5. Agreed--there probably were poisonous snakes around. It's a matter of luck that no one in the party stepped on one.
6. Finding water under the tree would have helped the people, but it would not have helped the animals, which need a lot of water, and which the pilgrims needed as per #1 above.
7. The settlers gave water to the animals. Again, they needed the animals to get them and their survival supplies and the tools of their livelihoods to civilization.
8. Birds can fly long distances without water, and they can survive on very small amounts of water. There is no guarantee that the bird's water supply would have been enough for eight thirsty people, let alone their livestock.

[–] liscarkat (16543) 4 years ago

1 and 2) Good points.

3) A lot of the stuff in the wagons was quite heavy, and would have been very difficult to carry down the uneven, steep slope by hand. A barrel of water would weigh a few hundred pounds. They probably considered it, but decided it would be better to get the cargo down inside the wagons, in spite of the risk.

4) Yes, they could have determined approximate direction by the sun. They could also have found Polaris (the North Star) at night, which would have given them a very accurate fix (within 0.8 degree) on true north.

5) I have lived in the Mojave Desert of California, infamous for its rattlesnakes, and have spent many hours wandering around looking for firewood, and hundreds of entire days walking across the desert doing archaeological surveys. I occasionally encountered snakes, but it's possible to go a very long time without seeing one.

6) Any species of tree growing in the desert outside of an oasis has evolved to be drought-tolerant. Unless it has rained heavily within the last day or so the ground around the tree would most likely be dry. Even if it was damp, it would be extremely difficult, if possible at all, to extract water from it.

7) One of the reasons oxen were used was because they could survive on minimal water, less than a horse. The pioneers were undoubtedly giving their animals at least some water, we just didn't see it every time.

8) Desert birds fly many miles, and can get water from tiny rain puddles that accumulate on rock concavities. Carnivorous birds, like vultures, get moisture from the blood of the prey or carrion they eat.