Night at the Museum

[joewiggs]

In the recent follow up to the funny movie "Night At the Museum, there is a characterization of General Custer.
The main character says to the General:

"General, what plans do you have?"
The General responds:

"I'm an American son, I don't make plans." An obvious referral to the movie maker's perspective of Custer's military expertise.

[tbw]

The movie people never have gotten this one right. I don't see why we should ever expect them to.

[melani]

Well, it was a very silly movie. I was interested to see the Custer character showing remorse for getting his men killed at LBH.

[Cutter]

I thought it was an imaginitive movie, like the first. Custer realisising he would be rembered
for his greatest defeat was the thing.

[joewiggs]

Man, I would love to see a remake of "they Died With Their Boots On." In my version an emphasis would be placed upon the action on Last Stand Hill. The men would be in agony and complete alarm praying for some one, any one, to help them. At the last moments before the curtain ends in a horrible series of violent death scenes, the camera would pan towards a non-descript chubby, gray haired smuck who stands upon Weir Point and is only capable of saying over and over again, "it's not any one's job to save you."

As the gray haired smuck turns his back upon these forlorn victims of Man's Inhumanity to Man, an errant arrow strikes him in his most prominent physical attribute (his huge arse) where upon he falls to the ground, Unable to find the courage to pull the arrow from his posterior, he moans in agony and transpires.

As the horrible scene fades, a chorus of Angels are heard to sing a harmonic eulogy of "Ding Dong, the Jerk is dead, the Jerk is dead. Ding Dong the Wicked jerk is Dead."

[davel]

Great post - love your remake scenario. I always have to remind myself that George Custer and Errol Flynn were two distinct and very different people.

[joewiggs]

Thank you davel, what a really nice comment! You know, its funny but I too got wrapped up in Errol's portrayal of the General. I don't know how Custer spoke or carried himself but I hope it was like Errol, although reality dictates that he certainly did not.

I would imagine that he was neither the "Hero" of all times nor the "Jerk" of the the century either as one individual would have you believe. I believe he was a man of unquestionable courage who bit off a little more than he could chew after being set up to do so by poor leadership. haven't we all, at one time or another, experienced "poor leadership?

[strange]

Visually speaking, Errol simply looks a lot different than Custer and they didn't even allow him to have a very scraggy mustache, we're very lucky that they at least allowed him to have long hair. Other than that, Flynn actually may have done a better job than people think, at least from the scarce clips I have seen. Custer is supposed to have a shy side, and I think Flynn at least had that. Of coarse, Custer has many other flavors also, flavors that I don't think Flynn even scratched the surface with.

As for Night at the Museum and the clips and trailers I have seen, all I can say is that the voice seems to be a little too deep and the character seems to be more of a George W. Bush stylization. A loveable but misguided character, and that is at least a little better than a few other Custers. And since Custer is supposed to be rather impish himself, it seems fitting that he'd have his own comedy film.

Strange

[joewiggs]

Great response strange! Flynn was very different from the real Custer. His (Hollywood)long, flowing hair did match the idealistic image of the "boy General" of that era. In reality, they were quite different.

There was a time in our past when long hair was a "macho" identification of men who were stalwart representatives of all that is "heroic."