Deadwood: The Movie Spoilers

[Leofric]

My impression was that he had written the script, but he was not as involved in the day to day shooting as he had been in the series.   They basically shot from his script without any of the on-fly-changes to the dialogue and scenes he had made during the series to improve things and make them sound better. 

[RumHam]

4 hours ago, Leofric said:

My impression was that he had written the script, but he was not as involved in the day to day shooting as he had been in the series.   They basically shot from his script without any of the on-fly-changes to the dialogue and scenes he had made during the series to improve things and make them sound better. 

This is my impression as well. 

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

From articles in Vulture, among others.  It was the first to reveal that Milch had Alzheimers and thus couldn't actually work on the film.  I put up a link to that either in this Deadwood topic or the one before it dropped.

It was his concept.  People worked from that.  So sure he gets sole credit, that's how it works.  But he couldn't write any longer.  That's how the disease operates. When they began working, he wasn't mildly ill.  Also the way he worked on the series, which had a lot to do with why it was so fresh and natural, and also with why the plug was pulled, is he'd tear up the script and shove the new stuff into their hands even during shooting.  This was famous at the time.  That didn't happen with the movie, which again, is why it sounds just -- well off.  An imitation, rather than the original.

The only Vulture article I could find about this was this one. Which says nothing about him not actually writing the movie. In fact it says he plans to keep writing despite his disease. I looked in the old Deadwood thread and in this one and googled and I can't find anything where anyone admits that he did not write the script. Or at least most of it. That vulture article also says "When his Alzheimer’s symptoms appeared, Milch had been working for years on what would become Deadwood: The Movie."

I think it's reasonable to wonder if maybe he handled less of the writing than he used to due to his condition. But unless you have another article where someone says something like "David came up with the story outline and we worked from that" I'm going to continue on believing that Milch wrote (most of) the Deadwood movie. 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

This is my impression as well. I think it's reasonable to wonder if maybe he handled less of the writing than he used to due to his condition. But unless you have another article where someone says something like "David came up with the story outline and we worked from that" I'm going to continue on believing that Milch wrote (most of) the Deadwood movie. 

I think you're right on this. If in fact Milch had ghostwriters doing the heavy lifting during filming, it's certainly nothing that has been revealed in interviews. I believe another interviewer intimated that basically this is the same script that's been kicking around for a decade or more, just tweaked and worked all along the way. I don't really see why Milch could not write it. As said, the only real change from the old days was that he wasn't able to do on the fly rewrites in part because it takes him longer and takes more effort to write, and partly because he wasn't well enough to be there all the time... and also, partly, because HBO very clearly stipulated that they would not be funding a fly-by-wire operation. They had to stick to schedule and budget. 

[dbunting]

Count me in the group that thought this was disappointing. I knew it pretty quickly too because I found myself wandering to my phone to look at other things while it was on. I mean, how obvious could they make it that Hearst had Utter killed? He needs his land, he dies. Pretty clear so no real drama felt inn the aftermath. Would have been better if Hearst had left a wad of bills with Utter and said he sold him the land, someone must've robbed poor Charlie and killed him.

With Swearengen dying, I thought for sure we would see a scene where he sacrifices himself and kills Hearst to save the town, but no. Hearst is pulled by the ear to jail. In the end he is in jail, Swearengen is still alive, all is basically where it was once before. The movie didn't seem like a conclusion to me.

Did they explain who the new girl was to Al's house, the one who came on the train? I have to admit I lost interest and may have missed it, but was she supposed to be someones daughter or something?  kept expecting something out of her and nothing happened. Maybe I should have done a re watch leading up to this.

[dooog]

I enjoyed it. Not perfect but pretty good.

 

As others have said it was a bit of a rehash of S3. Apart from using her to inform us that Tolver is gone, I didn't see the point of Joanie. She's just... there, having her lover's quarrel, not actually doing anything that influences the plot.

Perhaps not a popular opinion, but my main gripe with this movie was what they did with Al. All along this guy has been an asshole, a proper piece of shit. But the audience still loves him. He's our piece of shit. I didn't like seeing him pull an Ebenezer Scrooge, still using the customary profanity but now with a mellowing near-death melting heart. It didn't feel like Al from the show and it certainly wasn't the Al from history. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

Count me in the group that thought this was disappointing. I knew it pretty quickly too because I found myself wandering to my phone to look at other things while it was on. I mean, how obvious could they make it that Hearst had Utter killed? He needs his land, he dies. Pretty clear so no real drama felt inn the aftermath. Would have been better if Hearst had left a wad of bills with Utter and said he sold him the land, someone must've robbed poor Charlie and killed him.

With Swearengen dying, I thought for sure we would see a scene where he sacrifices himself and kills Hearst to save the town, but no. Hearst is pulled by the ear to jail. In the end he is in jail, Swearengen is still alive, all is basically where it was once before. The movie didn't seem like a conclusion to me.

Did they explain who the new girl was to Al's house, the one who came on the train? I have to admit I lost interest and may have missed it, but was she supposed to be someones daughter or something?  kept expecting something out of her and nothing happened. Maybe I should have done a re watch leading up to this.

Hearst being killed would make this more like Inglorious Basterds than Deadwood.

And the girl was a new POV for Deadwood, and also someone to remind the characters of Jen.

[Nictarion]

5 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Hearst being killed would make this more like Inglorious Basterds than Deadwood.

And the girl was a new POV for Deadwood, and also someone to remind the characters of Jen.

Yep. They already changed Al’s death pretty drastically, no way they were going to rewrite history with Hearst as well. 

[red snow]

10 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Hearst being killed would make this more like Inglorious Basterds than Deadwood.

And the girl was a new POV for Deadwood, and also someone to remind the characters of Jen.

Not a very effective entry POV for new/relapsed viewers (which us usually their function) as she didn't interact with many characters in a way that helped establish things and usually such a device requires the story to heavily involve them eg if she was there with some kind of purpose/goal

They could have just as easily used Alma's adopted daughter who would have worked given her connection to the original story but having being too young and absent ling enough for the place to seem alien.

[Winterfell is Burning]

5 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Yep. They already changed Al’s death pretty drastically, no way they were going to rewrite history with Hearst as well. 

But Hearst was a much bigger public figure.

[The Bard of Banefort]

I was wondering why no one was talking about the Deadwood movie. Turns out I looking in the wrong thread!

For one, even as someone who only watched the show for the first time about two or three years ago, there was something very emotional about seeing the story finally wrapped up. The plot was kind of a re-tread of season three (Hearst kills an amiable character for his land, and then threatens to kill Trixie) but I'm guessing that was for the purpose of Milch being able to finish the series the way he had originally intended to. I'm happy that every character whose actor was available got a cameo (even Aunt Lou shows up at one point!) but it also meant that a number of the characters didn't really get anything to do. Poor Joanie was sidelined, and although Alma winning the bid for Charlie's land was a fist-pumping moment for me, she didn't really have any other reason for being there (also, didn't she vow to stay in Deadwood at the end of season three, since that was now her and Sophia's home?).

Al was a standout, as always, and I actually thought it was a really interesting creative decision to end the movie just before he took his final breath, rather than ending with his death. I'm happy they decided to keep Doc around as well, although I'm not sure how he was miraculously cured of his tuberculosis. 

I was so glad that Trixie and Sol got a happy ending, and I suppose Bullock and his wife did too. Calamity Jane was great, as always.

The writing was strong, although it felt more Shakespearean now than it had before.

Deadwood seems to endorse the belief that people don't change, since everyone basically stayed the same for ten years. At the same time, the movie never felt nihilistic to me, and I think that's because this show has always stressed the importance of community. We see time and again how the disjointed personalities of Deadwood stick together through hard times, and there's something beautiful about that.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Also, did the new girl, Caroline, look like Maisie Williams to anyone else? I think it's the snub nose. I found her likable enough, although I wasn't really sure what her purpose is. Are we supposed to infer that her two-second pep talk with Trixie convinced her to leave prostitution behind?

[Trebla]

18 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Also, did the new girl, Caroline, look like Maisie Williams to anyone else? I think it's the snub nose. I found her likable enough, although I wasn't really sure what her purpose is. Are we supposed to infer that her two-second pep talk with Trixie convinced her to leave prostitution behind?

I actually thought she was a Hearst mole because she arrived in town right around that he did. Once I realized I was wrong, I figured she was seen as a young Trixie. Trixie seemed to see the same as she talked to her about not getting into that life. 

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, Trebla said:

I actually thought she was a Hearst mole because she arrived in town right around that he did. Once I realized I was wrong, I figured she was seen as a young Trixie. Trixie seemed to see the same as she talked to her about not getting into that life. 

I actually thought, by the way they kept tying her to Jen, that she was related to her, a daughter or a little sister, and she had come to Deadwood for revenge against Al, so was kind of confused when her story didn't seem to go much further.

[The Bard of Banefort]

As far as historical accuracy is, Milch appears to have thrown that out the window entirely. For instance, the real Sol Star never got married or had any children.

Speaking of Sol, didn't season three end with him being elected mayor? Was that retconned, and that's why Al suggested that he run for office, or was his tenure finished and Al was suggesting he'd run for something else?

[Iskaral Pust]

I turned this on but my attention started drifting and then I turned it off half way through.  Perhaps I had too much on my mind that evening to give this the attention it needed but it felt pretty flat.

The plot was a retread of the last season, with even less energy or suspense.  There didn't seem to be any great resolution for the characters, other than to see them all dragged back at the same time in an unlikely coincidence to play out this reunion.  Calamity Jane was even worse than I remembered.  Everyone was stuck in the same role as before and had not progressed or changed in a decade.  And the dialogue had lost some of its zip.

I know it's difficult to deliver a capstone farewell but this attempt didn't feel worth the effort.

[Winterfell is Burning]

3 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

 

Speaking of Sol, didn't season three end with him being elected mayor? Was that retconned, and that's why Al suggested that he run for office, or was his tenure finished and Al was suggesting he'd run for something else?

No, his term just finished. Al suggest this is Milch indicating he, like his creator, is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer.

[The Bard of Banefort]

39 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

No, his term just finished. Al suggest this is Milch indicating he, like his creator, is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer.

Good observation. I thought maybe he was suggesting that Sol run for Senate (presumably to take on Hearst), but Alzheimer's is possible too. Did Al forget anything else?

[RumHam]

On 6/10/2019 at 5:12 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Good observation. I thought maybe he was suggesting that Sol run for Senate (presumably to take on Hearst), but Alzheimer's is possible too. Did Al forget anything else?

The only other thing I know of is when he gets the day of the week wrong with the doc.

What is everyone's interpretation of the "Where have you been? / Right down the road." exchange between Al and Bullock?

At first I thought it was just a way of saying that Bullock had been fully respectable for years(?) and not conferred with Al in his office like that.  Since they had no common enemy and Bullock had become a federal entity who couldn't really ignore Al's crimes it would make some sense. 

or it could have been a "where was this side of you all these years?" thing.  

But maybe it was about the memory loss? Hadn't they met before that in the movie? I need to watch it again the order of events isn't clear in my mind. 

 

[dbunting]

On 6/10/2019 at 12:23 PM, Leofric said:

I actually thought, by the way they kept tying her to Jen, that she was related to her, a daughter or a little sister, and she had come to Deadwood for revenge against Al, so was kind of confused when her story didn't seem to go much further.

Had the same thoughts, like she was there to avenge someone and then nothing ever came of her. The whole movie kind of felt that way, like it was taking us somewhere but not getting there.

[Caligula_K3]

I finally got around to watching this! I wanted to re-watch the whole series first so it'd all be fresh in my mind, which took longer than I'd hoped. Especially Season 3, which could be a slog.

I loved it, all in all. Plotwise, it wasn't super elegant, but that was never Deadwood's strength, in my opinion. This was pretty clear on rewatch- even the show at its height never really sold the political machinations of Al and co. Deadwood for me was so excellent because of the dialogue, the setting, the clash of characters, and the sense of community built out of them. Despite the terrible things that happened on it, it always felt like an optimistic show, which is one of the reasons why the Season 3 finale never felt like a good series finale (well, there are many reasons for that, including how anti-climatically the whole Hearst situation is resolved there).  I felt that this movie, as a redo of the end of season 3, was much better.       

There are complaints in the thread that the dialogue wasn't as good as it had been in the series; I didn't notice much of a difference in quality, though some of it (like Jane's opening monologue) was definitely even more Shakespearian than anything but Cox's dialogue in season 3. I missed some characters, and wished others like Dan and Alma had more to do, but I recognize how difficult this was to put together, and that there's only so much you can do in an hour and forty-five minutes. Thankfully many of the unnecessary and uninteresting plotlines of the series were cut, like the theatre, or Cy Tolliver (I know this is due to the actor's death; nothing against the actor, but Cy was a character who grew flatter and flatter as the series went on). The focus on Trixie, Al, and Seth as our central trio worked well, and I got beautiful senses of closure from all three, tearing up multiple times, especially during the final scenes. All three are magnificent characters and got magnificent performances; McShane is a given, but Malcomson and Olyphant have gotten even better over the past 15 years.

I also think that the movie did a great job with the timejump. Every character fit as an evolved version of themselves; still recognizable, but changed. Martha and Seth are good examples; a poster in this thread complained that in the series, they showed no signs of intimacy or real closeness, but that's definitely not true, on rewatch. William's death in season 2 brought them closer together and turned their marriage into a real one, and we see that increasing closeness throughout season 3.  Through her and Al's influence, Seth has become the man he always wanted to be, not the repressed, raging, idiot he was in season 1 (though Charlie's death and the mob scene show that flashes of the old Seth are still in there).

Anyway, I'm pleased overall. I'm pleased Jane finally got to be a hero and to recognize herself as one. I'm pleased Al got one last great line of dialogue before he died. I'm please that Seth and Samuel got that great scene towards the end.  I'm pleased Trixie is the new owner of the Gem. I'm pleased that Hearst got some measure of justice, though I'm also pleased they didn't overdo it. I'm pleased I have some closure on these excellent characters and this world. Kudos to Milch for pulling this off in the middle of his terrible health problems.    

Main complaints: the constant flashbacks were tedious and unnecessary; the new character didn't amount to much, except as a foil for Jonny and Trixie;  MORE CONN STAPLETON AS PRIEST NEEDED; I missed the Dillahunt cameo... time to go back and rewatch.