Dances with Wolves (Special Edition) Reviews

Lt. John Dunbar, a Civil War hero by accident (he was trying to kill himself), gets a second chance at life when he's allowed to choose his next military assignment. He chooses to see the frontier--"before it's gone". Arriving at the fort, he finds it abandoned, disheveled, broken down. As he tries to rebuild the fort and enjoy the scenery, hoping to see buffalo, he befriends a wolf, Two Socks. Eventually the local Indians come to check him out, and Dunbar and his neighbors draw closer through a series of stop-and-start encounters. He draws close enough to become one of them--but then Army life intrudes into the near-idyllic scene.

The details of the prairie and of Sioux village life are breathtaking. The music by John Barry is atmospheric and inspiring. I would hope those viewing the film will ask themselves what it would have been like to live an Indian village, if they would have been up to its demands and open to its possibilities.

Rating: 4 - AMERICAN MASTERPIECE - FULLY RESTORED ON DVD
"Dances With Wolves" is the epic, revisionist western directed by and starring Kevin Costner. In scope and size, this is one galliant, masterfully directed motion picture and the well-deserving recipient of 9 Academy Awards. PLOT: After surviving a suicide charge on the field of honor, Major John Dunbar travels to the west, establishing a life-long friendship with the Sioux Indians.
Originally running nearly three hours in theaters, a full hour of footage was excised to keep the already elephantine running time manageable. For years, on VHS and DVD, only the theatrical cut of this film has been made available, though Image laserdisc did release the full 3 hr. 58 min. version in a deluxe box set back in the mid-1990's. That fully restored running time is finally given the full digital treatment via this DVD release. Too lengthy to fit on one side of a DVD, MGM has spread the feature film over two sides on the first disc. Since no intermission was ever intended, the cut comes about midway through and is obtrusive to your viewing experience. However, as there is no other way to ensure the intregity of compression artifacts, this cut is, if not forgiveable, at least palpable.
MGM DVD has done a very nice job on remastering "Dances With Wolves". The original DVD from Image Entertainment had deeper contrast and black levels, but adjusting the contrast on one's television corrects the softer levels on this disc. Shadow delineation is beautifully rendered. Colors are vibrant, bold and accurate. Some minor edge enhancement occurs but shimmering and pixelization are at a bare minimum. The audio is 5.1 and pretty much the same mix as the original Image DVD.
EXTRAS: Audio commentaries that are, for the most part, interesting, an all-new production featurette, the original featurette and a host of other well-meaning, though rather lack luster extras that have merely been designed to fill up space on disc #2. I must also give MGM less than top marks for their packaging. After the handsomely bound "West Side Story" special edition I was perhaps expecting too much to think that, even though a leather bound case would be out of the question for "Dances With Wolves", at the very least we'd get something stronger in faux leather (like the "Pearl Harbor" disc packaging) than the flimsy, barely cardboard, shell we do get with its Velcro snapper. Taaa-cky!
BOTTOM LINE: This is the definitive version of "Dances With Wolves". It is the way Costner and his production team intended you to experience the movie and it is most definitely worth every penny to buy. Enjoy!

Rating: 5 - An All American Classic!
This movie has everything (wait a minute, of course it does. it won 7 acadamy awards...)you could ever want in a film. Comedy, history, romance, tragedy, EVERYTHING!!! The story is all about John Dunbar, who enlists in the Union in the Civil War, and is stationed out in the middle of nowhere in one of the plain states (I'm not sure which one). He mets a gentle wolf, and he mets an even gentler Sioux tribe who soon befriend him. He falls in love with an English woman who belongs to the tribe because when she was little, A Pawnee tribe killed the rest of her family. The Sioux somewhat addopted her, & she learned to speak the language. They soon fall in love and get married. But all kinds of tragedies befall the tribe - The ongoing war against the Pawnee, The Union army capturing John (Dances with Wolves is his Sioux name), More pioneers taking the Indian's land, not enough buffalo to eat, etc. This movie is SO excellent! If you haven't seen Dances With Wolves, you are missing out on a great American Classic

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Dances with Wolves (Special Edition)