YMMV / Gettysburg

• Award Snub: Both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel thought Jeff Daniels should've received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
• Awesome Music:
  • The entire score, but the piece that plays during and in the aftermath of Pickett's charge is especially poignant. I dare you to not tear up.
  • When the Union "CHAAAAAARGE!!!" is sounded on Little Round Top. With that kind of music, how could they not win?
  • The track for the climax of Pickett's Charge, which did not appear on the original soundtrack. A later version has it as "Armistead Is Hit".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Fremantle's presence can sometimes seem like this in the movie. He seems horribly out of place, makes odd comments, is rarely spoken of when not there, and his sole function of being present for other characters to provide exposition could easily be filled by someone else. In the book, his function as an outside observer and Point of View character makes far more sense.
  • Buford (and the cavalry's) interaction with the local population features some acting that's right out of a school play rather than a big budget epic movie.
• Franchise Original Sin: Gods and Generals gets a lot of criticism for going the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" route and painting the Confederate cause as more noble than it actually was, claiming that it was fought over more than just slavery and implying that blacks didn't really have it that bad in the Antebellum South. This actually has its roots here, with multiple Confederates claiming that they don't really care about slavery and are fighting for other reasons. However, while this creative choice wasn't without its critics, it also wasn't as heavily criticized as it would be in the prequel. The difference is that this movie's focus is first and foremost on the military side of things and takes place entirely in Pennsylvania, meaning we never actually see Southern society or the political side of the war; Gods and Generals doesn't have that excuse. It also helps that this movie's only black character is a runaway slave, which is an implicit condemnation of the institution of slavery. On the other hand, the prequel's most prominent black characters are either free supporters of the Confederacy or slaves who, while not necessarily against the prospect of being freed, are loyal to their masters and deeply care for them. Also, while Gettysburg still downplays slavery, there is an important emotional high point of the film where Colonel Chamberlain unambiguously cites slavery as the main cause of the war in a speech to his men about how they're fighting "to set other men free", adding that "America should be free ground - all of it - not divided by a line between slave state and free."
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The scene where Armistead is mortally wounded is also actor Richard Jordan's final on-screen performance, since he passed away from brain cancer not long after filming was completed, so the movie is dedicated in part to him. Also counts both ways as a Tear Jerker. Even more tragic was that the production team received news of Jordan's death while editing his death scene.
  • James Kemper is last seen on a stretcher, struggling to salute Lee through the agony of his gunshot wound. His actor, Royce D. Applegate, died in 2003 under violent circumstances (a house fire).
• Memetic Mutation: Sam Elliott's guttural delivery of the phrase "the high ground!" is popular when quoting the movie. When looking through comment sections on Day 1 clips, there will probably be several people repeating the line in some fashion.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Longstreet steps out of the battlefield hospital (really a barn) after speaking to Hood. The yard is just as full of invalids groaning and writhing and, in contrast to the PG-rated level of injury, one of the men in the foreground has the bloody stump of his severed leg fully visible.
  • Imagine yourself as one of the Virginians making the attack at Pickets Charge. You have a huge open field to cover, and the whole time you have shot and shell landing all around you from guns you were told were gone. As you get up to the fence that flanked the road, you're staring down the barrels of the cannons as they switch from shot/shell to canister^note  Essentially making them giant shotguns, and are blowing away scores of soldiers to your left and right. You continue the advance, and as you get closer to the stone wall, the Union Soldiers you thought were scared off by the artillery barrage suddenly stand up and start pouring fire into your ranks. You somehow manage to live through all of that, and as the other survivors start smashing into the Union lines, it looks as though you may rip a victory out of the jaws of defeat. Only for the remnants of battered Union units and fresh reserves to rush up and plug the holes that your forces just created. With all of that, most of those that survived that part of the battle, just simply surrendered, and for those that didn't surrender retired to the now badly mauled Confederate lines. However, few were left, since there was no more division.
    General Pickett: General Lee.... I have no division!
• Questionable Casting: Mostly avoided, but Martin Sheen was, to many viewers, an odd choice at best for Robert E. Lee and dreadfully miscast at worst. More so in hindsight after the prequel, Gods and Generals, where Lee is played by fellow Virginian Robert Duvall (and a distant relative), who looked more like him and affected a much more accurate Virginia accent. Duvall had in fact been the original choice for Lee, but scheduling conflicts caused him to drop out. It should be noted however that the Civil War re-enactors playing the extras were deeply impressed with Sheen's performance and cheered him unprompted when he appeared as Lee at one point.
• Special Effect Failure: A few of the fake beards look a bit hokey at times. It's hard to say if J.E.B. Stuart falls under this, though, because the beard in the actual photograph of Stuart also looked like a costume piece.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some (such as Nick Hodges of History Buffs and Andrew Rakich of Atun Shei Films) have criticized the film for how it handles the runaway slave. They argue that he could have been used to provide a different perspective on the conflict, instead of just being used to further demonstrate and emphasize Chamberlain's strong anti-slavery stance. The man doesn't even get any dialogue.
• Values Dissonance: In the 2010s, with a rising backlash against the continued nostalgia and admiration for the Confederacy, the film's attempted even-handedness comes across as whitewashing. The story moves away from previous depictions in popular culture by having noble Union characters state plainly that they have abolitionist motives, but it also plays up the bravery of the Confederates and takes the stance that it was the Southern politicians who cared about slavery while the good old honest soldiers just wanted to protect their homes.^note In truth, most white Southerners—poor or rich—were quite keen on maintaining their racial superiority. Rich whites wanted the economic benefits of a permanent slave class, while poor whites dissatisfied with their lot in life could tell themselves that there was still someone "beneath" them; many white southerners also believed that slavery was necessary to keep southern society functioning and feared that freed slaves would seek revenge. To help along this illusion, the story skips over the fact that the Confederates did bring slaves on campaign and that the Army of Northern Virginia abducted countless blacks they found on their march and sent them south in chains. It should be noted that this opinion was also espoused by Gene Siskel in his original review upon the film's release.
• The Woobie: Private Bucklin. For lack of better terminology, the man has seen some shit. When he is having his dialogue with Chamberlain, you just can't help but want to hug the guy and tell him the everything will be alright.

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