MovieChat Forums > Heaven's Gate (1981) Discussion > Waste of time

Waste of time

posted 14 years ago by laughing_solo
55 replies | jump to latest

After two hours into the movie, I was sure that the story would materialize soon but I was getting impatient. After three hours, I began getting angry, but still believed that something meaningful would emerge from all of this drivel I had been subjected to. When the movie ended, I was stuuned and pissed off that I had just wasted four hours of my life because Michael Cimino didn't know what the hell he was trying to do with a very impressive cast.

Incidentally, I haven't read all of the discussion points, so this may have already been mentioned, but this is the movie that is responsible for the standard clause in an actor's contract regarding cruelty to animals. Cimino actually blew up horses. Orson Welles was so pissed, he spearheaded the movement to make sure that no low-life director would ever again have the opportunity to repeat Cimino's remarkable disregard for the welfare of animals.

[–] Edohiguma 8 years ago

The version I saw recently (after many years) was 3 hours 37 minutes long.

I want that time back.

It's a very slow movie. The whole intro at Harvard, that serves no purpose whatsoever (except maybe some form of background story) takes over 20 minutes. That's poorly edited. The fight under the tree, which takes several minutes, serves what purpose exactly? It's bad storytelling.

Then the characters. They took the names of historic characters and that's it. Complete misrepresentation of the historic figures. Overall the movie is utterly unhistoric. There is so much wrong in it, it makes John Wayne's movies look like documentaries.

Then the events. The prime example is when the war finally begins. The settlers end up riding around the gunmen in circles. There is some shooting, some people get killed (people we know nothing about, so why would we care about them?) But throughout it all, and this lasts for quite some time, one group of settlers rides clockwise, the other counter clockwise, while the gunmen in a defensive circle just take potshots at them. That scene is so stupid and really stands for what a waste of resources this movie is.

And again, the entire "war" in the movie is one big fantasy from the director that has nothing to do with what actually happened.

It's bad. It's not a masterpiece. It's long, boring with scenes that seems to be written by a 10 year old, bad editing and a level of storytelling that is worse than what George Lucas can produce.

[–] laughing_solo 8 years ago

Well said!

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] EyesWideClockwork 8 years ago

[–] Outstandingness 8 years ago

please save the "it's your opinion" diatribe. Every post on IMDb is an opinion, you're just wasting time rambling on about that. You should try to offer counterpoints that support the argument for why HG is good or at least valid.

When a director has made the film 'The Deer Hunter', I think you should give him credit that he knows what he is doing.

no, that's a bad idea. good directors sometimes fail and bad directors sometimes succeed. it should be judged on a case by case basis and not by their prior work.

Just look at all Stanley Kubrick's films

Look at Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr

these don't prove that HG was a good movie

[–] johnmiller (3617) 6 years ago

My thought: Since this movie has such absolutely horrific, hateful villains, it would have worked better as an Anthony-Mann-style Western. Doing this as an epic movie like Cimino did just doesn't fit that well. I think Cimino works much better when characters are more morally challenged, etc. Playing with arch, melodramatic characters doesn't seem to fit him as well, in my opinion.