I watched "Centennial" for the first time last week having borrowed it from a friend and was overall pleased with it. I am a fan of series or franchise type movies as they enable you to see a more complete development of the characters and stories involved. Taking several hours to view the life of a person on screen makes them become more believable and personable to the audience I believe. I only give it a 7 out of ten because of certain aspects of the film that are sometimes unavoidable due to when it was made.
It was a made for television production and feels like it, rather than the more fluid pace of a film for the theater. The make up and costumes had a distinct unrealistic bright and clean TV show look rather than the true west of that period. Having studied the west as a historical subject, I think some of the production and story came across as unrealistic, but I enjoyed the film none the less. I found the early part of the series to be much more enjoyable and closer to authentic history rather than the latter parts, and found some of the commentary in the last reel by the main characters to be preachy, inaccurate and politically correct with a bias that not always squares with actual fact. Having spent some time in Colorado in that actual area, I saw none of much of what was lamented about. The movie was good for the most part, but unfortunately, a product of its time in the late seventies with all that was happening politically and socially. I will definitely watch it again, but probably skip the last episode. Had James Mitchner left the story in the 1930s, it would have been a better story. Instead I came away with a aggravated sense of having to listen to Mr. Mitchners personal ax grinding about how much America is to blame for everything. Most maddening was the ridiculous statement in the film that the Rocky Mountains couldn't be seen from ten miles away because of all the pollution in the air. I have been there, I have family who has lived there for twenty five years, this comment was absurd and pushing an agenda.
It was a made for television production and feels like it, rather than the more fluid pace of a film for the theater. The make up and costumes had a distinct unrealistic bright and clean TV show look rather than the true west of that period. Having studied the west as a historical subject, I think some of the production and story came across as unrealistic, but I enjoyed the film none the less. I found the early part of the series to be much more enjoyable and closer to authentic history rather than the latter parts, and found some of the commentary in the last reel by the main characters to be preachy, inaccurate and politically correct with a bias that not always squares with actual fact. Having spent some time in Colorado in that actual area, I saw none of much of what was lamented about. The movie was good for the most part, but unfortunately, a product of its time in the late seventies with all that was happening politically and socially. I will definitely watch it again, but probably skip the last episode. Had James Mitchner left the story in the 1930s, it would have been a better story. Instead I came away with a aggravated sense of having to listen to Mr. Mitchners personal ax grinding about how much America is to blame for everything. Most maddening was the ridiculous statement in the film that the Rocky Mountains couldn't be seen from ten miles away because of all the pollution in the air. I have been there, I have family who has lived there for twenty five years, this comment was absurd and pushing an agenda.