Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review "1883"

Seems like I've seen this reviewed here before. It's been around since 2021. TV series on Paramount. Western "prequel" to Yellowstone. We've just finished the first two episodes and like it a lot, shows how hard life was back then with plenty of action. Has some historically accurate characters like Jim Courtright, sheriff of Fort Worth played by Billy Bob Thornton, "Don't mess around with Jim", he will kill you.

There were no Winchester High Walls in 1883 !

We watched, thought it was very good.

My wife and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Of anything new, 1883 is one of the best westerns, brutally honest and well portrayed.

I have heard talk of a second season of 1883 in the works. Will be a hard act to follow in any case.

Two thumbs way up for 1883!

Poorly written and totally inaccurate. If you just want to see a movie, set in the late 1800’s with no particular theme, this could be palatable.

As much as I like Sam Elliott, he is past his prime and an 80 year old trail boss is ridiculous. When they finally get to the Brazos river, which is actually a very large river, they decide to throw stuff out of their wagons to cross the river. How a trail boss didn’t know until they reached their first major river crossing, as to what needless gear they had in their wagons, is so stupid it defies all logic.

They can’t seem to get the wagon train out of Texas for most of the time of the movie, if it was real life, they would never make it to the coast. A cute blonde wrangler only keeps the unintelligent viewer watching, because that never would have happened. She falls in love with an Indian and screws every cowboy that glances at her.

There is so much wrong with this series, it is hard to find anything right. Liking it isn’t impossible if you have no clue to what life really was in 1883.

The fact that it is "brutally honest" (read: gratuitously violent and cruel), which are the main components of all "modern" westerns, probably overrides all of that.

I don't watch TV.


Consequently take the following with a grain of salt.

It was the occasion of the 24hr Campfire Hog Hunt @ Thompson Ranch in Crystal City, Tx last year. They have a big screen TV in the lodge where we take meals. Perhaps, because I'm pretty much jaundiced with what passes for entertainment these days, I only watched for a few minutes. This is my recollection.

The scene looked like folks were crossing an expanse of land in wagons. The country did not look like the Texas I know. Looked more like the plains. Anywho, everybody else had on period type clothes such as coats, long sleeved shirts, and head gear.

This particular scene had some blonde chick with very fair skin riding on a horse. She was wearing a split-leather or rough-out leather vest that had no sleeves, no shirt underneath and it had no buttons, rather leather lacing to keep from showing too much cleavage. Looked more like a designer created vest.

I don't know about ya'll but I've worked outside in Texas since I was 10. You don't spend all day in 100 degree heat and direct sun, bare skinned when you are fair and not get burnt to a crisp.

That's all it took for me to decide not to watch 1883.

ya!

GWB

That cute little blonde screwed her way across the country until she finally settled in as a squaw for the noble Indian Chief boy. The whole thing sucked to high heaven. The only character I liked and thought might be remotely authentic was Sheriff Billy Bob Thornton.

Kinda looks like they left Ft. Worth headed for Doans Crossing where the Red River would have to be forded. Then into Oklahoma Territory to follow the Salt Fork into Texas again and head North. In reality, the writer didn't put a lot of thought into this except to make the Indians appear noble as all get out. The gun rigs would have been more accurate at a SASS match and a Sharps or Remington would have been more in taste than an 1885 Winchester.

True, Winchester bought the patent in 1883 and released their somewhat improved versions in Sept 1885.

But,

"[John M.] Browning designed and built from scratch a self-cocking, single-shot, falling-block rifle. A year after that first prototype was made, he received a patent 220, 271[Oct 1879] for his rifle and began producing it with his brother, Matt. Between 1880 and 1883 the Browning brothers manufactured some 600 of these rifles." ~ American Rifleman dot org.

It's not far fetched whatsoever for the James Dutton character to own one of those original 600 rifles, though I highly doubt the filming was done with one.