Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Did you people see the same film I saw?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Comanche Moon may have been one of the most anticipated films ever for me, as well as the most anticipated stories. When you think about it, this novel and movie should have been amazing. Call, Augustus, Deets, Jake, and Pea Eye all in their prime, the West still even more wild than Lonesome Dove, young Blue Duck, not to mention the great warriors Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf whose characters were built up greatly in Dead Man's Walk. With a setting like this how could it miss? If this had been done right it could have easily outshone even the original Lonesome Dove, the setup was just that good.But it was mostly a disappointment. It was way to rushed, did not truly recapture the characters we came to love so much in Lonesome Dove, was inconsistent in many ways from the history outlined in Lonesome Dove, and strayed away from the original characters to much. It was almost like an unfeeling and unemotional documentary of the lives of Gus and Call prior to Lonesome Dove, and an inconsistent one at that. I'm not going to go into to much detail about how it failed to truly establish and develop the characters to being what we knew and loved in Lonesome Dove, but it will be obvious as you watch it. Overall, Zahn and Urban probably did the best jobs of playing Call and McCrae since Duvall and Jones, but the problem was far more with the source material. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible, but it fell well short of what it could been. You almost get the sense McMurtry was trying to just get this over with, and as a result did a great story a terrible injustice.

It's also the best book I've ever read. Karl Urban and Steve Zahn are great together. It had drama, adventure and sweetness and sadness. I laughed. I cried. It's hard not to laugh when Gus is talking. I wish Gus would have smacked Clara like he did Inez. Clara just lead Gus on all those years with no intentions of ever marrying him. She just liked playing with him. It was sad that he spent his whole life pining for her. It would have been nice if Woodrow had married Maggie but she would have just died on him anyway. Woodrow was a man that could not express his feelings and kept them bottled up. It was obvious that he loved Maggie after the raid on Austin when the rangers got back and he ran to hold her. Val Kilmer is excellent at playing odd characters. I loved his portrayal of Captian Inish Skull. I loved the whole Lonesome Dove saga. Comanche Moon is the best of the bunch.

"Comanche Moon" had everything going for it. For starters, Simon Wincer's back, a man who's name is synonymous with high-quality TV westerns. Unfortunately, the problems with "Moon" are something even the most talented director couldn't solve: A poor script based on a lackluster novel.Forget historical accuracies -- as any reader of the novels can tell you, the biggest travesty in "Moon" is that it's not even consistent with information from the original "Lonesome Dove" masterpiece. So many wonderful, rich moments in the miniseries and, to an even greater degree, the book, are completely missing in "Moon." Considering the fact that most viewers of "Moon" are probably coming with at least some sort of "Dove" background, the lack of character-driven and emotional backstory is downright painful. That said, "Moon" is one instance where the adapted version could and should have been altered to make it more suitable for the screen. For example, the novel "Moon" focuses largely on the Comanches themselves. To its credit, the miniseries tries to service the Comanches, but in the end it gives them just enough that the viewer just gets a sense they're missing out on some important part of the story. Similarly, Val Kilmer's Scull loses out here too -- the role should have either been expanded so Kilmer (and Rachel Griffiths, for that matter) actually had something to do, or the roles should have just been reduced to smaller, supporting parts. Instead, Kilmer gets top billing for a character that just leaves you scratching your head after his appearance in the completely bizarre final act. There's strange moments throughout the film that just make no sense to those who haven't read the book (a killer parrot? what?) -- further, there isn't a single scene that shows us that Call and McCrae are anything near the amazing Texas rangers they claim to be. Not a single one of their expeditions in Moon (or "Dead Man's Walk," for that matter) ends successfully, and Call and McCrae just seem to blunder their way through one pointless mission after another.Frankly, Larry McMurtry should never have been given the job of writing the script, and only did so because of the praise surrounding that other cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain. McMurtry can write good novels (although there's some dissension over the consistency of that statement), but he's never exactly established himself as a scriptwriter. This production would have benefited from not only bringing back director Wincer, but original screenwriter Bill Wittcliff to adapt the novel to screen. Witcliff doesn't exactly have a mountainload of material to his screen writing credit, but no one can deny he did a fantastic job at whittling down the original "Lonesome Dove." With all this said, "Comanche Moon" is almost a brilliant production, aided by a terrific cast that unfortunately just aren't given enough to do. Steve Zahn's portrayal of Gus McCrae -- or rather, his portrayal of Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae -- is dead-on. And while some have criticized Karl Urban as Woodrow Call, saying his performance doesn't imitate the quiet, stoic Woodrow of the original movie, all I can say is: blame McMurtry, because McMurtry is the one who -- both in the "Moon" novel and now the miniseries -- turned Woodrow from socially inept, awkward, but natural leader, into some emotionless character whose lines are just dull and whose character motivations are only clear if you've seen them portrayed far more adequately in the "sequel".Still, it's the cast that sparkles in "Moon," to the degree that I left the miniseries with that same feeling of melancholy I felt watching the original "Lonesome Dove" -- this time because I realized it's probably the last time we'll see these characters appear on screen for a long, long time to come -- and quite honestly, this cast could have done so well in a well-nurtured, full-blown network TV series.All in all, aside from wasted opportunities with the cast, the biggest travesty is that the original Lonesome Dove novel contained so much rich backstory for the characters that would have been fascinating, utterly fascinating, to see translated on screen. Unfortunately, all that has been tossed aside in favor of McMurtry's tedious, inconsistent and ultimately irrelevant, prequel.

Parrots? PARROTS? I have been around this old earth longer than most and have seen nearly all the westerns that have have produced. Old West history is my passion. Comanche Moon is one of the most poorly produced, directed and acted stories I have ever seen. There was very little historical accuracy but then, it is obvious you were operating on a shoestring budget whichplayed a distinct roll in this insult to intelligence. I am happy that I TIVO'd this show. It was bad enough having to sit and watch the movie plus put up with the inane commercials. Once again, there was not one actor that came anywhere near convincing. I kept hoping it would improve as the three days progressed. WRONG! I'm ashamed to say I wasted 4 1/2 hours of what precious little time I have left.