Agreed. The book is sitting on my mantle; the DVD in my TV stand.
One travesty is the mini-series didn't even win best best mini-series in 1989.
The casting of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones as Augustus McCray and Woodrow F. McCall, respectively, was inspired genius.
Lonesome Dove was originally a 1972 screenplay that would have starred James Stewart as Augustus McCrae, John Wayne as W.F. Call, and Henry Fonda as Jake Spoon. When the movie was never made, Larry McMurtry turned the story into a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
I never thought a TV mini series would turn out to the greatest western I have ever saw, but it was. Better than Red River, better than The Searchers. None can compare. From the characters to the soundtrack it was the best. Robert Duvall has said out of all the characters he has ever played Augustus McCrae was his favorite.
“They say you’re a man of vision”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLFDZxdvRSY