Does the movie drag? Only in the sense that the filmakers took their time to allow the story to unfold. For some in the crowd who are use to getting the story in a 23 hour sit-com, it might have dragged. To me it did not...
Next summer, there is going to be a six hour's director cut... I'm going to buy it and watch it as many times as I have seen Gods and Generals and Gettysburg. My only regret is that the Last Full Measure will not be made due to the poor box office receipts.
I think the movie addresses the "slavery" question... from the South's side, from the North's side, and from the slave's side.
What most critics wanted was for a Jackson or Lee to rip his cloak and offer a mea culpea for the fact they owned slaves. This, they did not do... I can live with that. Mostly because the issue has been resolved. The slaves are free and have been free for 150 years.
I'm glad you liked it, but the structure was very lame.
Look at "Gone with the Wind". It has a typical American movie structure. Thirty minutes of intro, and a change (the inciting incident in some books, entering "the special world" according to Joseph Campbell in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces").
What is this special world in GWTW? It's when Scarlett leaves Tara for Atlanta. What was it in "Apollo 13"? When they blast off for the Moon. Both these events occur about 30 minutes into the movie. G&G ignores this pacing. Typical American film structure has the second main plot point about 30 minutes from the -end- of the film. In GWTW, this was the death of Bonnie. In "Apollo 13" it's when they prepare for splashdown. They are -definitely- leaving the special world. You can apply this paradigm to movie after movie after movie. In the very first "Star Wars" Luke leaves his home, flying out on the millinium Falcon, in the 1978 "Superman" it's when Clark leaves home for Metropolis. G&G blew all that off. It's a poor movie by any objective standard, if the standard is to tell a good story.
Walt
So Ron Maxwell bought the rights to TLFM? Does that preclude the movie being made by another director? Curious because I just saw the video release of G&G and enjoyed it immensely, despite the near-universal panning of the film by the kultural politburo.