MovieChat Forums > Heaven's Gate (1981) Discussion > poor script...

poor script...

posted 12 years ago by garysan
5 replies | jump to latest

The problem is the poor script...
The sheriff wants to save the people of the town and what does he do? Simply: he waits more than a day before warning them. He spends all the Sunday with his fiancee along the river and so on...
When he decides to make his duty he causes only a real mess! And what is the pourpuse in reading all the names in the list? To create the panic? Well done.
The people of the town are also very stupid. They run away all in the same direction (the wrong one) keeping turning around the soldier's group like preys.
Nat Champion does stupid things.
Billy the same.
And finally even Canton and some friends of him do a stupid thing being killed for stupid reasons when all was finished already.
Bah...

[–] col_rutherford 12 years ago

The people of the town are also very stupid. They run away all in the same direction (the wrong one) keeping turning around the soldier's group like preys.

The townspeople weren't trying to run away from the Stock Growers Association at the end. The townspeople rode out to fight them.

I agree that the film is hurt by some baffling moments, though. The Association members allow Champion to leave their camp after he shoots one of the mercenaries who raped Ella, but they later go to Champion's cabin and kill him. The Widow Kovach shoots the Mayor in the ear from across a crowded room. An immigrant woman shoots her husband after his legs are crushed by a wagon then kills herself.

It's too bad, because if the writing and editing had been tighter Heaven's Gate might have been a masterpiece.

[–] bstephens21 12 years ago

I see nothing baffling in those scenes:

The Association members allow Champion to leave their camp after he shoots one of the mercenaries who raped Ella, but they later go to Champion's cabin and kill him.

No one knows what the hell is going on in that first scene. All any of the mercenaries know is that Champion is a man with a fearsome reputation and is suppose to be on their side. If one of them had the guts to let off a shot, then maybe it would have started a chain reaction and Walken would have been swiss cheese earlier, but no one did.

Likewise, even when they finally lay siege to Champion's home, Major Walcott protests ("We're wastin' time here. These two don't matter any more."). It is Canton and Canton alone who makes the decision to kill him, and he damn sure isn't doing it until he's organized and knows he has the upper hand (Just as he can't let the survivors go at the end).

The Widow Kovach shoots the Mayor in the ear from across a crowded room.

Who says she was aiming at his ear?

An immigrant woman shoots her husband after his legs are crushed by a wagon then kills herself.

They shoot horses, don't they?

[–] garysan 12 years ago

Yeah, run away o ride out to fight them... the problem is definitely the poor script.
Cimino wanted to double the success of The deer hunter that was a quite long movie, with slow/long/not very dialogued scenes. But Hunter had a simple but (almost) realistic script. Not the same for Heaven.

[–] muito-merda 12 years ago

Is bstephens21 Michael Cimino?

[–] bstephens21 12 years ago

What I'd give for such a slender figure!