Comments on: The Donner Party: DVD Review

By: Byfiles

Byfiles — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:28:15 +0000

As someone who grew up not too far from the Donner Party Memorial State Park, I’m quite familiar with the tragic story of a group of emigrants traveling through the treacherous Sierra Nevada Mountains to Sutter Fort in California only to encounter food shortages and horrendous snowy weather. Eventually, some of the travelers turn to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
While this tough to watch movie contains a fine cast (especially Crispin Glover) and striking cinematography, I do have to take issue with the screenplay. This movie is not historically accurate. Many liberties were taken with the characters and murders which I found off-putting. I understand needing to make the movie more intense and intriguing character wise, but why stray from the real story? You’re not only cheapening the movie but cheating the audience as well. You’re honestly better off watching a documentary on the Donner Party as it would be more interesting.
Summary: The script is a mess, but “The Donner Party” is still an engaging movie about survival. Just don’t expect to get the whole true story here.

By: BR in Milwaukee

BR in Milwaukee — Mon, 30 May 2011 00:36:44 +0000

I just watched this movie and liked it a lot, leading me to this site. It felt very realistic, depressingly so! I kept wondering where the Donner characters were in the Donner movie. Crispin Glover was great- actually all the performers were strong. What a disaster, reminded me of the Titanic, if the boat took four months to sink, and everybody starved. I never imagined this movie would be so good. The subject interested me, so I gave it a chance, and was quite surprised. Way better than I expected. Not sure what the other guy is talking about- how could this movie be more realistic?? I need a cheeseburger.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:33:44 +0000

Recently saw this movie, and I really wanted to like it. However, due to the setting, I just couldn’t find it realistic.

I know the area of the Donner Camp and the Sierra pretty well. In each scene where they’re complaining about the snow and weather, the trees are devoid of any snow. The snow that they walk on is hard, indicating it hadn’t snowed for weeks. Each time they make a such a statement, I’m thinking “looks like a nice day”, “the weather doesn’t look bad at all”. So the setting just doesn’t match the dialog, which is so integral to the story.

I realize it would be very difficult to shoot the outdoor scenes in snowstorms (or at least with recent snows), but in end, it just wasn’t realistic and fell flat.