#and through the whole vicksburg sequence i'm just like 'where's fred???' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fictionadventurer · 10 months

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History Channel guys: So glad to have you onboard for our docudrama. Here's the script telling you everything you need to know to play Ulysses S. Grant.

Actor: This just says, "Stare off into the distance and take a long drag on a cigar."

History Channel guys: Yeah, we're pretty sure he ended 75% of his conversations that way, so this show is going to reflect that.

Actor: Okay, then. Throat cancer, here I come!

#history is awesome #presidential talk #there is more to the role but it's funny how many scenes end like that #they even mention that he was a pipe smoker before shiloh #it doesn't stop them from showing him with cigars through his whole life #i also find myself analyzing this the way i would a book adaptation #i couldn't watch it with anyone cuz i'd want to fill in all the cool stories they skip over #like his trip across panama or the washington potato fiasco #there's not nearly enough julia #and through the whole vicksburg sequence i'm just like 'where's fred???'#the man brought his twelve-year-old son to one of the most brutal theaters of the civil war!#i think this is worth portraying!#i was impressed that they dramatized the mexican war incident where grant brought ammunition through the active war zone #by clinging to the side of his galloping horse #but i was bummed they didn't show him setting the west point equestrian high jump record #that story is so cinematic in my head #it would be ideal for tv #show a couple other students doing their high jumps #suddenly the instructor raises the bar an entire foot and calls out 'cadet grant'#pause for murmurs of astonishment through the crowd #and then steely eyed and perfectly composed this kid takes the horse toward the jump and clears it #wild cheers and a small moment of satisfaction after earlier moments of instructors lamenting his poor schoolwork #it would be so cool!#as long as i'm talking about west point i should mention my shock that the show got his name wrong #they portray the 'u.s. grant was a clerical error' story #but grant objects 'my name is ulysses h grant'#even though his name was hiram ulysses grant #his initial were 'hug'!#it was a whole thing!#kids teased him for it which would have fit in perfectly with the rest of their 'people didn't appreciate him' thread

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