I've seen both------------several yrs. ago, but honestly cannot recall which was considered the best. If any of you know, please comment, and thanks!!
Just. . . . . IMAGINE
I have not seen "The Blue and the Grey" but someone I know who is an avid Civil War fan and buff said "North and South" is far superior.
shareNorth and South was more enjoyable to watch - it was high melodrama, with historical overtones.
Blue and the Gray was MUCH more historically accurate, but much grimmer. There are no clear-cut heroes or villians, everybody's miserable, and horrible things happen with no happy ending, just like in real life.
I'd recommend N&S for popcorn-munching fun, B&G for serious appreciation of what our ancestors went through in the cause of freedom.
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Personally, I absolutely LOVE North and South...but hated The Blue and the Gray. I love N&S because of the story...and the costumes! I can watch it over and over. I got B&G to watch because I'm so interested in the Civil War and really anything I find that has to to with the Civil War I'll watch. But I didn't like B&G at all! I just didn't get into the story and characters like I do with N&S. Also I love how N&S shows both sides...the good and the bad on both sides. Ya know?
As far as historical accuracy...well, neither is completely accurate. I don't recall too much about B&G other than I just plain didn't like it but I do remember that I HATED the costumes especially the womens! I LOVE the costumes in N&S, though. I didn't think the costumes, both male and female, were at all historically accurate in B&G. In N&S, the costumes are much more elaborate and gorgeous but aren't completely historically accurate either. Some characters wear more accurate clothing than others, though. But in my opinion, the N&S costumes are more historically accurate than B&G.
I guess I'm biased because I LOVE N&S and did long before I even saw B&G but I just remember that I didn't like anything about B&G!
LOL, I completely agree about the eye make-up, and I also have to mention the 80s hair--especially the men. Yikes, Swayze's and Bent's hair especially!
I don't think the costumes in TBatG are bad at all. There is a huge difference in the costumes in The Blue and the Gray, and North and South, because they depict different kinds of people. You don't see as many hoop skirts in TBatG because the Geyser family aren't plantation owners; they're down-to-earth farmers without the means to splash out on that kind of wardrobe. They don't dress for dinner, and they all work on the family farm. The Hale family has slightly more means than the Geysers, but they still aren't up to the same class as the Mains and Hazzards, who are plantation owners and captains of industry. The characters depicted in NaS have a very different lifestyle than the humbler folk depicted in TBatG, and their costumes reflect that.
John Geyser's girlfriend, Kathy, and her father, are perhaps the only characters in TBatG who come close to equaling the financial and social assets of the Hazzards and the Mains in NaS.
As for which program is better, let me put it like this...
In TBatG, you won't find:
- a LeGree-esque plantation owner holding his wife hostage, keeping her in a drug-induced stupor.
- a character who sets-out to have sex with half the graduating cadets at West Point while attending her cousin's graduation ceremonies.
- characters who plotting to kill their own sisters and brothers-in-law
- cardboard cut-out villains with delusions of grandeur who think they're the next Napoleon and Josephine.
Most of the characters in NaS are cartoonish, caricatures, and stereotypes. The entire series is cheese-ball melodrama. TBatG is much more realistic, and despite what someone posted above, it does indeed have a happy ending (which is much more than can be said for most of the characters in NaS). If TBatG is depressing, then it is accurate. (What's uplifting about civil war?) I'll counter that NaS is equally depressing, and extremely tedious. Most of the villains out-live their sell-by dates. Sorry to say, but I only kept watching for the costumes.
North and South is the equivalent of a soap opera; The Blue and the Gray is drama on par with PBS caliber programming.
Well, one thing N & S has over TB&TG is its emphasis on Slavery and African-Americans. TB&TG has Paul Winfield and that scene of John meeting the runaway slaves who read the Emancipation Proclamation. And that's it! TV Guide admitted in its JEERS that for a Civil war drama, the unfortunate thing is that most of its cast was white.
In N & S, Slavery is a BIG issue. Some of its most can't-be-ignored moments are the scene where Ashton and Brett skip along a line of slaves and Priam getting whipped. Madeline is revealed to be mulatto (and unlike Liz Taylor in RAINTREE COUNTY, this ancestry doesn't drive her mad), Virgillia is an extreme abolitionist who marries a slave. And the African-American characters ain't cameos like TB&TG's Winfield. Here we have Erica Gimpel (love her confrontation with Ashton), Forest Whitaker, George Stanford Brown, Natalie Cole, etc.
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Good post that really sums up the differences and explains why TBaTG is an overall better movie/story, despite that it didn't have the big budget and flashiness of N&S.
I just saw The Blue and The Grey recently and what I noticed is that it seems to focus more on the every day folk and the soldiers on the battlefield and what they went through than N&S does. It's a lot less about petty schemes and drama in people's love life than N&S is. To me it is more about the war overall than N&S, which is more imo like a soap opera set to that era, with the war as a backdrop.
And I also think the characters in The Blue and The Grey are easier to relate to and act more like real people act. N&S characters tend to be either really nice, or really over-the-top bad.
There's good and bad to be said about both of these miniseries. I liked the compression of TB&TG; events happened and the story moved on. On the other hand you don't get to know the characters as well nor develop feelings towards them in B&G like you do in N&S. I loved Carradine in Kung Fu but my God how I hated him in N&S. B&G doesn't really focus on issues like N&S, it focuses more on the events, as I said, then moves on.
Personally I prefer B&G over N&S, but both are enjoyable and my preference is simply a matter of choice.
"North & South" had a much bigger budget, so was obviously more lavish as far as costumes and sets went. The Mains and Hazards were wealthy. The Mains owned many slaves to work their plantation and the Hazards had a full staff at their mansion.
The Geysers and the Hales in "The Blue and the Gray" were not wealthy. The Geyers worked hard on their farm and could only afford a couple of slaves. The Hales were comfortably well-off but not rich. I found this movie to be the more believable of the two. But I have to admit that I love "North and South" more.
the only thing that i can remember about TB&G was the couple who met when the blonde, played by Julia Duffy, saying she love/likes to wash her hair in the rain & the man names Jonha,played by Stacey Keach. & Gregory Peck played Abe Lincolin. It was a ok movie to watch on a rainy or snowy day, but I have seen N&S a few more time than TB&G.
"Frankly, My Dear...I Don't Give A Damn".-Rhett Butler
I own both and have watched both recently. I like them both, but for different reasons. I prefer North and South because of the storylines but both are great in their own ways. As been mentioned, The Blue and the Gray is a darker look at the era and N&S is more in the way of a soap opera.
I think both stand up to time fairly well.