Ruined finale

I felt that was a powerful finale. If his character just died it would mean Omaru have a true win and the movie would have been pointless.

John Carter IN THEATRES NOW!
The Dark Knight Rises Summer 2012!

Katsumoto is hit dozens of times, and keep moving.

Funny about your last point i.e. '...honour is noble but it rarely defeats money, etc.".
Cruise's character attempts to impress that same point upon Katsumoto during a deleted scene, stating that the Confederacy was all about 'honour' yet it couldn't save them from the brute force of the weapondry made by Northern industry.

Regardless, I believe Cruise's character gets hits once or twice by a Gattling round, rather that shot in half, lol, by the firepower. Not that your point isn't valid, but folks have survived similar grievous wounds in battle, at least for a time.
In one Napoleonic battle, a Russian soldier survived after a musket round crashed into his skull at a shallow angle. It didn't penetrate his skull. Rather, it freakishly forced a piece of skull to plunge into his brain a bit before standing it up at 90º! It was said the white skull fragment was sticking out of his head in such a way as to look like a tombstone. They couldn't pull it out so the fragment was left that way, brain exposed & all. Though he eventually died a few days later, for a time he actually seemed to improve in spite of his 'situation'.

As the narrator says at the film's end "Some said he died of his wounds."
Perhaps he did, after seeming to survive without ill effect.

Nonsense. The ending had to be the way it was. Someone had to survive to take Katsumoto's sword back to the Emperor and convince him to stand up to Omura. Otherwise the deaths of Katsumoto and all the other Samurai would have been pointless.

As for cruise's wounds. His horse is hit, a lot of people around him are hit, he's hit maybe once or twice, but it's actually hard to believe that everyone else died. A gattling gun isn't all that high speed of a weapon. There were 2 of them firing through 1 clip for less than a minute. That's less than 400 rounds and most of those went into the dirt and the horses. Even under conditions of *withering* firepower there are always survivors. That kind of gun isn't all that accurate or easy to aim, it's advantage lies in the volume of rounds it throws out, not the accuracy of any one single round. Think of it as a really big serial shotgun.

If he'd died, they'd also need a new title for the movie.

it was an old gatling gun how powerful could it be :p

The Tom Cruise character chose to be a Samurai. He should have either died in the battle, or committed suicide afterward, then he would have gone out as a true Samurai. It's interesting that after the battle's over, he could just put on his old Army uniform again, like nothing happened. This was a great movie, but the ending messed it up.

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