If Costner is able to complete this, it will be a masterpiece.

If he can actually make all 4 of the movies, Horizon will encompass almost every aspect of the Western genre. It will be a masterpiece Western.

However, he should have done this as a TV series. People seem to have dismissed the first installment because of the many plot threads that of course are not resolved in the three hour runtime. I worry that his cinematic release strategy will harm the series' potential and lead to it being left incomplete.

While I understood what Costner is trying to do, all through Chapter 1, I kept thinking that it felt like a 3 hour film edited down from a 10 hour TV series. And as a standalone feature film, I think there is a lot of nonessential material that could have been dispensed with. My favorite scene, in fact, where the lone Plains Indian is chased and killed by the Apache, seemed to have nothing at all to add to the plot. It sure looked cool, though.

In the future, if I am able to binge-watch the entire series, I think the effect of it as a whole will be excellent.