War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. host, James Early. Hello and welcome to the final episode in our series on the Texas Revolution.

Last week we talked about the 1960 classic film The Alamo, directed by and starring John Wayne. And this week,

as promised, we are going to discuss probably the second most famous Alamo movie, or at least

the second most watched among people today, probably. And that is the 2004 Alamo. So we will jump jump right into it just a few basic notes about the

production and the ratings and things the length is two hours and 17 minutes the rotten

tomatoes ratings are not good these are among the lowest of any of the films that sean

and i've ever reviewed. The critics gave it

an average positive rating, well, I should say the percentage of critics that gave it a positive

rating is only 29%. And it didn't do too much better among the fans. Only 45% of the fans gave

it a positive rating. The average rating at IMDB is a very low 6.0.

The director is John Lee Hancock, and the cast is actually quite impressive.

It stars Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patrick, Patrick Wilson, and Emilio

Echevaria, as well as some other people.

It's based on an original screenplay and the awards, sad to say, none that I'm aware of that was not nominated for any. I have to say

before I handed over to Sean for some introductory comments, Sean is with me, of course, as always.

This film was a box office flop. Its opening was

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