In a word: awesome. Finally I have seen the whole trilogy and I'd have to say that the third is the best of them all. Probably could have a decent crack at my Top 10 of all time list. That's got to be the best music score in the history of film, doesnt it?

i have the special edition DVD, the regular DVD, and a VHS copy of it.

but it's not really a trilogy, it was just three movies that happen to have the same actor. the movies were never meant to go together, it's just that people always put them together after all three came out.

it's a progresion really. Once Upon a Time in the West is his best movie i think, and it came from what he learnt making the first three westerns.

Once Upon a Time in the West was good, but I thought TGTBTU was better. Leone sure likes to drag scenes out though, doesn't he?

I prefer 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' to OUATITW... as RFranco said, they aren't really a trilogy (obviously 'For a Fistful of Dollars' and 'For a Few Dollars More' are linked).

Morricone's main theme for 'The Big Gundown' is amazing, FWIW.

I'm not really knowledgeable about westerns; in fact, I haven't seen any of the films listed here, and I didn't even realize they were all Leone films.

quote:

...obviously 'For a Fistful of Dollars' and 'For a Few Dollars More' are linked...

Aren't these reworkings of Yojimbo and Sanjuro? I know The Magnificent Seven is based looslely on Seven Samurai. So are The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West are any other Leone films based on Kurosawa's work?

Fistful of Dollars is almost shot for shot the same as Yojimbo, but I don't know if For a Few Dollars More was really based off of Sanjuro. GBU isnt based of any of Kurosawa's work (from what I know) and neither is OUTW. GBU is one of my 3 favorite films of all time, if not THE favorite. I think it edges out OUTW by a bit simply for the 3 characters (sorry but I think Angel Eyes was way more badass than Frank, and Tuco steals the show) and the ending to GBU was perhaps the most suspensful and grandious duel i have ever seen on film. Perfection.

God I love Leone.

while it's not a western i think that once upon a time in a america was leone's best...but the good the bad and the ugly was the best of his western's imho.

Just finished watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Amazing. I was floored by the first shot. I really must see Leone's other films now, and I'm ashamed that I've waited this long. Thanks to Company for opening this thread.

Who the hell is Angel Eyes? Has he been in any other films of worth? He's really a chilling villain.

Yeah,go me!
Proof that the Academy Awards is stupid: The Good, the bad and the ugly recieved no Oscar nominations. No best director, best cinematography, not even best score! NOTHING! (Unless of course I'm wrong)

Interesting to read that Unforgiven can almost be seen as a sequel to Good, Bad, & Ugly. I didn't think of it, but it does sort of seem like the same character, only older and stuff.

I don't know. I think Munny was made out to have been a much meaner guy than how old Blondie was portrayed. Still, interesting to think of it like that.

Unforgiven is sort of your traditional western, more realistic. But I still love it too.

The guy who played Angel Eyes, Lee Van Cleef, is notorious for playing badass villians. He was also in For A Few Dollars More, where he played a completely different character (Colonel Mortimer, a dead eye with a rifle). In that movie he eventually teams up with Clint, so he isn't really a "bad" guy, but he's still badass. Many think For A Few Dollars more is better than GBU. I don't think so, but I can see why.

Each of the three movies is different in its own right.

The first one is sort of the pefrect "drifter" who comes into town and plays all angles.

The second one is sort of the perfect "bounty hunter" movie.

And the third is the pefrect greed, free for all, greedy gold rush movie.