Anyone else think the Lonesome Dove miniseries/movie was horrible? (Hollywood, scenes)

[harry chickpea]

I cannot believe how bad this was. We rented it from Netflix, and OMG. Angelica Huston couldn't act in the 1970s and she does even worse now. Tommy Lee Jones played Tommy Lee Jones, and Duval was not a "Gus."

The book was no great shakes, and this was worse. What was frightening though was that one character was the spittin' image of a character in "Grapes of Wrath" that played muley. All I can think is that the director was frightened to death of the star power and just let them do whatever they wanted.

[StarlaJane]

I read the books first (loved them!) and then when I saw the miniseries on t.v., I decided to check it out...
OMG, it was horrible! I only watched a couple of scenes and had to turn it off, it was such a bad interpretation of the book. And you're right about the bad casting. In my mind, the characters were not as old as the actors who were cast to play them. And the women were much prettier than Anjelica Houston!
I think that you are also right that they may have been better off casting "unknown" [good] actors rather than Hollywood stars. I mean, the book was the very antithesis of all of that!