500 Nations
January 2005 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

While directing his Academy-Award-winning Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner became tremendously interested in the story of Native Americans. As he indicates in his opening remarks to this miniseries, school studies in this country talk about civilizations all over the ancient world, yet ignore the one right under our noses, the Native Americans.

The old saying goes that the victor gets to write the history, and that seems much the case with Native Americans. The documentary miniseries surmises that children are taught a slanted version of history. Costner sets out to tell it from the Native American point of view. He and his production team gathered art, writings, and histories. Then they cast well-known actors who could bring the letters and journals to life with their voices and assembled a CGI team that could re-create the grand cities of lost civilizations. Director Jack Leustig put all the elements together to create films that portray living history in the best Ken Burns manner.

The series is in eight parts. The first episode, "The Ancestors," takes the viewer on a visit to Wounded Knee in 1890, where Native American women and children were slaughtered, and then back to the earliest cultures of North America. Next, "Mexico" tells of the rise and fall of the Aztecs. "Clash of Cultures" talks of the races that met Columbus. (After hearing the story from this angle, you might never want to celebrate Columbus Day again.) The fourth episode, "Invasion of the Coast," talks about the first English settlements, including Jamestown and Plymouth. "Cauldron of War" studies Iroquois democracy and the American Revolution. "Removal" is the story of the Cherokee Nation. The seventh episode, "Roads across the Plains," views the unsatisfactory efforts of the United States government to forge peace treaties with the Plains Indians. "Attack on Culture," the final episode, takes us up to today and the renewal of native cultures.

The stories are not pretty, involving one genocide after another, and the tales of promises broken by the conquerors are commonplace. The filmmakers avoid preaching, letting the facts speak for themselves. Now that it is on easily played DVDs, perhaps every school in the country should have a copy and use it so the children of the US can know more about their history.

I am not sure a new master was struck for this DVD set. Though it seems impossible, the master created for the now-defunct laserdisc set might have been used. The picture is clean and clear but there are some artifacts, edge warp, and shimmer in evidence. Nothing horrible, just not up to current snuff. The sound is much better. Both source and composed music are full bodied and rich, with excellent clarity.

There are not many extras for your home theater, just a discussion on the fourth disc of the CGI effects and a postscript by Costner. There is a fifth disc for DVD-ROM drives that contains more than 2000 images, animated sequences, and recreations of historic events, as well as an excellent time line.

The recent opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, indicates that a time has arrived when many Americans would like to know the facts about the native peoples who were here when their ancestors settled this country. Ahead of its time in 1995, this set seems right in step now and is highly recommended.

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