This weekend is the premier of 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story on ESPN. I've been waiting for this since I first heard it announced last year. I've heard some real good reviews on it so far. I hope the producers do a good job portraying him. I already have the DVD of this movie on order as well.
I saw this TV Movie of Dale Earnhardt. They did good at protraying him. They sure did a better job protraying Dale Earnhardt in his movie than who ever did the protraying od Pete Rose in his TV Movie. I learn some things about the younger life of Dale Earnhart, also his dad. In all I enjoyed the movie.
I thought they did a pretty good job in portraying him too. Pepper did a great job and looked pretty similar to him. Certain points in the movie were rushed and skipped over, but I guess it can't be helped. Hard to tell the story of one man's life in only 2 hours. I would have liked to see more on the relationship of Kerry and Dale Sr and Kerry and Dale Jr. I would have liked to see more of the rivalries with other racers like Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte and even Jeff Gordon. There was only shot of Richard Petty in the whole movie, would have liked to see the reltionship between the two of the them and Earnhardt becoming a 7 time champion.
There were some inaccuracies as well. One particular one stood out, that was Dale Jr. (now in the Busch Series, also overlooked) with Teresa watching the Daytona 500 that Dale won. They showed Jr. in victory lane with his dad. Dale Jr. raced in the Busch race the day before and was at home that Sunday. He was not at the track when dad won the 500. However, I guess the producers felt it would be more emotionally uplifting to see the two of them celebrating together. Still inaccurate.
Overall I thought it was a good movie. I have the dvd on order, I await to see all the extra goodies they put on it as well.
i loved the movie........let me say that first!..........it didnt deal with any wins really except the 500, but thats ok since everyone who was watching it just about knew all about his success.
i caught one glaring mistake in that when it showed the field of the race that he died in (2001 500), when it paned over Gordon, it was the 'rainbow warrior' car and not the flames......that was the first year of his new scheme and wouldnt have been the older version.
one other thing that im not sure if it was a mistake or not, was when he hooked up with Childress. I had heard earlier down the road that them teaming up together and Richard getting out of the driver's seat was all Earnhardt's idea (which means Theresa) but the movie showed the opposite.-----sidenote to this, earlier this year, Junior Johnson was on WindTunnel and was asked why Earnhardt never drove for him and his reply was 'i definately wanted him bad, it just never worked out with contracts...either i had a spot open and he was commited, or he was available and i didnt have a ride at that time for him'.
all in all, great movie! i liked that they spent more time on Ralph than they did Jr. because we all really know what happened there.....i cant say i learned anything new, but it was just a great telling of how he became the legend he is today.
Yeah, I noticed Gordon's paint scheme for the 2001 Daytona 500 too. Guess they should have researched a little more on certain things. Wouldn't mind seeing a big budget movie somewhere down the line. I believe there is one for Richard Petty in the works.
I saw the movie and enjoyed it. I learned a lot about Dale Sr. and his father Ralph, and his relationship with his sons Dale Jr. and Kerry and Neil Bonnett. I wondered if his nightmares about crashing were real or something added to the movie.
