Summary

• Horizon: An American Saga features a diverse cast with various storylines, but not all are equally captivating.
• The film's focus on multiple plots meant it couldn't dedicate enough time to making all its storylines as interesting as they could have been.
• Some of the movie's subplots, like the Sykes family and Hayes and Marigold, actually benefited from the lack of focus and became intriguingly mysterious.

Horizon Chapter 1 is over three hours long - not all of its storylines get the same attention.

Horizon was able to include so many stories because it didn't have to wrap them all up in one film. Horizon Chapter 2 was delayed because of that. Costner's choice to tell so many stories at the same time may have jeopardized the saga, and it kept some of Horizon Chapter 1's stories from being as interesting as they could have been.

7 The Wagon Train

Matthew Van Weyden & Juliette Chesney Are Interesting, But The Wagon Train Doesn't Offer Much Else

The least compelling storyline so far in Horizon is the wagon train. While there are some good characters in the wagon train so far - Luke Wilson's Matthew Van Weyden and Ella Hunt's Juliette Chesney both stand out - there's not much else to make their story compelling so far. Will Patton's Owen Kittredge and his daughters seem like they might soon become interesting - and much more important, given their last names - but they don't get much of a role in Horizon Chapter 1 beyond carrying water. The wagon train spends more time worrying about interesting things that might happen than it does actually being interesting.

The wagon train spends more time worrying about interesting things that might happen than it does actually being interesting.

The main reason the wagon train is so uninteresting is that it suffers the most from Horizon's greatest mistake: it feels like the first chapter of a story. With little more than introductions in the way of character development, the characters of the wagon train simply aren't very interesting or compelling. On top of that, very little actually happens in the wagon train scenes. What little does happen, like Juliette's feud with Van Weyden and her complaint about being watched while washing, feels like nothing more than setup. The result is that the wagon train feels more like filler than anything truly interesting.

6 Pionsenay, Tuayeseh, & The Apache Tribe

Pionsenay & Tuayeseh Set Up Some Interesting Questions But Feel Underutilized

The Apache tribe has a fairly interesting premise, but it too falls flat. The bulk of the Apache subplot focuses on Owen Crow Shoe's Pionsenay butting heads with Gregory Cruz's Tuayeseh about how to handle the ever-encroaching wave of settlers coming onto their land. Their differing opinions present a few interesting moral and philosophical questions the subsequent Horizon films will likely chew on, but it falls victim to the same problem of the wagon train: there's simply not enough there. The Apache tribe introduced these great themes and questions, yet Horizon Chapter 1 didn't capitalize on them at all, instead saving them for the sequels.

Pionsenay's story in particular has a few glaring problems, in addition to its short length. Horizon's introduction to Pionsenay, before even revealing his name, involves showing him and his followers brutally raiding and massacring the Horizon settlers. It then feels like Pionsenay's speech to Tuayeseh is nothing more than an afterthought: he's already decided to be more aggressive, and there's very little suspense because of that. The scene also serves as both of the characters' proper introductions, meaning the audience doesn't yet have knowledge of their relationship, or any reason to care about Pionsenay splitting the tribe.

While Pionsenay and Tuayeseh's storyline isn't the most interesting in the film, it does add quite a bit to Horizon. It was important for Horizon to focus on the diverse of the Apache tribe and their differing opinions, especially since a huge part of the rest of the story frames them as villains. If it hadn't given such focus to the Apache tribe , Horizon could have easily become just another bad portrayal of a historically misrepresented people. Within the confines of Horizon's story, though, Pionsenay and Tuayeseh offer a great way to parallel another major group: the settlers of Horizon.

5 The Horizon Raid Survivors

They Had Understandable Motivations, But The Horizon Survivors Are Too Clearly In The Wrong

In many ways, the survivors of the raid on Horizon are the exact opposite of the Apache tribe. They were taking land that wasn't theirs, they received much more focus than the Apache tribe, and Horizon already positioned them as a much darker version of Pionsenay's story. Though they're so similar, the Horizon survivors are a bit more interesting in Horizon Chapter 1 than the Apache tribe , but that's mainly a result of their longer screen time. With that longer screen time, Horizon was able to give the survivors much more characterization and justification for their actions.

The survivors could have been a great way to give Horizon some moral ambiguity, but they're too villainous to actually accomplish that.

While the survivors are one of the more prominent storylines in Horizon, they're still not the most interesting. Many of the group's individual characters are forgettable, and they don't have much in the way of character development or stakes. The survivors can also be quite frustrating, given how often they make the wrong decision. They just seemed to be so overtly wrong that they lost a lot of the sympathy the raid gave them by the end of Horizon Chapter 1. The survivors could have been a great way to give Horizon some moral ambiguity, but they're too villainous to actually accomplish that.

4 The U.S. Army

Houghton & Riordan Offer Introspection & Intriguing Dramatic Irony

While the Horizon survivors failed to give the film its moral ambiguity, the U.S. Army picked up all that slack. Danny Huston's Colonel Houghton, Sam Worthington's Trent Gephart, and Michael Rooker's Sergeant Major Riordan all work tremendously well together to portray the contradictory roles of Army officers who know better than the people they're protecting. That's the most interesting part of the U.S. Army's storyline: they're wise enough to know that death and devastation is on the horizon for both the settlers and the Apaches, yet they're too wise to try to stop it. It's tragically ironic, and it makes for a very interesting subplot.

In many ways, the Army storyline has everything going for it, and it's easily one of Horizon's most interesting setups. The main thing holding it back is, yet again, that it's little more than setup. The scenes showing Houghton and Riordan's pontificating about the nature of youth and the inevitability of Westward expansion feel like tremendous foreshadowing, yet Horizon never gets to the events they're setting up. Gephart gets to have some meaty scenes in Horizon Chapter 1, but those scenes are really more focused on another set of characters: s and Elizabeth Kittredge.

3 s & Elizabeth Kittredge

The Kittredges Are The Best Of Horizon's Less Compelling Storylines

One of the reasons s and Elizabeth Kittredge's storyline is so interesting is because it seems to use the most compelling parts of a few different stories without borrowing their drawbacks. The Kittredges' story essentially succeeds at everything the Horizon survivors' storyline failed at. Elizabeth and s had the same tragic setup during the raid on Horizon, yet they don't make so many mistakes that they waste their sympathy like the survivors did. Horizon also gave them a similarly large focus as the survivors got, yet s and Elizabeth made themselves much more memorable and compelling than any of the other survivors.

Another, slightly less important, reason the Kittredges are so interesting is because they seem to be the knot that ties Horizon's various characters together. Everything in the saga centers around the titular settlement of Horizon, but s and Elizabeth give the film the heart it needs to be emotionally engaging. Through the loss of the rest of their family, their respective relationships with Gephart, and their almost certain reunion with their relatives on the wagon train, much of the rest of Horizon depends on the Kittredges. s and Elizabeth are essentially the saga's connective tissue, and because of them, Horizon as a whole is made more interesting.

2 Hayes Ellison & Marigold

Horizon Clearly Gave The Bulk Of Its Focus To A Fairly Interesting Relationship

They may not have as much heart as s and Elizabeth Kitteredge, but Kevin Costner's Hayes Ellison and Abbey Lee's Marigold have proven slightly more interesting. Their relationship isn't as well-defined or relatable as s and Elizabeth's mother-daughter bond, but Hayes and Marigold are a truly intriguing pair. They also suffer from Horizon's common problem of only showing the start of its stories, but it doesn't affect them as much, since the beginning of their story has already proven very interesting. Hayes and Marigold have arguably the best setup in Horizon, so it doesn't matter that the movie doesn't show any more than that.

Hayes and Marigold have arguably the best setup in Horizon, so it doesn't matter that the movie doesn't show any more than that.

Interestingly, Hayes and Marigold's story likely even benefits from Horizon's inability to give them in-depth characterizations. They're both very mysterious characters, and the stress of being on the run and caring for a child has let them slowly reveal more about themselves naturally. Additionally, since the audience doesn't know who these characters are supposed to be yet, some of their more confusing decisions come across as mysteries to be unraveled instead of plot holes to be addressed. The mystery of Hayes' past and Marigold's decision to leave Samson at the rail camp is precisely why their storyline is so interesting.

1 The Sykes Family & Ellen Harvey

The Closest Horizon Gets To A Classic Western Shooter Is Its Most Interesting Storyline

Most of the storylines in Horizon were held back by the nature of telling the first chapter in a sprawling saga, but the conflict between the Sykes family and "Ellen" Harvey actually benefited. Where other stories felt rushed and incomplete, the Sykes family subplot offered just enough in the way of information to make its mystery interesting without giving too much away. The questions Horizon Chapter 1 left unanswered made the gripe between Ellen and the Sykes even more intriguing, and learning more about their story is one of the most exciting things Horizon Chapter 2 has to offer.

Another major advantage to the Sykes and Ellen storyline is that it feels most like a classic Western. While Horizon has always aimed to show the many different sides of the mythical Old West, there's a reason that stories about outlaws and gunslingers have been so popular: they're fun to watch. Caleb Sykes was responsible for one of the coolest scenes in the movie, when Hayes shot him down, and the other of the family were just as interesting, if not as explosive. That, coupled with the mystery surrounding what exactly caused Ellen to shoot James, made their storyline by far the most intriguing.

While not all of its stories carry the same weight or appeal, Horizon Chapter 1 does serve as a good start to a fascinating, sprawling story. That makes it harder for Horizon Chapter 1 to stand on its own, but it also means the rest of the saga can now hit the ground running. Despite the troubles, like the first installments' underwhelming box office performance and Horizon Chapter 2's delay, it does seem like Costner is personally invested in finishing the story he started. The saga seems more than able to improve upon Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1's various storylines, which is quite exciting.