Question: How many horses did Smiles A Lot care for?
Question: Why did Dunbar's superior kill himself as Dunbar was being taken to his new post?
Answer: Dunbar's superior supported the British ("The King is dead... Long live the King" said with a heavy British accent) and was likely a closet-case Redcoat his entire US military career. It was not rare and many suicides were a result of that.
This claim is not supported by the movie. "The King is dead. Long live the King" is a common idiom referring to the passing of power to someone new. It most definitely does not literally refer to the English King. The movie is set in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. As for your assertion that there were a large number of English loyalists in the Union Army three generations after the Revolutionary War seems highly unlikely. Can you cite evidence of this?
Question: Maybe I just missed something, but what's going on with Dunbar's military superior that he meets at the fort out west? He seems to think he's a king or something, referring to the frontier as the "realm" and Dunbar's travel companion as a "peasant." At the end of the scene he salutes Dunbar very sarcastically and then shoots himself. What does any of that have to do with the story?
Chosen answer: It shows that the officer was mentally disturbed, and he was the only one in the fort who knew about Dunbar's assignment. It sets the story up so that Dunbar could live with the Indians without the Army interfering with his life (No one expected any communications to or from Dunbar).
Answer: So why was his journal so important to him? He knows lots of soldiers and many other whites are coming.
Answer: Because it documented his time at the fort and with the Indians and also what he learned from them during the period when he arrived before the Army did show up - This would have been crucial if there had been any trial which there was not as the Sioux rescued him from the situation.
Question: When did the moustache get shaved off in the movie and why?
Answer: He shaved it as he began spending more time with the Lakota. Native American tribes rarely accepted facial hair. As you can see, none of the other Lakota men have any. He also grew his hair longer as an abandonment of his military lifestyle.
Question: Neither Dunbar nor the non-commissioned officer he talks to just before he makes his suicide run at the beginning of the film appear to have to trouser stripe common to officers and non-commissioned officers. Shouldn't they as part of the Union uniform of the era?
Answer: There were variations of the stripes depending on which branch of the Army a soldier was in. The trousers were sky blue and NCOs had a dark blue (infantry), red (artillery) or yellow (cavalry) stripe down the leg. Junior officers which included corporals, had a French blue stripe. Senior officers wore navy blue trousers with a black or gold stripe.
Question: When the General enquires if the Confederates are Tucker's men, his adjutant answers "yes, we discovered them that morning." He states that Tucker's men have been there 2 days. How would he know that?
Answer: They were likely searching for Tucker's men for two days, and finally stumbled across their location.
Question: During the buffalo hunt, Smiles A Lot's horse falls over, causing him to fall off. But I can never figure out why the horse falls to begin with. He's standing still, and there are no buffalo nearby to spook him. Even if he were spooked by something unseen, how would that cause him to fall over, rather than just bolt?
Chosen answer: The buffalo that later charges Smiles A Lot comes up and butts into the side of his horse, knocking it over. It can't clearly be seen because of the way the shots change, but that's what happens.
Question: Towards the end after they kill the wolf and the last soldier finds Smiles A Lot, the Indian kid with horses, who kills that soldier with the hatchet?
Chosen answer: Smiles A Lot does.
Question: When the Lakota go to save Dunbar, Bauer gets away, one of the Lakota kills him. Should've the hatchet been in his back and not the front? (02:49:11)
Answer: He wasn't killed by the ones chasing him. He was killed by Smiles a Lot.
Question: I was wondering how the buffalo hunt was actually done. Were the buffalo actually shot (for meat or to cull the herd) or was there some computer graphics involved (I can see a truck running along side next to the cameraman with a tranquilizer gun to make the animal fall)?
Answer: While the fallen buffalo were furry dummies on wires (there were only a couple, filmed from several different angles), the buffalo stampede was real. A private herd of 3,500 buffalo in South Dakota was prompted to stampede five times, as seven cameras captured the action over eight days of filming. The illusion of arrows piercing the animals' sides was accomplished with simple special effects (including arrow shafts attached to body straps). The massive bull charging the little boy was a docile animal that was tempted with Oreo cookies. No animals were injured or traumatized in filming the scene; in fact, the only near-injury occurred when Kevin Costner himself (who did his own stunt riding) fell off his horse during the shoot. Https://ew.com/article/1991/03/08/filming-dances-wolves-stampede/.
Answer: I did a little Internet research. It does not appear that any bison were killed for the hunting scene. Dummy bison were mounted on moving dollies and yanked off by attached straps to look like they'd fallen. Two live domesticated bison were used for certain shots. I can remember watching one of those, "Making of..." TV documentaries on this movie. They showed realistic-looking bison dummies lying on the ground and compressed air being used to simulate the "wounded" animals' breathing. A tranquilizer gun could not have been used on live bison for this purpose. It's a misconception that animals immediately fall unconscious when darted because it takes time for the drugs to have an effect. Films in the past have actually killed animals for films, but they were often ones selected to cull a herd.
Answer: He was mentally disturbed and was depressed about being assigned to a "dead end" post with no chance at advancement. Dunbar, the hero, choosing to be assigned to the frontier, just pushed the poor soul over the edge.
Mark English
In a word, the disease syphilis. The urinary tract problems and the Insanity are possible side effects.
What are you basing this on? What in the movie indicates that he has syphilis?