I just want to say that i will be the first person to step up and defend Kevin Costner. With movies like The Untouchables, Dances With Wolves, and Field of Dreams, this guy has proven himself several times over. Just because someone in Hollywood has the guts to do movies that HE wants to do, regardless of their potential at the box office, we shouldn't slanderize this guy every chance we get. People say Costner has taken a big turn for the worse lately, but i liked Waterworld and most recently, Thirteen Days. I would also like to say that i dont' see any of you people who criticize this guy so much makin movies. With that said i would also like to say that i love Tombstone, and bought it right after i saw it the first time. With two movies coming out about the same true story back to back, and with the first release (Tombstone) being such a big success, comparisons are inevitable. But these movies aren't really based on the exact same events. Tombstone is about, just that, Tombstone and what the Earps did there and immediatly after. Wyatt Earp isn't about the Earps, it's about WYATT EARP, hence the tittle. Aside from that, the movies are totaly different. First of all Tombstone, good as it was, is almost a work of fiction. I loved Kurt Russel and Val Kilmer as the movie's center pieces, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday respectively. The fact is however, Russel plays a very emotionally open person. Costner plays him as a quiet, almost cold person. Now, alot of people who have made comments about this movie have criticized Costner for that.(Big surprise.) But, you can't blame Costner for this because Wyatt Earp is not a fictional character, he was a flesh and blood human like you, and most importantly, Costner plays Earp much more realisticly. Then there is the much debated arguement over who plays a better Doc Holliday, Val Kilmer in Tombstone, or Dennis Quaid in Wyatt Earp. Well, here's the thing, if you mean who played Doc closer to reality....then the undisputed winner is Quaid. But if you mean who is more enjoyable, well that's a matter of opinion. But before i move on i got a bone to pick with somebody who said Tombstone was much better because Russel played the kind of Earp that "we imagine". Look lady, you can have whatever ridiculous ideas about the way past events took place all you want....but don't ever bring me into your childish little dream world by generalizing your opinions by saying what "we imagine". When it comes to this i don't imagine anything, i actually got the facts. Now i don't want to sound like a know-it-all, because i hate those people, but, as i said in my summary, if your going to comment on this movie, research the topic, or at least now the facts. Then this same man or woman who tells me what i imagine poeple as goes on to say she imagines Doc Holliday as a "sly and witty sort of character the way Kilmer played him" Well that is fabulous, but the fact is that Doc, who was a witty person was witty in the way Dennis Quaid portrays him. For example in a conflict a drunk Ike Clanton tells Holliday that Holliday's day is comin. Doc responds by saying, "My mama always said never put off 'til tomorrow the people you can kill today." Then also in the list of comments for this movie is some total moron who said Quaid is at his worst on this movie. Anybody care what that guy thinks? I didn't think so. In closing Wyatt Earp is a realistic and enjoyable accounts of the life of one of the most compelling characters of the old west.<br /><br />8/10