FAQ

Nathaniel (Hawkeye) explains to Cora a few scenes later that if they'd buried the dead and disturbed the immediate area, the Huron that were hunting them would take it as a positive sign that Nathaniel's group had been there recently and they could likely track them easier. As it turns out, the Huron and French raiders find them anyway a few seconds later but the Huron in the party refuse to advance because Hawkeye's party are hiding on sacred ground.

Set in 1757, during the French and Indian War for control of the North American colonies, the two last members of a dying Mohican Indian tribe, Chingachgook (Russell Means) and his son Uncas (Eric Schweig), along with an adopted white man, Nathaniel "Hawkeye" Poe (Daniel Day-Lewis), agree to accompany the two daughters, Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May), of British Colonel Edmund Munro (Maurice Roëves) to Fort William Henry in Albany, New York. Along the way, they must fight French soldiers and a vengeful Huron warrior named Magua (Wes Studi), who has vowed to kill the Colonel and his daughters to avenge a past injustice.

The screenplay for this movie, written by American filmmakers Michael Mann (who also directed the movie) and Christopher Crowe, was adapted in part from The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826), a novel by American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), as well as from a previous film adaptation, The Last of the Mohicans (1936).

Sedition basically means "making trouble against the government." Sedition can range from simple incitement to rebellion all the way to high treason.

Magua explains to General Montcalm (Patrice Chéreau) that his village and lodges were burned. "Magua's children were killed by the English. I was taken a slave by the Mohawk who fought for the Grey Hair. Magua's wife believed he was dead and became the wife of another man. Magua became blood brother to the Mohawk, to be free. But always in his heart, he is Huron. And his heart will be whole again on the day the Grey Hair and all his seed are dead."

Magua is essentially seeking revenge against Munro for commanding the soldiers who killed his family and wants to make sure his daughters have no children, both to prevent Munro's descendants from being born. They could also seek revenge against Magua in the future as well so he might be trying to prevent that too.

It's called a gunstock club. This basic type of weapon was carried by many native American tribes dating back over a thousand years.

Hawkeye uses a Pennsylvania Flintlock Rifle. The rifles in the movie were made by Herschel and Frank House.

Magua, having been spurned by the Huron sachem, resentfully leaves the Huron village with Alice, while Poe and Cora rejoin Chingachgook and Uncas. Poe shoots Duncan (Steven Waddington) to ease his suffering at being burned alive. Uncas runs ahead to catch up with Magua and rescue Alice. He manages to kill a few of Magua's warriors, but Magua winds up slashing his abdomen, stabbing him in the side, slitting his neck, and pushing him off a cliff before Chingachgook and Poe can catch up. Seeing Uncas killed, Alice inches close to the edge of the cliff. Magua reaches his hand out to her, but she allows herself to wordlessly topple over and join Uncas. When Poe catches up, he shoots several more warriors with his long rifles while Chingachgook engages Magua in hand/hand combat to avenge his son's death, eventually slicing Magua's abdomen open. In the final scene, Chingachgook, Poe, and Cora stand together at the edge of a cliff in silent ritual for Uncas' passing. Chingachgook then says a prayer to the Great Spirit, asking him to welcome Uncas into the Great Warrior's Council Fire and to ask all of his people who have gone before to await his coming, he who is the last of the Mohicans. Poe holds Cora in his arms as he and Chingachgook look sadly across the pristine hills and valleys.

Yes, it is. The Blu-ray disc includes a version called Director's Definitive Cut (DDC), which is very confusing because Michael Mann also created a Director's Cut (DC) years ago. After all these years, Mann sat down in the editing room once more and did the third cut of his film. This DDC is clearly more rooted in the theatrical cut and can be described as a mixture between the theatrical cut and the old DC. Here are many differences that do also exist between the theatrical cut and the old Director's Cut. The DDC mostly restores changes back to the way they were in the theatrical cut or keeps the extensions Mann made for the normal DC. This leads up to a runtime which is only approximately 2 minutes shorter than the old DC. The DDC-exclusive changes aren't of much importance and do not have a major impact on the film since they mostly include inserted shots or other minor bits and pieces.