During Billy's trial, he mentions the 1968 My Lai massacre and recalls, in a flashback scene, witnessing a similar incident while serving in Vietnam.

Inspired by Nader's Raiders, they begin using the newspaper and TV station to conduct investigative reporting, angering several politicians and townspeople in the process with their exposés.

The school's activities range from having their own search and rescue team to artistic endeavors such as a marching band and belly dancing.

Billy Jack is released from prison and, trying to reconnect with his spiritual beliefs, begins a series of lengthy vision quests.

He becomes involved with a radical group on the reservation that opposes the federal effort to cease recognition of their tribe and the surrender of their tribal lands to local developers.

Billy Jack appears during the incident to protect the students and then comes to the attempted rescue of a tribal member who is being harassed and nearly beaten to death at a local dance in town.

"Some may feel this picture is too violent...but the real massacres which inspired this fictionalized version were a thousand-fold more violent for those innocent people who were its victims... Rather than direct anger at this re-creation...please channel your energy toward those officials who either ordered, condoned, or failed to take action against these events...and perhaps towards ourselves for also turning our backs and letting such events occur unchallenged.

Billy Jack, lapsed into a deep sleep seemingly with the loss of will to live, wonders why he is not deemed ready to be on the other side.

Billy Jack is told he will only find his spiritual guide by practicing the fourth way that would have him stop covering his weakness with violence.

[4] Several Arizona tribal nations cooperated on the film, such as the Navajo, Papago, Havasupai, and Pima, who are each listed in the end credits under special thanks.

[8] Its international take was very small; Laughlin suggested that American government agencies conspired to force the film to be "banned in almost every country in the world" to hide its "scorching exposés" from foreign audiences, though he admitted that he had no supporting evidence.

[3][11] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "three hours of naiveté merchandised and marketed with the not-so-innocent vengeance that I associate with religious movements that take leases on places like the Houston Astrodome.

"[12] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one star out of four and called it "gross, misleading and a run-on bore," writing that "whereas the original had moments of genuine humor and refreshing improvisation, 'The Trial of Billy Jack' comes on as totally committed to establishing half-truths.

In reality, both My Lai and Kent State are testaments to the danger of arming young men and placing them in combat situations.

But 'The Trial of Billy Jack' twists those facts so as to make the killings a direct policy statement of the national government.

"[14] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "such a rambling, maudlin, sanctimonious rehash of its phenomenally successful predecessor that one can at least hope for a few defections among the legions of young fans who evidently thrilled to the self-flattering gospel according to 'Billy Jack,'" concluding, "Laughlin's point of view may be militantly liberal, but his artistic methods are reactionary in the extreme.

"[18] When the film was reissued for another theatrical run in the spring of 1975, an accompanying newspaper ad campaign attacked critics as being out of touch with the tastes of mass audiences.