I posted this on the campfire, but it prob'ly belongs down here...
FINALLY somebody made a movie about the mass murder of 120 men, women and children from an emigrant train at Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, 9/11/1857
It won't play long in theaters, but I'll prob'ly buy it when it comes out. And a useful reminder of what folks are capable of when they believe they are spoken directly to by God. In this case shooting down "gentiles" in cold blood, in part because by doing so you spill their blood for their sins and give 'em a chance to make it to "one of the Heavens". Yepper, kill them out of love (and remember, this was Americans talking like this).
Mormon detractors will be happy to note the movie makes it clear that Young hisself was involved, although the LDS publically deny this.
I weren't there, but I think John D. Lee, the only man convicted of involvement, and that nearly twenty years after the fact, was in a position to know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre Quote:
I have always believed, since that day, that General George A. Smith was then visiting Southern Utah to prepare the people for the work of exterminating Captain Fancher's train of emigrants, and I now believe that he was sent for that purpose by the direct command of Brigham Young.
The knowledge of how George A. Smith felt towards the emigrants, and his telling me that he had a long talk with Haight on the subject, made me certain that it was the wish of the Church authorities, that Fancher and his train should be wiped out, and knowing all this, I did not doubt then, and I do not doubt it now, either, that Haight was acting by full authority from the Church leaders, and that the orders he gave to me were just the orders that he had been directed to give, when he ordered me to raise the Indians and have them attack the emigrants.
OK, the movie itself... beautifully shot, well done. That, and the period clothing (powder horns still in common use) make it so pleasant to watch you sorta forget some of these people are gonna murder the other people in cold blood.
And a lesson: Never, ever, give up your weapons, not even, or else especially when, offered safe passage for doing so. (Hmmm.... lying to the non-believers before murdering them is OK when you are doing God's work, where else do we hear that?).
"Blood atonement"? How about movie atonement? They should play this movie every night for the next 150 years in Salt Lake.
Speaking of weapons, they dropped the ball. Many of the rifles, supposedly months on the trail, looked brand-new. But where they REALLY dropped the ball is on the revolvers.
I never did see so many brass-framed '51 Navies in action, in fact at least one guy too was shooting a brass-framed '61 Army, and on at least one occasion the guns in an actor's hands switch from brass frame to steel frame during the firefight.
The hero also (there is one, a dissenting Mormon) finds a brass framed '58 Remington, like the '61 Colt a few years ahead of its time.
And the bird calls... in the movie Utah is just
littered with singing Hermit Thrushes, everywhere, at every season.
Birdwatcher
