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No question, the massacre at Mountain Meadows on Sept. 9, 1857 should never be forgotten. I applaud the makers of September Dawn for their efforts to bring the story of the ill-fated Fancher-Baker wagon train to the attention of today's audience. Yet in their quest to bring the story to light, the timeline of the massacre was altered and a love story/horse whisperer embellishment added that I felt were unnecessary. The tale of the circumstances leading to the massacre and its aftermath should have been interesting enough to warrant a great screenplay. The reasoning behind the LDS leaders in Utah deciding on and carrying out the cold-blooded murder of over 120 men, women, and children and subsequent theft of all of the wagon train's worldly goods has never been adequately explained nor portrayed and their involvement denied by the LDS church until only recently. Taken on its own merit, September Dawn is better than passable fare. The young actors do a believable job in their roles, and Jon Voight takes on portraying the LDS Bishop with chilling deftness. It's definitely worth seeing.Read full review
This movie does not review well, but should be seen. The facts should be researched by the viewer to evaluate whether the subject matter has been accurately brought to the screen--or handled harshly. This is a hard subject to bring to the screen: the massacre of some 100+ people; your don't going to come out of this one with the typical Hollywood ending. It's sad and unusual with many questions left unanswered. It would help to have prior knowledge of the religion of the Latter Day Saints and the Mormon struggle to obtain a peaceful settlement somewhere in our country. Their religion is different, and the history of their settlements and governing structure is complicated. The movie does it's best to fit some of these facts into the screenplay. In addition, there are romantic and familial relations between the characters bring up a few additional struggles going on at the same time the event occurs. The movie looks and sounds good with high production values. Voight, as always, has many characters we've seen him portray--he seems to bring a bit of extra evil as Jacob Samuelson in this particular role. I liked the cast and the soundtrack and wanted to know more about what happened: I think I know more than I did before I watched it and a lot more after a small bit of research.Read full review
While the movie is historically based on the actual events surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Hollywood had to entertain us further with the fictionists romance between the young girl and the Mormon son of one of the leaders of the attack on the innocent emigrants from Arkansas. Whatever......in spite of this added "drama" this is a good movie and accurate re-telling of the massacre and the Mormon involvement/connection to the tragedy. A must see!!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Movie is about a sad, tragic true event, so leaves you heavy hearted. Also wondering how much is true and how much is changed for entertainment purposes. It is a good movie worth watching.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Overall I liked the movie. The acting wasn't perfect, but it did follow the history fairly well. It might be difficult to appreciate a lot of what it depicted without a good bit of knowledge of Mormon history (there were many quotations from documents of which even few Mormons are aware) but I did not catch any gross exaggerations of history beyond the love story between the two protagonists. Unfortunately, because the producers stuck fairly closely to the history it seems as if it is trying to smear the church, but the facts are the facts.