Exploring Mormonism

This movie was created based on a story Gordon Hinckley’s father wrote in this novel.

This novel is a collection of moral tales that Bryant Hinckley wrote to convince children how to behave.

Again, I want to emphasize this is a work of fiction, but let’s see what this work of fiction teaches:

1) If you are thinking of doing something mean, do something nice instead.

Good lesson. I approve of that, and I think most people would as well.

2) Allow God to take credit for your good works.

Hmm, so the boys didn’t jump out and say, “Surprise, it was us!” or “Gee mister, that’s too bad about your wife. Since we clearly can throw away enough money to help someone who is sick at a moment’s whim, why don’t you come meet our father who can help your wife get better?”

In fact, why is this man working in a field with no shoes in the first place? I get it. It’s fiction for a point, but really, it’s like he’s trying to do a “Christ parable” where the details don’t matter. I guess that works for a book, but a video re-enacted from a prophet’s words at conference… maybe a higher standard should be demanded.

For example, let’s just change one detail and see what happens to the story:

When the man sees the coins, he falls on his knees and thanks the Field Fairies for sending silver coins from the goblin mines in order that his wife can be healed.

Now, don’t you kinda want the kids to come out and let him know that the field fairies didn’t actually do it? Don’t you wonder how he could ascribe U.S. Coinage appearing magically from goblin silver mines?

This “end justifies the means” thinking is beneath moral and civic leaders, and people who are respected shouldn’t descend to such tactics.

Part 5:

0:00:00 – This is the God the author believes in. You want to dance more than anything? BAM, you’re a cripple. You want to be the most awesome missionary ever? No success.  You want to keep your promise to your little sister? BAM, your trial is doubt. He gets some sort of perverse pleasure out of making things as hard as possible. This is not a God who gives talents, this is a God who sees talents and stacks trials specifically designed to crush the individual as much as possible.

0:00:24 – Awkwardly close to my lips there, Elder.

0:00:45 – Apparently being socially awkward and following in the pre-existence means that your challenge is being socially awkward on Earth as well.

0:01:15 – Yes, this is totally the way to contact. Most effective techniques ever.

0:02:06 – Bonus points for pointing out how stupid that question really is.

0:02:22 – Saleswoman reply matches the message. Again, fascinating.

0:02:49 – Kid off of skateboard… kinda like the baseball baptisms. Yeah, nothing wrong with pressuring the missionaries. Yes, it’s for comedy, I get that, but the underlying “Why it is funny” is interesting because missionaries really were so desperate that they really resorted to these kinds of tactics.

0:03:07 – Start singing “Man up” from The Book of Mormon Musical.  There is a warlord who shoots people in the face waiting for them in that city.

0:03:29 – Courage and doubts conquered. It’s just really just people looking for the LDS faith.

0:05:56 – Emotionally depressed, feeling lost, looking for a cause? Golden convert.

0:06:20 – “Best wife in the world for him.” Again, very telling without meaning to be.

0:07:16 – “Up to me to make myself worthy of you.”  Ah yes, we have no value without worthiness. Notice she has the church; what she needs is a man to be complete.

0:08:20 – Actually, given the amount of time she’s suddenly staring off into nowhere, maybe the only explanation is… *sigh*  drugs.

0:08:45 – The amazing doctrine of “soulmates” taught by the Prophet… no one.

0:08:50 – Um, sir? You’re standing in a park, alone, with your hand outstretched for a long time… are you drunk?

0:09:10 – Benji just wanted some of Jimmy’s drugs.

0:09:40 – “Doesn’t have the guts to do what he knows is right.” Yup, that’s what families fight over all the time.

0:09:43 – “This isn’t what a family is for!” Exactly what Abel’s sister cried out after Cain hit Abel the first time. It’s also what Judah’s daughter-in-law cried out mid-incest prostitute imitation scheme with her Judah. It’s also what Ham cried out upon spying Noah’s drunken junk. It’s also what Mary said when her Father explained exactly how she’d get pregnant with Jesus.

0:10:40 – That’s right, don’t let your brother go.  Instead, throw all kinds of insults and “I know you know better” lines at him.

0:10:50 – Blame yourselves for him making decisions that are different from yours.

0:11:15 – “So what do you think Jimmy?” Every guy who thinks about rebelling from his family is instantly offered a threesome with teenager girls.

0:11:38 – Drunken dance orgy song.

0:12:58 – “Do your own thing, and still you’re loved like a brother.” Unconditional love- an evil concept.

0:13:46 – The lyrics of this song imply that the leader of the gang is waiting for this big exploratory trip to discover why they were born to find out if Jimmy is going. Why is the leader so interested in Jimmy? He has hot girls and guys all around him. Does he actually care for Jimmy? Does he actually worry about Jimmy’s future?

0:14:00 – Surprise Birthday!  Love BOMB.

0:14:30 – Ah yes, teenager has trouble accepting love bomb. Physical violence may be necessary.

Part 6:

0:00:00 – Nothing says love like a child giving her most prized possession to an ungrateful sibling, and her MOTHER suggested it. Note, it’s the only possession we’ve seen her have in the entire film. Maybe there’s something to the idea that the younger kids are not receiving an equal distribution of income. After all, Pam and Jimmy would remember times when their father had money before the crippling disease would have consumed the family’s income in medical bills.

0:00:25 – Spit shine of Sunday shoes and breakfast in bed. Everything here says “no money.”

0:01:15 – Benji fixed the car… Awesome.  He’s my favorite character.

0:01:40 – Home sewn shirt, still no money.

0:02:16 – Cardboard swords. Burger king crown.  Again, no money. CTR on the shield.  Nothing says, “I love you, Atheist” like church themed gifts. Tickets to Camelot, finally something that cost a buck or two. You might see why Jimmy would be a bit upset about resources.

0:04:00 – Baby announcement on Jimmy’s birthday… how thoughtful. Everything about this family says forced authority and inconsideration for any sort of thought beyond the bounds.

0:04:35 – “You’re almost 40 years old, there could be something wrong with that baby.”  Ah yes, every teenage boy worries about having a Down Syndrome sibling.

0:04:40 – The slap. That’s right, your teenager mouths off to your wife. Physical violence is the only recourse.

0:04:52 – Guilt inducing pseudoscience at its best. If your mother miscarries, it’s probably YOUR fault you rebellious, inconsiderate teen who dared to walk away after your father hit you. Take your abuse like a man.

0:05:02 – Miscarriages don’t happen like this, by the way.

0:05:08 – I’m sorry Emily, but instead of being born into an abusive home of total authority an uncaring poverty in Utah, you’ll be born in China where you’ll be discarded purely for being female, die, and get a trip straight to heaven.

0:05:22 – Missing teeth… eternal principle.

0:05:25 – Party in the middle of the park. Clearly hung over.

0:05:35 – “Flinders… you were in rare form.” Wait, is the blond implying they had sex? Oh my gosh, so naughty.

0:06:10 – “He’s gonna wash away his sins,” said by the token black cast member in the gang, with every bit of seriousness a line like that deserved.

0:06:38 – Your mother lost her baby AND your sister had to go to the hospital, probably because of something you did, you bad, bad teenager.

0:07:18 – “Quest for freedom – Freedom is knowing who you are.”  Ah yes, freedom is obeying authority and accepting what they tell you.  War also brings peace and effort is a vacation.

0:08:14 – Wait, Jimmy drove to wherever Kesler was on his mission? Maybe there is a reason the Elders look so depressed. Notice, Julie would never have found Mr. Right if Jimmy hadn’t rebelled. Rebellion is part of God’s plan,  and so is child abuse, miscarriage, and making the youngest spirit in heaven feel like an outcast in her own family.

0:10:10 – He draws potential. Very nice. Kinda creepy, but nice. Imagine an artist drawing your “Oh” face he imagined for you and telling you about it. Kinda like that.

0:10:30 – “It’s the drugs isn’t it.”  YUP!

0:11:05 – Trying the world. Not freedom.

0:11:50 – “Knowing who you are.”  “Something else you know isn’t there.” Again, the theme is that everyone on Earth really KNOWS mormons are right. They feel it deep down.  They KNOW abortion is wrong. They KNOW big families are good. They all feel it.  It’s what one should expect from the pre-existence. From a rational God. But the model isn’t a working one.

0:12:40 – Jimmy could have been a MISSIONARY but gave up on it.

0:12:50 – He’s been sleeping on a bench? And they know to find him there. Odd.

0:13:10 – Payphones. Hallmarks of a bygone era. Random police siren.

0:13:40 – “Not Pam!” Yes, when you are at your lowest, God will kick you right in the feels.  Assume fetal position.

0:14:02 – More false doctrine.  The spirit world is NOT the pre-existence. As beautiful as this sequence is, it has no basis in doctrine at all.

0:14:28 – That’s 26 seconds of slow spinning.

Part 7:

0:00:03 – We’ve slapped you teenagers.  We’ve guilted you teenagers.  We’ve propaganda’d the hell out of the church. Now, take sweet little girl pleas.  Shape up, you naughty kids!

0:00:28 – Who am I?  Where am I going? Ah yes, the questions the church answers. Only answer… back to the church family with you!

0:01:38 – Notice that Jimmy is not really really “Who am I,” but more “Can’t someone love me and not put me down?”  He feels oppressed in his family. “Just a number” he has mentioned, despite being the oldest. Parents might try listening, holding, comforting, and not pushing religion on him.  Just saying.

0:02:29 – The famous “Angel/Devil” on the shoulder fight over Jimmy’s soul. Family is “good” despite clear signs of abuse. Friends are bad, and maybe these guys are. They’re reckless and out of control.  But there is no medium where Jimmy gets to talk to his family and be understood. There is no way to reconcile friends and family, because of the either/or dichotomy the church forces.

As far as climaxes go, this really isn’t too bad for B-grade movies. The internal struggle is certainly well portrayed. I think there is a lot to work with here, I just disagree with the final conclusion.

0:04:30 – Wait, so he was torn as to whether or not to show up at his sister’s funeral, and the friends didn’t understand that? Wow. Kid’s got issues, and those aren’t really friends, are they?

0:05:08 – I hope that they understand that he doesn’t have to believe what they do, and join into their family full time again, to attend a funeral or show compassion.  Right?

0:05:27 – Dedicating and fasting.  Yes, they’ve been “humbled.” I wonder what he would have drawn the missionaries as.

0:06:30 – Stomach films. Nice touch of humor while still being in contact.

0:07:04 – Giving up smoking has never been easier than with missionaries. One week and he’s clean!

0:07:30 – Wow, doesn’t he look happy? The missionaries are happy. Yes, baptism is the happy thing.

0:07:55 – Unnecessary cut to black, because we go from the missionaries TO missionaries.

0:08:18 – One baptism and they are humble fearless servants of God.

0:08:50 – Can’t marry him… 3 days before. Again, something that is a bad precedence to set up for the LDS crowd. At least the father actually listens to Julie. Maybe Jimmy’s leaving was helping.

0:09:45 – Wait, is this implying that her feelings of love for her promised one only kicked in when he joined the church? Again, staggering implications.  If you are not worthy, your loved one will never remember your promise. If you aren’t a good enough missionary, you might not convert someone else’s husband/wife.  Don’t marry non-members, goodness, they don’t yet have their love kicked in.  But you know, it’s only a musical.  What impact could it have?

0:13:18 – Note, Julie thinks that the feelings she has are for her missionary. God is quiet and communicates in vague mysterious ways, but it’s our fault if we misinterpret them.

0:13:40 – That missionary hasn’t been able to hold a girl for two years. Your odds are pretty good honey.

0:13:50 – Elder Green came home before Kesler. Now, his mother had Braxston Hicks with him, meaning they could not be more than a week apart in birthdays, probably only a few days.  And yet they didn’t come home together. In my mission, and I assume in others, they weren’t exactly two years, but they would send missionaries home in batches, typically within a few weeks. Granted that Kesler didn’t come home, that means he went out late.

And why would he be delayed going out? Well ,we’ve seen that he ignores the rules due to pride. That’s been constant. And he forgives his own failures while blaming others. Could it be that… Julie delayed his mission? They only knew each other 6 weeks previously and that’s about how long before batches of missionaries.  Hmmm….

0:14:14 – Genuine RM creepiness.

0:14:30 – Yeah, he’s learned humility alright!

0:15:00 – That nod, to the “keeping her promise.” Oh yeah, that’s the nod of a spurned man.

Part 8:

0:00:10 – God’s got a sick sense of humor, doesn’t he?  Like, when he makes Ezekiel eat crap because other people are not faithful… yeah, that’s what this “having your girlfriend marry your only convert” is like.

0:00:36 – “Promise me you’ll pray first before you do anything drastic.” I think Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice should have said this.

0:00:48 – All part of the plan. Because God is a dick.  But hey, take your huggy-face-close best friend forever (literally) and head off to BYU to share a room. That’s part of the plan too!

0:1:00 – If you think this song has no influence on the rapid marriage rates of Utah, you have another think coming. The idea that you know this person from before, and thus don’t need to date them, is pretty rough.

02:24 – I have to wonder if the convert-theft of a girlfriend in legacy was based on this sequence.

02:46 – Beedy beedy beedy beet- Gosh Emily, time to be born. Remember who you are, and hopefully you won’t be rebellious like your older brother, or be abused by your dad.

04:08 – Good thing Jimmy was there to get the car… oh wait, home birth! Clearly home birth is good. Jimmy will be there to see his mother’s bits. Lucky boy, I’m sure he’s glad he gave up partying in California for that.

0:05:45 – Success! Emily is born to a darkened world with only the family to provide light for her, on a rainy night. Abortion refuted, teenagers corrected, clearly the world is repaired and corrected.

0:06:00 – That’s right, the song to make us feel special, as these are for us. I bet this looks silly in 200 years that we thought we were the end of the world.

0:07:20 – Epic sword pose!

Part 1:

0:00:00 – Is this Star Wars?  Maybe Star Child.  Maybe they just figured out how to use an effect on words.

0:00:11 – “Children welcomed,” ah yes. The real point of this movie/stage play was to get people pregnant and fight the abortion agenda.

0:00:19 – Presents… Is that the Battlestar Galactica in the background?

0:00:28 – Stock footage, or did they actually rent a plane for this scene?

0:00:43 – Saturday’s Warrior.  My mother always thought since my sister was born on a Saturday during a rain storm that this was really fitting.  Now my sister is 30 years old +,  it seems a bit odd that Saturday lasted so long.  I’m sure in another 20 years this will seem even sillier, and perhaps 20 years after that this movie will go down the memory hole it deserves.

0:00:51- “Who are these children coming down” song.  “Trailing clouds of glory” comes from a William Wordsworth poem printed in 1919.  William Wordsworth was a contemporary of Joseph Smith, being born 35 years before Joseph, and dying 6 years after.  I don’t know if he ever encountered Joseph, or if Joseph read this poem before coming up with the pre-existence, but Wordsworth seems to be talking far more of “potential” of humans rather than an actual existence before this one, just as the “jail” in the next few lines doesn’t imply we all go to a literal prison.

Ah well, why write good lyrics when you can steal them, right?

0:01:09- Music By Lex D. Azevedo, the guy who does all Mormon music in everything.

0:01:21- Screenplay adapted by the producer and his wife, like we couldn’t tell that just by looking at it.

0:01:40 – “Stand to fight the world alone, there are the few the warriors saved for Saturday…”  Here we see the Mormon persecution complex in full bloom.  We’re telling the story not of the bold individuals, not of people who do miraculous things, but of the persecuted few who must fight the entire world on their own.  It’s like if Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth had just sung about how she had to face it all alone,

or if Avatar Aang sang about how hard it was to be the last airbender.

Whiny heroes, gotta love them.  Feed that persecution complex!

0:01:48 – Mom, do you have to kiss me, the camera is rolling!

0:01:58- Weeee! I love swings!

0:02:17 – I was less faithful in the pre-existence, but I’m still faithful enough to be a Saturday’s warrior.  Take that logic and smoke it, bitches!

0:02:29 – Oh crap! I hate slides!!!!

0:02:31 – Worst gymnastics bar routine ever.

If you think any of these kids actually have anything to do with this plot, you’re in for disappointment.

0:02:55 – What, dad… CRAP you let gooooooooo!

0:03:05 – Naked chick holding baby, implying breastfeeding occurred at some point.  Conservatives today would rank this among the liberal media destroying our nation.

Wait, is that a dude?  A dude with long hair, or a woman?  I can’t tell.  Gah, my eyes.

0:03:26- Gary Lewis, this is one of the few movies that would have been improved if produced by Jerry Lewis.

0:03:35- Isn’t that the actor who played “Greatest American Hero”?

0:03:43- First actual cast member surrounded by clouds.  I guess in heaven we walk on clouds.  You know, like primitive man thought until we developed airplanes and space ships. and discovered that God wasn’t above clouds.  Maybe they just got a good deal on a fog machine.

0:04:12- Boy, I bet they wish that God had sent Lindsey Stirling a few years earlier so they could have someone who could sing AND dance at the same time for this.

0:04:24- Produced, directed, written by, adapted by, and doctrine verified by Bob Williams.  Ah Bob Williams, is there anything you can’t do?

0:04:29- Ah, our first bit of false doctrine: “There are cute kids in heaven, while there are also mothers and fathers that are fully grown in heaven.”  No doctrine for this at all.  Maybe he just thought the audience was too stupid to figure out that they were all grown ups in the pre-existence.  Or maybe our heart strings wouldn’t be tugged so much by a fully grown spirit child saying, “But Jimmy, you promised!”

0:04:35- Apparently Moroni was totally out of fashion when he appeared to Joseph Smith. He had on white and didn’t wear anything underneath his robe.  These people are in ballet dresses (With sleeves) and pajamas.  Also, notice there are only white people in the pre-existence.

0:04:55- Our first spoken line, “All of this waiting.” Yeah, see, it’s been 6,000 years according to President Benson, and that just so happens to line up exactly with the building ages in Nauvoo as well as the Masonic calendar.  But hey, for scientists it’s been several million years.  I guess they’re getting the last century or so year jitters.

0:05:00- Mullets are the hairstyle of heaven.  “My mother is having her very first baby this minute.”  That’s a great argument that infants are not actually people until birth.  Guess abortion isn’t murder after all.

0:05:20- Second false doctrine that screws up a lot of members still, “That you promised you’d marry someone before you were born.”  Yeah, no scriptural reference for this at all.  No reason to believe that sealings would be pre-ordained.  I mean, think of the sheer number of people who meet on accident and end up getting married.  Now I can hear the TBM rolling his eyes from here, “It’s not doctrine.”  Go around BYU for a while and ask the boys and girls there if they think they may have committed to someone before this life and are looking for that someone.  Maybe not official doctrine, but let’s call it “folk doctrine.”  And it’s still false.

0:05:30 – Guys ignoring women being emotional happened in heaven, too.

0:05:40- Jealousy is an eternal concept.

0:05:50- Passive aggressive behavior… also eternal.

0:05:58- “What good are promises in a world where everything will be forgotten?” What a great question, Julie.  Really the most intelligent thing asked so far.  Imagine that the Plan of Salvation was reversed and when you died, all your knowledge and promises were forgotten when you died.  What would be the point of the temple?  Would temple covenants be binding on individuals who have forgotten everything?  Would marriage be binding despite having no knowledge of them?

Clearly, this is a great argument against why any sort of pre-ordaining or any other promise prior to this life (or action, such as being less faithful for black people) would have any validity in this life.

0:06:00- “By some miracle we do meet.”  Indeed, the odds are small Julie.  You’re making sense.

0:06:08- “How long have we known each other?”  “Forever.”  Insidious doctrine.  Let’s put it in some other situations:

“How long have you known Ted Bundy?”  “Forever.”

“How long have you loved Mr. Stalin?’  “Forever.”

“How long have you wanted to marry someone, but instead you’ll be born to an African village and starve before age 5?”  “Forever.”

This is touched on later when the dancer ends up born with no legs, but basically it really illustrates what a gyp this earth life is, from the eternal perspective.

0:06:40 – Stamping pouting fits, are also heavenly and eternal.

0:07:00 – Song- Circle of our love.  Just add in the doctrine of polygamy and suddenly this song gets very odd.  Imagine him having that moment of “seeing that smile somewhere before” while married.  Yeah.  Imagine finding several women that you were supposed to be with forever on this Earth.  No WONDER men are so horny.

0:08:36 – “Brother Richards you’re on final approach.”  Again, abortion isn’t murder if the spirit doesn’t enter the body until the very last second.  You can almost have a spirit make-out session a few seconds before.

0:08:45- “Just pay attention and you’ll do well.”  Correlated lies must also be eternal.  She’s not mentioning anything about drugs, smoking, or say… genocide.  there is a throw away line for humor that the next slot is in Siberia, but the doctrine implications are tremendous.  A few minutes late for birth and you end up with a family that you DIDN’T sing and dance with in the pre-existence.  Also this character introduces the overworked Relief Society calling as an eternal principle.  This woman is not happy in heaven.  Is she a resurrected being?  or do spirit people help out in the next life, have callings that make them miserable, etc.?

0:10:24- Consider if instead of him being born, he was sent down at the moment of conception.  This set of lines becomes amazingly awkward as his dad is still humping his mom while they discuss it.

0:10:40- Eternal families were before this world.  This concept really skews things.  Miscarriages, abortions, early deaths, all become very complicated.  Great, God has a plan for you, and it involves you dying as a machine-gun toting 12 year old after being forced into a warlord’s gang that just gang-raped your sister.  If EVERYTHING is connected, then God is responsible for everything.  Including siblings of incest (that’d be a fun conversation in heaven), inbred children, and children knowing they were going to be born to mass-murderers and not being able to do anything about it.

0:11:29- Ultrasounds really fowled up heaven’s “surprises.”

0:11:40- Octomom is true.

0:12:08- Jimmy proves that massive egos are eternal.

0:12:15- “Sweet Spirit” mentioned.

0:12:28- “Nothing but a sweet spirit.”  Number one fear… being ugly.  Boy does this say a lot about mormonism or what?

0:12:31- “As long as I can dance.” Hah.  God’s got a joke on you!

0:12:35- Emily is worried mom and dad might run out of gas.  1.7 kids per family, abortion is a dirty word…  promises to families.  Yeah this is propaganda.  There is no doctrinal basis for children being pre-assigned to families.  But this is it, the thesis of the film.  We promised to have lots of kids and if you do ANYTHING to prevent that, you’re hurting real people that you made promises to. You just can’t remember.

Let’s imagine this produced by an anti-mormon church.  “I’m just worried, that before I’m born, mom and dad might join the mormons!”  You see how there is no counter argument to something not based in any sort of logic or pre-existing context?  That it’s just made to pull on emotions for a political point? Yeah. It’s dirty pool, man.

13:33- What does it take to make a family?  A song to guilt teenagers into compliance.  Why are you depressed?  Don’t you know you are hurting your spiritual brothers and sisters?  Can’t you just sing and dance with us?

That’ll finish this portion off.  To be continued to next time.

Part 2:

0:00:00 We pick up mid song, with a caring and kind Jimmy.  We’ll see how evil and rebellious he is as a teenager during wicked earth life after.  But right now, spirit teenager Jimmy is calming the fears of spirit child Emily about monsters in closets, something that only makes sense due to casting choice.

0:00:45  Jimmy might lose his way- foreshadowing for the plot.  “Even die for you Jimmy… oh Emily.” See how committed these spirits are to us, and us to them? Bad teenagers. Emily would die for you! Stop wanking off, they can see you, you know!

0:01:45 Spirit Elders.  Now I want you to consider for a minute why we have these two, and they are the comedy element to the whole thing.  They are buffoons, failures, absolutely the most incompetent characters in the entire thing.  But they dream of greatness.  Why no Spirit Alma, or Spirit Joseph Smith, or some future prophet. Because 1) we’re only dealing with contemporary issues and the logic breaks down if you apply it to any other time frame, and 2) missions are weird.  There is inherent humor in two men without women for a long time.

Now, just look at any person who spent 2 years and $10k or so proselyting and only gets one convert and is dumped by his girlfriend.  Not a lot of humor in real life.  So how to play this for laughs… ham it up to ridiculous levels.

I wonder if spirit Joseph Smith sang a similar song, filled with hubris and self-importance.

0:02:00 – Eyeglasses are an eternal principle.

0:02:16 – These two men have been best buds since before the foundation of the world.  They don’t sing “The circle of our love,” but they’ve also known each other “forever” and have clearly not been hanging around women “forever.”  Yeah, maybe sexual preference is also an eternal principle.

0:02:21- Submission/Dominance is an eternal principle.  Either that or heavenly bullies/shyness is eternal.

0:02:39- Gay man strut.

0:02:42- Hip thrusts of righteousness.

0:02:44- That sword of truth looks a lot more like grabbing another man’s…

0:02:52- Bro-hug a pre-Elder to put him in his place.

0:03:11- Was that MC Hammer’s Sprinkler dance?

0:03:12- The Elder selects Julie out of the people there.  Hmm… maybe “Dear John” romances are an eternal principle as well.  Cut to the family lovingly looking at her daughter being told to get to her knees for a missionary.

0:03:27- Fat Gay Elder is too far from the dominant, shuffles in to be closer to him.

0:03:54- Kesler and Green are sent to earth AT THE SAME TIME (This will be key later).

0:04:12- Apparently being born in Madagascar is a “lesser calling.” Nope. No racism… just making the audience feel special because they were born in the U.S. at all.

0:04:20- When I saw this as a kid, I asked if they were brothers because they were sent down at the same time.  Like, same birthday.  But no, they’re just really, really close together males that want to live together really badly.

0:04:29- Very close to a mix up of epic proportions.  Just think, if Green was sent to Kesler’s body and Kesler to Green’s body, well, their spirits wouldn’t match their bodies.  Green wouldn’t be fat.  Kesler wouldn’t have great hair.  They might… wait, what would happen?  The philosophical implications of the logistics of the pre-existence are staggering.

0:04:31- I’m a laughing little girl who will eat your soul!

0:04:40- Damn, nurses are inspired to switch babies. I’m sure the father’s paternity test did not cause divorces later.

0:05:00- “I’m gonna miss this beautiful place.”  Ah yes, because it’s totally different than Earth.  I mean there’s green grass.. no wait, um, rolling hills.  Hmmm… Well you get to walk on clouds, dammit!

0:05:08- “Earth life is just a few short years.”  Ah yes, the “eternal perspective” which allows one to ignore the pain in place of belief of a better world, rather than actually fix problems.  Can’t forget that.

0:05:14- “When you leave home, it’s always this way,” “Especially your first home.”  Wait, you’ve never left home before, but yet you know it’s “this way” to leave home.  Hmmm, I smell pandering to the audience–propaganda style.

0:05:30- This is a good point.  the idea of wiping every one of your kids brains was the BEST plan available?  No wonder some spirits fought it.

And here we go with promises again.  They’ve just covered that there is no way they’ll remember their promises.  But every character so far has made promises to other characters.  Guilt, guilt, guilt.  You don’t live up to a bunch of promises you don’t remember?  You’re a bad person!

0:05:45 – Every woman (being born) has been shown as emotional, scared, or unstable.  Every male is confident, headstrong and courageous so far.  Repeat after me: “no sexism in the church.”

0:05:51 – I wonder if they tell kids who are supposed to die just after being born, or if God just surprises them as a joke.

0:06:11 – Inappropriate thigh touching of siblings!

0:06:16 – Ah yes, groping of thighs as a sign that one came from a pre-existence.  Thank you thinly veiled reference to the Five Points of Fellowship.  How about a “secret handshake” while you’re at it?

0:06:21 – “What good is Earth life if all the memories are forgotten?”  Good question, Jimmy.  But this kind of skeptical thinking might land you in trouble in mormon imagination-land.

0:06:34 – “Hours and minutes I’ve yet to meet.”  This brings up a GREAT meta question.  If there is no time for God, then why is everyone hurrying, or needing to get on the teleport “soon”?  Clearly, either they have watches in heaven or we humans have no concept of life without time.  We can’t even imagine it long enough to put it in a movie.  Which means the constant “hurry up and wait” attitude that is constant in the performance really is a reflection of mormonism.

0:07:04 – Some General Authority asked if there was a way his ballerina daughter could get in the cast, I guess.

Thank you, Lex D., for including this song.  When will it end?

What is that sound rising up from the world?  The clang of the bell on the ledge.  

Where young ones play on their merry way, as they float right over the edge

Deep lyrics, man.  Deep.  I mean, why didn’t Led Zepplin write anything this deep?  I’m waiting for him to say, “They’re falling… to hell.”

0:10:08 – Woah, we dissolved past him back into him! Like an 80s school portrait.

0:10:15 – Fade to black.  For no reason.  I guess there was no good way to show Kesler reappearing on the teleport.

0:10:30 – Spirits get roller coaster rides every time a woman has Braxton Hicks.  Who knew?  Beyond that, I guess the lesson to learn is that children with longer labors must have extra loop-de-loops in their transporter ride or something.

0:10:46 – Realize how small they make this world.  We have only the characters, no “extras,” milling about in the background even.  I realize it’s a cheap budget, but with 6 billion people on Earth, this place would be, well… more busy than grand central station.  Every day in 1997, about 365 000 babies were born.  Think about that.  Maybe this is just a subset of a culture among many other cultures, so small they aren’t even DNA significant.

0:10:56 – Whiny brat behavior:  Eternal principle.

0:10:58 – “Everything is going to work out just fine.”  Just picture Vilate Kimball telling this to Helen Mar before going down to Earth.  Yeah.

0:11:14 – Her necklace reminds me of this, but maybe that’s just me.

0:11:28 – Again with the fade to black.  Where did heaven go?

0:11:30 – And that’s when the famous “twins born on an airplane” happened.

0:11:32 – Kesler?!  So wait, they had 80s hair in heaven 20 years before it came to Earth.  Gosh, I wonder if they had punk hair in heaven, too!

0:11:34 – Whining, jealous, emotional… yup, eternal.

0:11:39 – Mission rules be damned, they only apply to you Elder, not to me. I’m hugging you!

0:11:46 – Leg hug, because that’s totally kosher and normal.  Gate agent doesn’t even react, she’s used to it in the SLC airport.

0:11:55 – What? Where am I? Why am I crawling on my hands and knees to man?  Did you use your Elder mind powers on me again?

0:11:57 – Yes, you gave her your CTR ring 6 weeks ago, ya cheepskate.

0:12:05 – Pioneer zeal apparently comes with a free “eye roll.”

0:12:10 – Two years!  Yes, Julie, it is ridiculous to go that long without a boyfriend.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I’m sure church leaders will realize the error of their ways after watching this film.

0:12:26 – He made her sign a contract?!  Um, let’s see all those unwritten promises before, yeah, they’re worth less than that paper right there.

0:12:40 – Is he lisping?

0:13:04 – Wait, an oath as well?  Hmm, kinda says how much oaths are worth now, doesn’t it?

0:13:25 – Osama bin Laden really just wanted to prevent LDS missionaries from reenacting this scene, so he heightened the security in airports across the country.

0:14:29 – STOP THE MUSIC! Is that girl in purple on the left waiting for a black man to have an interracial marriage?!!!  Wow.  Good thing Bruce R. died before this was filmed.

0:14:55 – Is that an appropriate half-nelson she’s got you in, there, Elder?

Part 3:

0:00:01 – “Final Boarding Call” – Wow, they really took their time on that song and dance number.  I was on my plane WAY before final boarding call, looking for someone to talk to.  I guess “Labor of Love” hadn’t been produced yet so they didn’t know they should talk to people on planes.

0:00:06 – “This is it!”  I know this is meant to be comedy, but thinking about someone desperately wanting something for eons, millennia, for untold numbers of years, and then to fail so hard as Kesler does, it’s really quite tragic.  Imagine it was a woman wanting a baby for eternity and then she is unable to have the baby for two years of trying, and at the end, she has one, but only one and can never have another.  That baby grows up and steals her partner in an incestuous relationship.  Ha, ha.  So funny.

0:00:32 – Is she singing to his wang?  That is his crotch there right?  Also, that’s 3 hugs I’ve counted.  Kesler didn’t really listen in the MTC, did he?

0:00:43 – Dashing stare into the sunset as the camera fades.

0:00:47 – The oddest cut in the whole movie.  Why are they here on a movie set?  Some sort of family award?  It makes the missionary thing totally disconnected.  You think they might cut to Julie talking to a family member about how she just sent her missionary off and have the “five seconds to air” cut them off for continuity, but what do I know?

0:00:56 – Every mormon mom’s dream…  being handed an award for having so many children, all of whom survive.

0:01:02 – I love that the best thing they could think to do is have “Riverdale” hand out an award for a family.  Not “Utah.”  Not “The President.”  Not the actual christian ministries who hand out awards like this. Nope, Riverdale.  At least there are no bones about it; this is Utah we’re talking about.

0:01:32 – Okay, for those who don’t know, the prominent nose is known to be a key feature of Jews.  I’m not sure they meant to insult Jews, but many Jews, when connecting Hollywood with prominent facial features, typically do not look at it in a positive light. I have no idea what they were thinking when they wrote this sketch.  I assume they were trying to play off the Osmond’s fame at the time?  Hmm, born in Ogden, big singing/dancing family. Big poofy hair. Maybe the Jimmy character is prophesying Donnie’s departure from the faith?

0:02:03 – Riverdale has a lot of quaking?  I have no idea what drug induced moment would cause someone to write that line.

0:02:20 – Ah yes, the dancer who has no ability to use her legs.  Ha, ha. God’s a dick, ain’t he?  And they point it out. It’s like the God who creates polio and so forth really is the God they are discussing.  Bonus points for being bold enough to include a dancer who can’t dance.

0:02:41 – I know the kid in the elephant nose. We’re good friends and hang out from time to time. I attended his second marriage reception.

0:02:48 – I find the DNA implications here interesting. I mean, they are discussing the inheritance of nose genes. Would Emily’s nose be significantly different if sent to a new family?  Her life experiences, who she would meet and marry, would be altered dramatically.  The idea that “we have people we promise to marry” makes sense from the aspect of one family, but take those decisions across generations upon generations and… well think of it this way.  How much do you determine your great-grandkids’ potential on who they marry by what high school you attended?  You see, if you nailed that cheerleader or the Homecoming king, and got pregnant, how would their whole future alter compared to if you meet and marry the Hawaiian girl two years later at Oxford? Yeah.  Now compound that over generation after generation of choices and the idea that these people made promises becomes ludicrous.

0:02:37 – Bizarro cut number 2.  Here we have someone we were never introduced to before.  We don’t see him in the pre-existence.  No “I promise to be your friend forever, Jimmy” before they come to earth life. Seductive girl being held by a man in a car… clearly evil.

0:03:13 – “You do it with mirrors” Arguably the most awesome line in the whole movie.  And does Jimmy take her up on this, or play it up? Not at all, just a throwaway.

0:03:18 – “Wasn’t that show sponsored by Planned Parenthood?”  Again, the theme here is that abortion is evil.  Having big families is good!

0:03:20 – “Unbridled primal urges.” Yup, they actually said it. No birth control just reveals that Mormons have sex 6 or 7 times in their marriages.

0:03:30 – “Important decisions coming up in your life” – Here is where the movie is a bit bizarre.  He’s like the EQ president in the mirror universe where Spock has a beard.

He isn’t saying, “Hey we support you in your decisions,” or “We care about you and worry about the ideas being pushed into your head by your religion.”  No, he’s totally taking the mormon tact to talk. It’s like the screenwriter (director/producer) was so correlated, he also views even anti-mormons as correlated. “A nice set of wheels or 47 kids?” No discussion of “How many kids do you actually want?”

“Babes galore or diapers, what a bore” – Ouch, they really wrote that?  I wonder if they actually read any Planned Parenthood material, or talked to people who opted to have only 2 kids, before writing… probably not.  I think that given that birth rates among even general authorities have fallen since 1970 (Source: Environmental Economics course at BYU), and the revised views of birth control in the church, the sheer dated arguments against controlling the number of children is just painful.

“Just this one can’t hurt, but they just can’t stop” – Equating the mormon view of family production with drug propaganda is actually kinda brilliant.

I, for one, like the European pamphlet that I saw about the church. It stated it this way:

Birth control

[paraphrase of a 10 year old member of a translation] “Just as latter-day saints do not expect us to live in an all natural world, but view bulldozers and roads, automobiles and buildings as good, we are not expected to approach the powers of reproduction in a wholly natural way.  The LDS are encouraged to respect the powers, just like one would respect the power of a bulldozer, and to use it well within the proper boundaries.”

I can get behind that philosophy. It’s powerful. Use it, control it, but don’t think, “all natural” is best.  Too bad that isn’t the actual philosophy that was taught.

0:04:08 – “And there is no turning back.”  Good argument.  I wish this was said in general conference or whenever they said, “do not delay having children.”  Oh, but realize there is no turning back.  Yeah.  It matters.

0:04:17 – “What about the country?!”  Ah yes, the resources argument.

I think we need to review this to understand the basic fundamentals of the argument (vs. the straw man presented) and to understand how far we’ve come from when this movie was made to when this argument will simply be accepted.

0:04:35 – “Citizens of Planet Earth” “Ozone”- Leftist arguments.

0:05:00 – “Zero population is the answer my friend” – Now, first thing you should understand is that dropping the word “growth” totally changes the connotation here:  Zero Population Growth means having as many children as it takes to keep the world in balance.  That you have kids at the same rate as people die.  It does not mean having no kids.  It does mean thinking about having kids in conjunction with some thought and planning.

Looking at the world charts at population growth we get a good look at which countries are prosperous and which ones are struggling to feed their people pretty quickly. High population growth is highly correlated with struggling economics.

These are pretty educated teenagers dancing and singing here.

0:05:12 – “Without it, the rest of us are DOOOOOOoooomed!” In my economics courses we learned about Easter Island, where growth actually wiped out society. We talked about peak oil and replacement of resources.  The reason people feel they can mock this philosophy is due to a man named Malthus, who prophesied that the planet would go through shocks due to population growth.  He was wrong due to technology and hence, we can mock him, right?  The interesting thing is, Malthus was only wrong due to science.  The same science that is being applied to say, “Woah, hold those horses and use some birth control.”

0:05:29 – “Who can survive, who can survive, not one of us will be alive.” An odd lyric.  Definitely playing off the Malthus concept.

0:05:39 – Spandex and bare midriffs.  A friend once commented that you can always tell who the bad girls are in mormon literature because they will show a midriff, or be wearing shorts, have tight clothing.  I think it interesting that the LDS are so judgmental that what the dancers probably wore everyday to rehearsal is a clarion call as to who the villains are.

0:05:40 – “Every day our food supply is shrinking.”  Yeah this is a straw man.  It was never part of the arguments that it was a gradual tapering off, but rather a sudden collapse, not terribly unlike what Tea Party members currently warn about.

0:06:25 – “The Oil is depleting away.”  I love how we have seductive looks, hair tosses, and so forth while discussing politics. So let’s see, in 1980  the price of gas was $1.25, world wide production of oil had just gone through a major embargo.  Oil costs would drop for twenty years and then skyrocket.  The reason for the skyrocket was demand from China.  When supply cannot keep up with demand because there is not enough oil to produce, causing prices rise, is called “Peak Oil.”  The concept of peak oil was founded in 1971 and the U.S. hit peak in the 70s, hence the oil crisis.  At that point, the country swapped to be dependent on external forces for our oil, and arguably led to the Gulf War, the Iraq War, The Iran Contra Affair, the Iran-Iraq War, etc.  This movie is mocking as “worldly concepts” serious issues that really impact our world today.

0:06:48 -Worst pole dancing ever. It’s supposed to be vertical for a reason.

0:06:52- Evil shoulder struts.

0:06:56- Could they not find any hotter dancers to play villains?  I mean, we all know how hot the LDS crowd is.  These are mediocre… wait, did they cast them to be less attractive?

0:06:57 – Villains lose all sense of coordination.  Two or three dancers behind the others, almost miss a spin, etc.

0:07:10 – Lean back baby, oh yeah baby.  Waaay back baby.  You know that’s just so … “worldly.”

Summary of scene: Gangs from West Side Story are true.  They sing and dance about their issues.

0:07:27 – I love that Jimmy doesn’t even follow along.  He just looks lost through the entire scene.

0:07:27- Ah yes, the typical mormon 7-8 kid home, with couch and coffee table, plenty of room for everyone.  All in nice fashionable clothing. We never saw 8-12 kid homes where the kids dressed from the DI and the whole house was trashed growing up.

0:07:34 – “Hey Jimmy, welcome home. Wow you look bummed. The kids in the parking lot sing to you again?”

0:07:46 – “Do you love all of us kids the same?”  We love all the kids the same except you dear. Now go play with your Barbies until they invent the Nintendo.

0:07:56 – “Our teachers read us a story.” Public schooling is a COMMUNIST PLOT to give BABIES AWAY!

0:08:10 – Random violence against a shoulder.

0:08:12 – “He’s getting a bit ragged.”  Okay so your kid says, “I feel like you might give me away or love me less” through an example of a story at school, and then projects themselves to their stuffed animal… and the mom says “Yeah, let’s toss the anthropomorphic projection of yourself away.”  Really? She didn’t say, “I love you honey.”  No discussion of the previous “Would you get rid of me?”

0:08:28 – The parents permit a conversation about getting rid of a child without interjecting.  Yup, they want all those kids.  Clearly.

0:08:43 – “Stop, stop. I have this very important crossword to finish. Mother and I would give all of you away just to get some peace and quiet around here!”

0:08:47 – “Julie, we notice that you’re upset because you’re the oldest and most emotional, but we’ll ignore the emotional needs of the others.”

0:08:55 – “Here we go again.”  I want you to hear the cry out for attention from Benji.  He is constantly interrupting the flow of things for attention. I’m guessing these are actual lines from families, because they would NEVER have portrayed a family like this if they didn’t think this kind of bickering and begging for attention was normal. Anger transference to “women” immediately after the authority coming down on him… also fascinating.

0:09:27 – “I couldn’t give anyone away.” Sit down as a family and… now all my kids are begging for attention and playing up to me hoping that I wouldn’t suggest them even in a game.

0:10:20 – “What if I picked myself and left this family right now?” look from dad.

0:10:35 – “Keep Pam and send your mother away.”

0:10:45 – “Space case… Spock.”  Now, now, there, Jimmy. As a teenager, we might make you go out and earn an income and help support the family like Alvin Smith.

0:10:54 – “The answer is just not having any more.” Actually, kinda sensible.  When the budget has to be cut at work, you remove the empty seats to be filled before you fire actual employees.  Of course, this is all hypothetical, right?

0:10:58 – “Nothin.” Yeah, he doesn’t feel like his voice would be heard/respected in this house.  Not a house of open opinions, I guess.  Unless it’s the discussion or removing current children.

0:11:00 – Mom finally notices the moping teenage son in the corner.

0:11:14 – “Mom, I have a question.” Dad answers.  Yup, the woman in this home is respected.

0:11:38 – “Don’t we have enough kids already?” – “Have your friends been pressuring you to tell you parents about safe sex again, Jimmy?”

0:11:43 – “Jimmy what is your problem?” Yeah, the best way to deal with a teenager, authority with condescending tones.  Always works.

0:11:47 – “What is this, world consciousness week?”  Great fathering in action.  When your teen asks for a straight answer, reply with sarcasm.

0:11:55 – “I love all my kids.” Pity you couldn’t have said that when they started asking which one would be given away.

0:12:26 – Jimmy mentions his mother changing diapers and the mother breaks down crying.  I get they MEAN for it to be about Jimmy disobeying, but it could be her thinking about the stress of that many more kids and wondering, herself, how many more she’ll have to endure.

0:12:50 – “Have we done something really wrong?”  Yes, blame yourselves for your child is thinking about the planet, the economy, and the welfare of others over your own social-economic structure.

0:13:00 – Opine about how their kid was better as a boy, in song. Jimmy explains how he had child like faith before, but now is thinking?

0:14:18 – All teenagers rebel against their parents until the parents are clueless. This is normal.

0:14:40 – The mother always looks perpetually sad.

0:14:48 – “Why can’t they love me?”

What a fitting note to end on.  Parents, if your teenager is rebelling, perhaps you can learn more from Jimmy than you can from his parents. He feels disconnected from his family.  Possibly because they did not listen to him.  They reacted with fear, aggression, and sorrow to his honest questions. The parents didn’t even explain their rationale. No, it was all about trying to put him in his place.

If you are struggling with your teenager, talk less and listen more. This message brought to you by “Not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

Part 4:

0:00:01 – Angsty teenager singing. But to be honest, if you know someone who is struggling with self identity and a crisis of faith, odds are they want you to listen and love them.

0:00:27 – Why does the mom look so sad and tired in every shot? I’m guessing that she was thinking, “What would it be like to have 7 kids and be pregnant with number 8?”

0:01:20 – (summary) Conditional Love vs. Unconditional Love in one song.

0:01:30 – “Yup, feel so small and tiny and little.”  “Hey sis, you’re pretty flat, too!”

0:01:45 – Only mormons have direction and purpose in life.

0:01:55 – I overheard you talking to Mom and Dad, and Dad saying he’d give me away. I would have come in and said something, but I was left out here on the porch again, and mom said the whole family was there, so I guess they forgot me.  Anyway, just know that I don’t forget you even when I’m left out on the back porch by our loving parents.

0:02:00 – Pam wants more kids in the family.  MORE KIDS!  Faithful people want more kids!

0:02:22 – I don’t believe it. Remember the best way to treat a person in doubt is to tell them they are wrong, and they will one day come to understand what you already know.  It helps.

0:03:00 – Can’t help but notice that God made her crippled so that they couldn’t easily sit next to each other doing their secret sign. Jimmy would remember the pre-existence and not rebel if only God wasn’t such a devious trickster.

0:03:23 – “How about freedom?” Freedom to think, to evaluate and make decisions for one’s self is the crisis in this film. It’s the bad thing. To be clear, the free agency fought for in heaven would be portrayed as the villain’s choice in this film.

0:04:00 – Foreshadowing Pam’s death.  The writer read about it in a class once, and thought he’d try it by slapping it in the audience’s face.

0:04:07 – Good point. Why hasn’t faith actually healed Pam? Ah yes, her death is in the plan.  It will make Jimmy suddenly choose, because it’s all about the white teen male.

0:04:48 – Jimmy’s problem isn’t really that he’s a thinker.  It’s that he doesn’t have a testimony yet. It’s all about wanting answers too fast, not at all that he’s rejecting bad answers handed to him.

0:05:19 – Line upon line, re-written:

Line upon line, precept on precept.  That is how correlation, white washes the nation, of mormons.

Line upon line, precept on precept, like a tyrant drunk on power building a tower to heaven.

if you don’t research you’ll never see, the skeletons in the closet hidden carefully.

You’ll never really learn, about the universe, stuck with faith, forever.

You know, science?

Line upon line, precept on precept, faith is like a flower, now hand over your power, for heaven.

Line upon line upon line.

0:07:08 – Millions and billions of stars. Wouldn’t it be tragic to throw it all away for some con-artist’s trick?

I want you to think about what it would be like to have brothers and sisters feeling up each other’s thighs WITHOUT KNOWING THE REASON.  Awkward.

0:08:35 – Going on a date two weeks after the missionary is gone… standard Mormon fare.

0:09:35 – “Never never never trust a girl.” Again, Benji has a valid concern. He feels threatened at his sister’s fickle nature. He knows he’ll be out there in a few years, being the guy who is dumped, and there’s no understanding shown. Poor Benji.

0:09:45 – Regret for breaking a vow of eternal love lasts for a single second.

0:10:40 – Friends, I’m torn here. Is it a solid example that Mormons do not believe that there is such a thing as a plutonic relationship? Or is it that she has no idea how to actually friend zone men?

0:11:37 – Flip chart of missionary baptizing Saddam Hussein.

0:11:45 – Where are these missionaries serving? I assume stateside with the lack of accents. So they’re asleep while she’s prepping for a date (7:00) and they wonder why they have no baptisms. Those lazy bums.

0:11:55 – Token black man in the background trying his best to be a statue.

0:12:00 – “Work harder.” Ah yes, it must be HIS fault. It’s always the answer on a mission.  Work harder.

0:12:36 – “He does everything I tell him without complaining.” Ah yes, the mormon ideal for callings as well, I believe.

0:13:12 – Subtle humor that every missionary knows what’s in the other missionary’s mail.

0:13:28 – Sulky sad missionaries. Honestly, Kesler’s been the only one who was excited to be on his mission so far.

0:14:49 – Probably one of the most emotionally damaging messages of the film, “You will only get baptisms after being dear johned.”  It encourages the culture of hurting boys who are alone and away from home.