Talk:September Dawn

Balance

Removed "supposed" from describing the massacre since everyone agrees it actually happened. BTW, I would sure like to see what Mormon extremism Cain is claiming is prevalent today, but I guess thats a discussion for somewhere else. EDIT: Okay I changed the last sentence after reading the NY Times article. It sounded like he thought Mormon extremism was prevalent today, but he just meant religious extremism in general. --67.166.96.116 07:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I recently undid another revision from a relatively new user which lopped-off an entire sentence, one that has been reword and revised several times already -- to that point where it should be representative of the consensus. There has repeated vandalism and attempts to modify this section to criticize the stated motivation and methods of the writer/director and to disparage, without any documentation or justification, the historical research behind it. A sentence was recently added to the end of this section to accomodate what is perceived to be the motivation behind these attacks. Also several links are provided to Mormon-owned and Mormon-controlled sources such as BYU, FARMS (Mormon apologist research group at BYU), Deseret News, and KSL-TV. Those items should provide the balance of a faith-based analysis approach to this event that these users seem to be pushing. There is an entirely separate page on the Mountain Meadows itself where both sides of the issue are thoroughly presented without rehashing here. Kbrewster 17:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Mitt Romney

This film has absolutely nothing to do with Mitt Romney. It was written and completely filmed long before Mitt Romney even declared his intentions to run. Please, no more references to Mitt Romney's campaign. -Kbrewster 14:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the timing of the release of the film was to coincide with the sesquicentennial of the massacre, not political timing which happened to lie in its path.Tiktok4321 (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Mitt Romney is Mormon. Someone made a bad movie about Mormons. These facts are totally unrelated and as such I propose we delete the Mitt Romney section as irrelevant. WesUGAdawg (talk) 13:59, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The content is sourced, verifiable, neutrally written, without asserting the movie had anything to do with the election, there is no reason to take it out. I agree, however, that it's a crummy, shallow and even misleading movie on many levels. I recall looking forward to seeing it, then reading the reviews and when I at last did see it, I couldn't make it all the through and skipped to the ending. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I grant you that the material is sourced, however it is noted that it is merely speculation by Novak and Ebert. I do not believe that the speculation of 2 men makes it noteworthy enough for inclusion in the article. I believe that its continued inclusion in the article should be a matter for discussion. WesUGAdawg (talk) 20:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

LDS Church link

The Church recently released this: http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=17bef28172543110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD&vgnextchannel=9ae411154963d010VgnVCM1000004e94610aRCRD It should be listed in the links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.58.98.4 (talk • contribs) 06:39, 22 June 2007

No, it shouldn't; the article at that link describes the MMM but makes no mention of the film (not even in passing). Material found on this article should be directly related to the film itself, and information that is about the broader topic of the actual MMM event should be be included on that article, not here. -- 159.182.1.4 22:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It is most likely written to counter the view of the movie. Madd the sane 02:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That may be, but we should cite a press account that describes it that way. Otherwise would be impermissible original synthesis. Cool Hand Luke 02:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The closest I could find to a statement like that one in about 30 min of google searching was this link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p02s01-ussc.html ...but they were talking about the Ensign article, not this related press release. -- 71.35.46.20 20:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of citations and references section

The articles in the Guardian and the Boston Herald are reliable citations supporting the statement that the film is controversial, that it argues Brigham Young 'shared direct responsibility for the attack,' and that the church maintains 'The weight of historical evidence shows that Brigham Young did not authorize the massacre'. Removing them makes the article worse. I assume repeatedly removing the references section was just a mistake. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Repeated edits by multiple users, please read explanations

• "Wagon train" is singular, not plural—thus the wagon train WAS attacked, not were attacked;
• Can't just say it's "historically inaccurate"—need to cite sources which argue it is and present both sides;
• LDS Church account from lds.org website is already mentioned in references (as the article from the Sep. 2007 Ensign);
• no reason to change "[t]he" to "the" in a quote unless you have the original quote and it uses a lower-case "t".

–SESmith 08:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• • comment by User J. Peterson: I think all users should try and make this website better and clearer. Even if you believe there is no reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toneag (talk • contribs) 08:57, 4 July 2007

Repeated edits being made by Sesmith

Many users have attempted to correct typing errors, but this user continues to re-insert errors. Let others contribute to the betterment of this community site. John Peterson 09:38, 4 July 2007

The edits I have reverted were not mere corrections of "typing errors". I've tried hard to explain my changes in the edit summaries and here on the talk page, which is more than I can say for some editors. Quoting "[t]he" is not an error when the original quotation says "The". See discussion above for the edits I have changed. If I correct your bad grammar or word usage or misleading uncited statements, that is your problem and not anyone else's. –SESmith 09:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Sesmith, it appears your contributions within the Wiki may suggest a subjective and vested interest in shining a certain "light" on any and all topics related to LDS/Mormonism. Have you considered your level of impartiality? --LeroyWilkins 10:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course I have. I am not a Latter Day Saint, if that is what you are implying. If you have specific concerns about my edits, I'd be glad to discuss them. I think if you look into it and do some research (which you clearly haven't), you will find that I have been far from a "Mormon apologist" on WP. My main goal is to achieve accuracy and WP:NPOV. I stand by my comments above as the reason for reverting the edits in question for this specific article. Otherwise I don't appreciate the insinuations. Perhaps you yourself should question your own impartiality before you baselessly accuse others of bias. –SESmith 10:29, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

SESmith is an excellent editor. Please be civil; user appears to be using our policies and manual of style. Cool Hand Luke 02:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Mormonism in See also

Would the person/people that keep deleting Anti-Mormonism from the 'See also' section of the article please explain why they keep doing this? There has been no explanation provided in the edit summary, nor discussion of this on the talk page (at least until now). The article mentions the term anti-mormon(ism) several times, but does not link to it in the article body because those mentions are in quotations, and you shouldn't link in quotes, so instead the term appears in 'See also'. The article also infers the term in several places, so there doesn't seem to be any good reason not to include it. If there is a legitimate reason that it should not appear, then please provide that, otherwise the continued removal looks like vandalism. -- 159.182.1.4 16:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, but whomever is doing this without explanation is engaged in anti-mormonism. — Val42 05:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the Roger Ebert review is a good third-party reference that shows anti-Mormonism is a related topic. I agree. I strongly suspect some promoters are editing this article. Cool Hand Luke 17:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen a good review of this movie, except for the ones quoted by the promoters of the movie. Even the Ogden Standard-Examiner (which is considered liberal) didn't have much good to say about it. The greatest praise that he had for the movie was that they did get the period costumes correct. And in a related article published in the same issue of that paper, they interviewed two Weber State University history professors, one thought that Brigham Young ordered the massacre and the other said that the overwhelming majority of historians think that he didn't. I can dig them up if anyone would think that this would help, but I think that the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News reviews would be considered more prominent. — Val42 22:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the most significant material has come from the damming reviews and commentary from outside the Jello Belt, predominantly by people not affiliated with the LDS Church. That being said, my favorite quote appears to have probably come from a Latter Day Saint, found in a user comment at metacritic.com which described the film as "[t]heological porn for evangelical Christians who have been taught to regard the Mormon church as a cult. The movie lacks both substance and style." That really seems to nutshell the rest of the movie reviews and also answer Ebert's question (from his review) about the audience for the film; it's just unfortunate that the statement can't make it into the article itself since it came from an anonymous blog-like posting. Anyone know of a similar statement that can be quoted in the article? -- 159.182.1.4 20:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why the Islam extremism and such topics are added as links, when they have nothing to do with the movie or mormonism. If you ask me, these links were added by promoters who want to associate the LDS religions with such widely rejected terrorism orgonizations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.218.168.166 (talk) 03:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Almost all of the wikilinks added to the "See also" section have the corresponding wording in the article inside direct quotes. It is WP house style to not add wikilinks within quotes, so these specific wikilinks were moved to the See also section instead. Islamic extremism in particular makes its appearance where the article describes how the movie "equates the institution of the Mormon church with Islamic extremism at every opportunity". This is not a single example, as the scriptwriter states that she finds the coincidental date of the massacre - September 11 - to be "very odd" and "strange," but that "people can draw their own conclusions" about the date. Several of the cited references (which are generally highly critical of the movie) also describe how the movie attempts to put the historic MMM event in parallel to modern day extremism. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Reception

The reception section of this article reads as basically a tirade against the film created by weaving together quotes from multiple critics. I think it would be better to take a smaller number of reviews (ideally prominent ones) and give more in-depth quotes. I will try to get onto this when I can but if someone else could handle it it'd be much appreciated. --Black Butterfly 17:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I echo this user. I was amazed to see the high number of negative quotes filling this page. You don't usually see this in Wiki articles. It doesn't fit an encyclopedia article to be mostly quotes from other sources.

--Abdul Muhib 0612, 5 December 2007

Agreed. This section of the article is some of the most un-encyclopedic nonsense I have read in a while. It clearly was intended as a POV bias against the film. Seary6579 (talk) 19:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it should be more in-depth from prominent reviews. You should have seen it before though, all negative quotes with those more in-depth. Editors had to search far and wide to find those few that had positive reviews for this movie, but they were found to balance the article. — Val42 (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Val42: I would suggest including only the most prominent reviews as well (Roger Ebert, for example). The string of negative quotes appears as if it were crafted by an LDS apologist. The movie did receive overwhelmingly negative reviews, but the article should simply state that without the mass of quoted sentence fragments. Bochica (talk) 16:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that what I agreed would work? — Val42 (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was agreeing with you. I've edited to reflect what I meant to say. Bochica (talk) 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry folks, but 5 paragraphs of quotations which reflect the same sentiments of the film (that it was intended to be bigoted, anti-Mormon propaganda) are a little excessive. I challenge any Wikipedian to find another film Wiki that applies this much bias. I am fully aware of the dreadful reception that this film received and am not here to argue whether it was well deserved or not... I just feel that there is an attempt taking place to turn this page into either:

1) an IMDB about the film 2) pro-Mormon/Massacre denial propaganda

..and under EITHER circumstance, Wiki is THE WRONG PLACE FOR IT. I will give this article a few weeks to see if it fixes itself, otherwise I will be editing it HEAVILY. Seary6579 (talk) 08:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

As you can read above, other editors have said (basically) the same thing. Since it hasn't been fixed in the past, it will likely not be fixed in the next few weeks. If you really want to fix it, then fix it now, or you will probably do the same fixing that the others have done in the past, nothing. — Val42 (talk) 21:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

-Let's be real. As a filmmaker and writer, biased or unbiased- I have to say: When a film is terribly recieved, shouldn't a review article about its reception correspond proportionally? Why should there be a balance of positive to negative reviews being quoted when the overwhelming majority of the film's reviews were negative? That would just be an example of semantics more than anything else. Appeasement isn't neccessary when you have the facts at hand. Truth be told, anyone who would even give a damn about editing this article in any way would either be a Mormon himself/herself, or an anti-Mormon bent on defending what is clearly a poorly made, propaganda film. There's PLENTY of "accredited" film experts that back me up on that last point. But since this isn't the place to voice "opinions", we have only to reflect the raw facts about the opinions. That is... overwhelming negative reviews to the film compared to the few positive. Cold, hard numbers. So don't ask for more positive review quotations under pretense of wanting it to be unbiased- when it is oh-so-evident that anti-Mormon bias is the only reason one would want to add any disproportionate amount of positive reviews on here in the first place. Enough said. Signed, Andrew042886 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew042886 (talk • contribs) 09:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it's just me, but the string of quotes that are followed by links to the actual quotations remind me a lot an essay. In case there's some argument about wether or not it is biased, I for one think it should be rewritten because of the way it looks like an essay. I've personally removed a lot of the quote string, but it JUST doesn't seem right to me still...Monkeytheboy (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we could just shave it down to Ebert, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. That is good enough for most other Movie pages. I would do this myself but I am not sure how to delete all those references for the myriad quotes cited. WesUGAdawg (talk) 14:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Given the reviews were so bad (mostly), I think it would be more helpful to readers to have more coverage on this than in most movie articles, so they understand the section isn't somehow slanted. Hence, I wouldn't want to see it cut. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree what is there now is excessive. After about the 4th quote, I was seriously thinking, "OK I get it, the movie got bad reviews, now move on". It does read like a tirade, and violates the spirit of beating a dead horse, if not the letter. Also the See also section is excessive and is in clear violation of WP:Seealso. Dave (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

About the "pseudo-historical version" and the role of President Brigham in the massacre.

I deleted the word "pseudo-historical" from the discussion because it shows clear bias against the movie. It is simply untenable to defend the "pseudo-historicity" of the movie just based on the fact that it portraids Brigham Young as the leader of the massacre, while the rest of it has never been questioned by any historian or party involved in it.

As for the role of then president Brigham Young, it has to be said that he new about the likelihood of the massacre beforehand (that has never been contested) and a possible outcome of the events at hand is that either he authorized it or he condoned it. According to Will Bagley: "In his diary, John D. Lee recorded how Young told him in May 1861 that the “company that was used up at the Mountain Meadowes were the Fathers, Mothe[rs], Bros., Sisters & connections” of the men who had murdered Mormon prophets. Taking the lives of the women and children troubled Young, Lee wrote, but, Young had told him, “under the circumstances [it] could not be avoided.”" It has to be mentioned that Lee was Brigham Young's adopted son.

The movie does interpret based on research made by historian (and Mormom) Will Bagley, but even if no direct evidenced linking Brigham Young with the actual massacre actually existed; as any good lawyer knows, circunstancial evidence alone (when relevant and plentifull) can convict a murderer. In any case, the interpretation of historian Will Bagley, far from been pseudo historical is a valid, an even likely, interpretation of the facts. To say that a historical theory is pseudo historical just because it points to a new understanding of the facts at hand will be equivalent to say that any new theory in particle physics is doomed to failure since we already know how matter works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.135.244.57 (talk) 04:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia articles is not to convict someone based upon circumstantial evidence. Wikipedia states the facts without leading readers to a conclusion. It should not spin the data. This isn't a courtroom. And Bagley, by the way, doesn't represent the church in his opinion. His interpretation of events does not reflect the opinions of other "Mormon" historians - Bagley actually changed one crucial quote from a clearly legible source in order to support his claim (he changed a phrase "raise grain" to "raise allies"). You also do not mention that Lee's book was published by his lawyer after Lee's execution, and that it is not known how much was added or changed by that individual in order to make the book more sensational. Bochica (talk) 17:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's be real. As a filmmaker and writer, biased or unbiased- I have to say: When a film is terribly recieved, shouldn't a review article about its reception correspond proportionally? Why should there be a balance of positive to negative reviews being quoted when the overwhelming majority of the film's reviews were negative? That would just be an example of semantics more than anything else. Appeasement isn't neccessary when you have the facts at hand. Truth be told, anyone who would even give a damn about editing this article in any way would either be a Mormon himself/herself, or an anti-Mormon bent on defending what is clearly a poorly made, propaganda film. There's PLENTY of "accredited" film experts that back me up on that last point. But since this isn't the place to voice "opinions", we have only to reflect the raw facts about the opinions. That is... overwhelming negative reviews to the film compared to the few positive. Cold, hard numbers. So don't ask for more positive review quotations under pretense of wanting it to be unbiased- when it is oh-so-evident that anti-Mormon bias is the only reason one would want to add any disproportionate amount of positive reviews on here in the first place. Enough said. Signed, Andrew042886 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew042886 (talk • contribs) 09:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"Pseudo-historical"

Why delete the word pseudo-historical? I see no reason to refrain from calling the film what it is. contribs) 09:33, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Because we would need a reliable source that uses the term "pseudo-historical" before we could put it in this article. — Val42 (talk) 06:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The makers of this film decided to make a film that was extremely outside the bounds of historical evidence, simply to persicute a religion that they obviously took no time to understand. This film is clearly biased. If it wasn't then the filmakers wouldn't have chosen to ignore every piece of historical evidence with which they were provided, and made a completely fictional version of the story instead. If you wanted this article to be accurate then it should say pseudo historical fiction. If you truly wanted to be accurate then it should say, "A completley fictional piece of filth that was clearly inspired by Satan!" There is no way that a graphic, rated R film like this can be "inspired of god," and there is only one alternative. This film is a sick, disgusting, grotesque work of fiction that will only leave one sick and disapointed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fizzos96 (talk

From Talk:September Dawn/Comments

The following personal commentary has been moved here, where it fits better, from it's previous location at Talk:September Dawn/Comments, and has been placed in the approximately the correct chronological order. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

This is the most biased (trashed?) article I have seen on Wikipedia. It has clearly been attacked.

This is a pretty good movie. It may have some historical inaccuracies, although it seems pretty much in line with the Wikipedia entries on the actual massacres.

It appears that this entry has been subject to the intensive PR push against the movie by the LDS Church.

I am not the right person, but someone needs to look at this entry.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.120.190 (talk • contribs) 23:46, 20 February 2008

Anti-Mormonism/POV in Reception

Hello! I am User:Monkeytheboy. Upon reading this article, I've noticed a few things that are very unencyclopedic. (Which have also been reflected in this talk page). Although your additions to factual references are always appreciated, your OPINIONS on what is factual and what is not, cannot be placed in an encylopedia unless these can be backed up by reliable sources. If you believe your point of view is correct and would like some help on writing it in an encyclopedic manner, please refer to WP:POV.
I will remove any references to anti-mormonism because any encyclopedic article has to only describe what something is (such as a film) and perhaps its critical reception. However, interpretations of what a movie's premises are or the interpretation of its meanins are not encyclopedic material. If you would like to write an opinion on something and have it featured in wikipedia, you can do so by writing an essay. More information can be found at WP:ESSAY. I WILL NOT remove the critical reception the movie received since this factual information is encyclopedic. The redundancy however is unnecessary.
Finally I would like to point out that I AM NOT anti-mormon. In belonging to a small religious group myself, plus being a minority in my country of USA, I can understand what it is like to be prejudiced against both ethnically and religiously. Please do not misconstrue my edits as anti-mormonists because not only will that be false, but the mere statements will deeply hurt my feelings as a person. I just believe there is a time and place to defend ones beliefs and wikipedia is not the place to put opinions and defend your personal point of views.
Thank you.
Monkeytheboy (talk) 16:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Joseph Goebbels, etc?

Is it just me or does anyone else find it highly inappropriate to link to that article from this one? I understand there is a theme of intolerance being carried, but it's a stretch. Indja (talk) 14:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The see also list includes many terms used in dirct quotes, that would be linked on if not within a quote. WP house style is to not link in quotes, so those links instead go in the see also section. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

However, per WP:Seealso, this section is supposed to be a brief section of links to related articles. I highly doubt I'd find any additional information that relates to the movie September Dawn that article in most of these links. I agree that the Seealso section in this article is excessive, bordering on ridiculous. The linked policy implies that if an article were properly written, this section wouldn't even need to exist. In this case it's being used as POV pushing by implying a connection with some of the topics listed. Dave (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

All gone. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:54, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The complete deletion of the whole see also section was excessive. At minimum Anti-Mormonism, Mormonism and violence, and Portrayals of Mormons in popular media are all directly related subjects. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Continuing NPOV issues with Reception section.

As others have pointed any several times before, the reception section is not NPOV compliant and it does not appear that this has been sufficiently addressed. First, the first part of the section reads like it was written by a apologist for the Mormon church. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is still very controversial event in Mormon history and exactly role Mormons like Brigham Young may have played in it is very controversial. But this section comes across as if the filmmakers interpretation of the events is clearly wrong when in reality the truth of what really happened is still heavily debated. Some others issue with the section include:

• There are too many negative quotes then is really needed for the section. The fact that many critics did not like the film is well established early on so having that many quotes just comes across to me as if there is an attempt to push a pro-Mormon agenda.
• None of the negative quotes indicate in the section who wrote them. You shouldn't have to go down to the notes section to find out who rote each quote.
• All the quotes are focused on the alleged anti-Mormonism and alleged religious intolerance of the film. There is little or no mention of the other problems with the film many of the critics had. Having skimmed through some of the reviews on link to from Rotten Tomatoes, I can say that historical issues and alleged religious intolerance are not the only issues critics had with the film though the reception section seems to make it seem that way.

--Cab88 (talk) 21:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I concur with the previous assesment and am ready to thresh this article down to just the bare basics. This would include a complete scrapping of the Mitt Romney nonsense. All I am waiting for is the admins who frequent this page to greenlight it. This article needs someone to be bold and fix the problems. I am ready to do that but fear that my edits will reverted due to the fact that any article with LDS ties draws such quick knee jerk reactions from so many editors. WesUGAdawg (talk) 00:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I have trimmed the fat down to just the basics. It might help people know how bad this movie is if someone wanted to add in the Metacritic score, but I really feel that the myriad quotes should remain gone. They represent a NPOV problem that for the time being is resolved. The Mitt Romney section is gone as it was clearly unverifiable and based purely on speculation. As best as I can tell this resolves most of the issues previously discussed on this page. WesUGAdawg (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

A few quotes have been added to the reception section supporting the film. That is fine with me but it seems odd that it was the ONLY contribution from that URL. The question is WHY would someone's only contribution be to mention repeatedly how contoversial this movie is? If it is to try and make this a biased POV article then I will just trim it back to next to nothing, but for now I don't see any reason why cited quotes that don't come off as a tirade need to be deleted. WesUGAdawg (talk) 19:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:Weight may be the worry in keeping them. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)