There'salso a very excellent documentary on the Mountain Meadows massacre itself, which aired at the Idaho Film Festival a couple of years back. I believe it's called Burying the Past.

It is a stretch to connect any historical rehash on Mormonism to Mitt and call it a campaign issue. Who the hell cares?
"September Dawn" doesn't evoke romantic connotations for me any more than "The Hunt for Red October" or whatever that was.
The historical authority on Mountain Meadows Massacre is Jaunita Brooks. Joseph Smith wasn't there, nor Brigham Young. The authority who ordered the sequestration of the wagon train was a local leader in Beaver. John D. Lee cried l ike a baby and tried to dissuade the indians and Mormons, and earned the indian moniker "Yahguts" or "crybaby". Brigham Young, when informed of the situation, ordered that the wagon train be released and sent on out of the territory, but his instruction arriived too late.
The migrating party was principally from Missouri and Arkansas, and they were a rude lot. They poisoned springs as they passed, causing indians and whites to lose livestock. As they passed by settlements they provoked the Mormons with stupid taunts of how they had helped kill Joe Smith and how they were going to go to California and get recruits to come back and plunder Mormon villages.
All this during the alarm of the approaching Johnson's Army, sent by the Federal Government to put an end to Mormonism, according to the yellow press of the day, which railed against "The Twin Relics of Barbarism"
The modern Mormon Church did not welcome Jaunita Brooks' research and documentation on the subject. In St. George, where she lived, she was shunned and considered an unfaithful Mormon for telling the truth.
John D. Lee is a textbook example of a cult devotee who vested his all in obedience to authority, only to have his fellow cult members turn him into a scapegoat. Southern Utah settlers lied about his responsibility. Brigham Young gave orders for a Mormon jury to convict him for the tragedy when a non-mormon jury already found him not guilty. The bit about double jeopardy was ignored by Mormon and Gentile alike for the sake of "doing something" to appease the yellow press of the day-- the media.
The damn thing about it all is no one-- Mormon or not-- is any better today. Not the Mormons who try so hard to imitate born-again Christian "faith", not the fundamentalist Christians and Catholics who are accepting plank after plank of radical nineteeth-century Mormonism, and not our sound-bite media all set to spring into action for stupid social agenda goals that in the last analysis are creating a society that functions like a cult.

Oh Boy! You have to get your facts straight before people like you go blogging your opinion all over the internet...

You wrote:
"They poisoned springs as they passed, causing indians and whites to lose livestock. As they passed by settlements they provoked the Mormons with stupid taunts of how they had helped kill Joe Smith and how they were going to go to California and get recruits to come back and plunder Mormon villages."

There is absolutely no proof that this actually happened. In fact, most historians agree that this is most likely stories created to cover up and justify the event by renegade members of the LDS Church.

Either you are clearly uninformed or you are a member of the Church buying into this BS.

I am also equally impressed by poeple who write film reviews on films that they have not seen. (Tracy Medley)

I would suggest waiting till it comes out before you spew your worthless opinion...

Say, guys? Let's be nice. Argue with the post, not with the poster, and let's disagree without being disagreeable, okay?

Joe,
Since neither of us was there, lets just say the best we can do is look at accounts(diaries, oral accounts recorded by relatives of people who in some way claimed direct knowledge of a specific allegation, etc, or newspaper articles of the day. This is the kind of information Juanita Brooks assembled, and she was not a Church apologist and neither am I. It's easy for lazy "historians" such as some are to criticize these accounts and offer alternate explanations. If historians since Juanita Brooks have found new information, new sources that are of the same kind as what Juanita Brooks assembled, they should be given due consideration. But to posit alternate theories and try to discredit the work of a thorough historian like Juanita Brooks, without new source material to back up the new interpretation, just doesn't give me a reason to change the interpretation I have posited here.
Perhaps I should go study these newer "historians" you refer to and review my opinion, but you have offered no substantiation for your view in terms of items of historical relevance which my source did not review.
But neither did I offer source references other than the work of Juanita Brooks, which I have given my own interpretation to while taking generous liberties in favor of my own biases. I made no representation that what I said was anything more than my opinion, based on my reading of one historian.
I just found this view(mine) a comprehensive and realistic take that gives consideration to various claims. It is true that the Mormons made the claims at the time. But the indians didn't just join the posse because it was the only game in the desert. They were already tracking the train when the Mormons joined in, or they were susceptible to recruitment on promises of booty. The poisoned springs incident, to the best of my recollections per the book, was in the Fillmore area. The Mormons went out from Cedar City a few weeks later, and found the unhappy Indians nearby. The stories of the "rude" Missourians began to circulate before there was any attempt to stop the train. They were not invented as an excuse later.
My opinion does not idealize anyone, it takes a rather sad view of all the people involved and makes no heroes. Please note that even for Mormons, slaughtering emigrants was not the normal thing they did. There were extenuating circumstances that led to this tragedy.

Dear Joe,

Where's your sense of funny? This was not a film review - it was an observation. Casting Dean Cain as Joseph Smith is funny, whether you want to admit it or not.

The movie could be great, but the burden is upon the filmmakers to make people want to see it and my criticism is more about the way the film is being marketed than about the film itself.

Thanks
Tracy

I have read a few of the historical accounts of the events and some modern analysis of the accounts. Additionally, I have seen a preview of the film.

The event is terribly saddening and even today people are deeply affected by this event, both descendants of the settlers and members of LDS.

What I find important about this event and what the film portrays is a religous group that tried to fight for autonomy from the United States and suffered from that. Therefore, they were was great animosity towards gentile folks. Then, there is the question of whether it was this fear of additional aggression that led them to kill the settlers, or whether it was perceived as revenge (they may have believed that some of the people travelling with the settlers participated in the killing of Joseph Smith), or whether they believed that non-members of the church would be saved by being killed. It may have been a mixture of the reasons.

Today, the problem that exists is that the descendants of the survivors are fighting to get broader recognition for this important historical event. Plus, they feel that the leadership within the church had dictated that the settlers be killed. With these kinds of painful feelings, they are trying to find comfort. Since the grave site where the slain belongs to LDS, the tombstone is intentionally vague about what happened and avoids placing any blame.

LDS has admitted that something terrible happened, but the descendants want an admission of intent and guilt to accompany an apology. I don't see as that this could possibly come from the church and that will mean that this event will haunt with us for a long time.

I have to agree with the former Ms. Brewer. Not only was Dean Cain the worst Superman ever but casting him as Joseph Smith is frickin' hilarious.

Are we all aware that it's Dean's father who is directing the film and that none other than Terrence Stamp (General Zod from Superman II -- another Supes connection!) is starring as Brigham Young? Despite the obviously emotional subject matter, this thing sounds like a laugh fest to me.

Terrence Stamp?? See, but that changes my whole thesis. I'll see anything with Zod in it.

I even, almost didn't sleep through Toby Dammit.

In regards to a comment above concerning Lee trial: The first trail ended in a hung jury, hence trial #2. Also the first trial consisted of a jury of 8 Mormans and 4 gentiles. Double jepordy was not involved.