Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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itsmerich
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Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by itsmerich »

Got done w/ episode 2.

So far it's a pretty compelling show and enjoying it. The "mormon speak" can be a little cringy at times and maybe a bit exaggerated but it's likely people do talk like that or we have at some point in our lives.
As an LDS I understand the nuisances but for non-lds I think a lot will go over their heads. Joseph Smith for the most part is portrayed very well though him looking into the hat is definitely odd from a modern perspective.
We see a wide range of "mormon" types - ultra right to centrist to more on the liberal end (good liberal meaning women can do things like men as well but not to the ultra liberal notions).

As with any church, you get many flavors and you get the good with the bad. For the most part they get a lot of LDS Utah culture down. I would say though I'm not seeing anything that would be blasphemous.
I know they're going to show some temple robe things but if you think about it - it's not blasphemous as the priests in the OT could be seen w/ these clothes. It just is odd for us to see it as normally its within the temple.
Yes there's some white man (once again prejudicing colored people) in this case a Lamanaite - which adds to the pushed racism that the left continues to fuel. Yes I agree, people can be prejudiced but on the whole with all the LDS I've met in my life it's so small that it's insignificant.

They also talk about the satanic infiltration into Utah - and for those die hard TBMs that cult is definitely within our church ranks. If you don't think so then you've not made yourself aware by educating yourself on what's happened in the past.

Andrew Garfield does a great job of playing a "normal" every day LDS faithful member. The main family is a bit "extreme" in terms of their mormon speak and definitely gives off a weird vibe.

Anyhow, I like it and it's getting very interesting as to "who was the killer(s)".

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ParticleMan
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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layer8prob@gmail.com
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by layer8prob@gmail.com »

Finished the show. It definitely takes a lot of liberties with the facts related to the Lafferty murders, Mormon history, and some Mormon culture. The main character, detective Jeb Pyre, is a fictional character as is the town in Utah so it's not a documentary but still.

I did find the themes of people going off the deepend with religion and also questioning one's faith interesting. But the blatant factual errors combined with the anti-patriarchy/feminist narratives ruined it for me.

Some factual errors/narratives:

Emma was not part of Joseph Smith's First Vision or him finding the Golden Plates, she didn't enter his life until a few years after that.

The Lafferty family were most certainly NOT the "Kennedys of Utah". Having known people who knew them, they were described as kooks even by 1980s conservative Mormon standards.

The modern LDS Church leadership is very much vilified. A General Authority is shown "dusting off his feet" in detective Pyre's office when he (Pyre)refuses to hide evidence that paints the Church in a bad light. Also Ron Lafferty had a disciplinary council during which local Church leadership condemns him "first and foremost" for publicity disrespecting his local leaders while physical abuse of his family was secondary concern.

Joseph Smith is generally portrayed in a positive light but Brigham Young is vilified and they even go so far as to suggest that it was he who plotted against Joseph Smith leading to his death. It's also suggested that Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

There is a rather odd scene where after Ron Lafferty is excommunicated his teenage daughter cuts the marks off of his garmets then runs off as he arrives. His teenage daughter would likely not know anything about the marks nor would she know to cut them off, nor would it be her place to do that. That was a wierd scene and didn't make sense.

I would almost go so far as to say it was anti-Mormon propaganda but I see it as just more secular programming that vilifies traditional faith and religion in general and takes a modern feminist angle in doing it.

Scooter
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by Scooter »

layer8prob@gmail.com wrote: June 20th, 2022, 11:48 pm Finished the show. It definitely takes a lot of liberties with the facts related to the Lafferty murders, Mormon history, and some Mormon culture. The main character, detective Jeb Pyre, is a fictional character as is the town in Utah so it's not a documentary but still.

I did find the themes of people going off the deepend with religion and also questioning one's faith interesting. But the blatant factual errors combined with the anti-patriarchy/feminist narratives ruined it for me.

Some factual errors/narratives:

Emma was not part of Joseph Smith's First Vision or him finding the Golden Plates, she didn't enter his life until a few years after that.

The Lafferty family were most certainly NOT the "Kennedys of Utah". Having known people who knew them, they were described as kooks even by 1980s conservative Mormon standards.

The modern LDS Church leadership is very much vilified. A General Authority is shown "dusting off his feet" in detective Pyre's office when he (Pyre)refuses to hide evidence that paints the Church in a bad light. Also Ron Lafferty had a disciplinary council during which local Church leadership condemns him "first and foremost" for publicity disrespecting his local leaders while physical abuse of his family was secondary concern.

Joseph Smith is generally portrayed in a positive light but Brigham Young is vilified and they even go so far as to suggest that it was he who plotted against Joseph Smith leading to his death. It's also suggested that Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

There is a rather odd scene where after Ron Lafferty is excommunicated his teenage daughter cuts the marks off of his garmets then runs off as he arrives. His teenage daughter would likely not know anything about the marks nor would she know to cut them off, nor would it be her place to do that. That was a wierd scene and didn't make sense.

I would almost go so far as to say it was anti-Mormon propaganda but I see it as just more secular programming that vilifies traditional faith and religion in general and takes a modern feminist angle in doing it.
I haven't watched it, was going to, but from what I've heard from many different sources, wont watch. Interesting they point a finger at BY for Joseph's death. My spouse is 100% that he did it.

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gradles21
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by gradles21 »

I watched it, outside of the main character I thought the acting was terrible, and all the dialogue was poorly written and unrealistic. The dumbest scene in the series is when Brenda takes Allen home to Idaho to meet her family and as soon as Allen and Brenda's father(a bishop) have a moment together he starts grilling Allen because Allen somehow still believes that the husband should be the leader of the family, because this show would have us believe that Idaho Mormons in the 80's were super liberal. The overall message of this show is that Mormonism is the breeding ground for creating extremist men, but if the creators of this show would have just done a little homework they would have came to the obvious conclusion that the majority of Mormon men are nothing but weak passivists.

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zionssuburb
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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"There is a rather odd scene where after Ron Lafferty is excommunicated his teenage daughter cuts the marks off of his garmets then runs off as he arrives. His teenage daughter would likely not know anything about the marks nor would she know to cut them off, nor would it be her place to do that. That was a wierd scene and didn't make sense."

It was really weird to me as well, however, the woman who did a deep-dive background article on Brenda for the D-News mentioned in a conversation I was in on this came from an interview with Ron's daughter who really did that. Take it for the she said that she said kinda thing, but some of the really odd items in the show came from diaries, letters and interviews with people. They were certainly quirky, and many quirky things were put into that show for purposes of showing weirdness specifically.

BTW, speaking as a Teen during that time, we all knew about that stuff because it was the tradition to cut the marks out and use garments as rags, I participated in cutting them out with my mother in the 80s, as did many of my friends (judging by the 'car wash' fund raisers we did as youth with everyone using the same old-garment style rags on the cars).

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BuriedTartaria
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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layer8prob@gmail.com wrote: June 20th, 2022, 11:48 pm
Joseph Smith is generally portrayed in a positive light but Brigham Young is vilified and they even go so far as to suggest that it was he who plotted against Joseph Smith leading to his death.
Based. Reconsidering the story is breaking into the mainstream. This is good for truth. Your write up of the show has convinced me to check it out

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John Tavner
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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layer8prob@gmail.com wrote: June 20th, 2022, 11:48 pm Finished the show. It definitely takes a lot of liberties with the facts related to the Lafferty murders, Mormon history, and some Mormon culture. The main character, detective Jeb Pyre, is a fictional character as is the town in Utah so it's not a documentary but still.

I did find the themes of people going off the deepend with religion and also questioning one's faith interesting. But the blatant factual errors combined with the anti-patriarchy/feminist narratives ruined it for me.

Some factual errors/narratives:

Emma was not part of Joseph Smith's First Vision or him finding the Golden Plates, she didn't enter his life until a few years after that.

The Lafferty family were most certainly NOT the "Kennedys of Utah". Having known people who knew them, they were described as kooks even by 1980s conservative Mormon standards.

The modern LDS Church leadership is very much vilified. A General Authority is shown "dusting off his feet" in detective Pyre's office when he (Pyre)refuses to hide evidence that paints the Church in a bad light. Also Ron Lafferty had a disciplinary council during which local Church leadership condemns him "first and foremost" for publicity disrespecting his local leaders while physical abuse of his family was secondary concern.

Joseph Smith is generally portrayed in a positive light but Brigham Young is vilified and they even go so far as to suggest that it was he who plotted against Joseph Smith leading to his death. It's also suggested that Brigham Young ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

There is a rather odd scene where after Ron Lafferty is excommunicated his teenage daughter cuts the marks off of his garmets then runs off as he arrives. His teenage daughter would likely not know anything about the marks nor would she know to cut them off, nor would it be her place to do that. That was a wierd scene and didn't make sense.

I would almost go so far as to say it was anti-Mormon propaganda but I see it as just more secular programming that vilifies traditional faith and religion in general and takes a modern feminist angle in doing it.
There are some accounts of Emma being with Joseph on his final approach to obtain the plates. Alvin was supposed to be with him and then Emma.

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BuriedTartaria
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by BuriedTartaria »

John Tavner wrote: June 21st, 2022, 12:37 pm
There are some accounts of Emma being with Joseph on his final approach to obtain the plates. Alvin was supposed to be with him and then Emma.
I have come across this same information and I'm trying to retrace my steps to see where I found it and the source of it. As you said, Alvin was supposed to be brought by Joseph to get the plates. The fabricated Salamander Letter leans into this aspect a lot (IIRC, the letter implies the Salamander scolds Joseph for not bringing Alvin's dead remains with him) so I think most people are quick to write off the Alvin part as being strictly from the Salamander Letter, but it does not originate with the Salamander Letter.

The source I read said that Joseph was told by a heavenly instructor (Nephi or Moroni) that another would be provided for Joseph to take with him when he goes to get the plates. The messenger told Joseph he would know the other person when he came across them. Joseph briefly thinks it's some guy he meets then he is for sure certain that it's Emma Hale he is supposed to take with him when he meets Emma Hale. The account says Emma is with Joseph when he secures the plates.

If this story is real, it should show how absolutely important Emma's role was in the retrieval of the plates. Joseph could not retrieve the plates when he did not have Alvin. If he was not obedient and did not bring Emma with him, he would not have been able to retrieve the plates.

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bbsion
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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I did not read the book Under The Banner of Heaven. But the author of the book, Jon Krakauer, claims to be an atheist who had Mormon friends growing up. The creator of the TV show is Dustin Lance Black. An ex-Mormon and LGBT activist. Because of this, the show is riddled with bias and obvious disdain for the Mormon religion with subtle jabs at believing in God period. It's loaded with historical inaccuracies fueled by that bias. The show has some good acting, and that's about it. It's less about the horrific crime committed by extreme nut jobs and more about trying to make Mormons as a whole look bad. It does a piss poor job of trying to come across as objective. Considering the nature of the TV show, I must conclude that the book is utter trash as well. I highly do not recommend anyone watch the TV show. Just google the crime if you are interested in learning about it, you're bound to find less hateful bias and you'll save yourself a lot of time.

blitzinstripes
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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I am currently binging the series with my wife. We will prob finish it tomorrow. I actually really like it. It showed way too much of the temple, but other than that I have no quarrel. In all honesty, Mormons who watch it with an open mind will probably be in for a very uncomfortable look in the mirror. And that's not necessarily a BAD thing. Their portrayal of LDS culture is more accurate than most within the church would like to admit. It's a very well executed production and the actors and screenplay are excellent. I was surprised to find the "Swede" from Hell on Wheels. He plays a despicable villain in that series (who also ends up in the church, ironically) and plays an excellent and convincing role of the over zealous "patriarch" of the Lafferty clan. I've known more than a few like him in my lifetime.

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thaabit
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

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blitzinstripes wrote: August 31st, 2022, 7:10 pm I am currently binging the series with my wife. We will prob finish it tomorrow. I actually really like it. It showed way too much of the temple, but other than that I have no quarrel. In all honesty, Mormons who watch it with an open mind will probably be in for a very uncomfortable look in the mirror. And that's not necessarily a BAD thing. Their portrayal of LDS culture is more accurate than most within the church would like to admit. It's a very well executed production and the actors and screenplay are excellent. I was surprised to find the "Swede" from Hell on Wheels. He plays a despicable villain in that series (who also ends up in the church, ironically) and plays an excellent and convincing role of the over zealous "patriarch" of the Lafferty clan. I've known more than a few like him in my lifetime.
Stranger Things had a much more spot-on recreation of LDS culture..

blitzinstripes
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by blitzinstripes »

thaabit wrote: August 31st, 2022, 8:28 pm
blitzinstripes wrote: August 31st, 2022, 7:10 pm I am currently binging the series with my wife. We will prob finish it tomorrow. I actually really like it. It showed way too much of the temple, but other than that I have no quarrel. In all honesty, Mormons who watch it with an open mind will probably be in for a very uncomfortable look in the mirror. And that's not necessarily a BAD thing. Their portrayal of LDS culture is more accurate than most within the church would like to admit. It's a very well executed production and the actors and screenplay are excellent. I was surprised to find the "Swede" from Hell on Wheels. He plays a despicable villain in that series (who also ends up in the church, ironically) and plays an excellent and convincing role of the over zealous "patriarch" of the Lafferty clan. I've known more than a few like him in my lifetime.
Stranger Things had a much more spot-on recreation of LDS culture..
Really? How so?

EvanLM
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by EvanLM »

BuriedTartaria wrote: June 21st, 2022, 12:46 pm
John Tavner wrote: June 21st, 2022, 12:37 pm
There are some accounts of Emma being with Joseph on his final approach to obtain the plates. Alvin was supposed to be with him and then Emma.
I have come across this same information and I'm trying to retrace my steps to see where I found it and the source of it. As you said, Alvin was supposed to be brought by Joseph to get the plates. The fabricated Salamander Letter leans into this aspect a lot (IIRC, the letter implies the Salamander scolds Joseph for not bringing Alvin's dead remains with him) so I think most people are quick to write off the Alvin part as being strictly from the Salamander Letter, but it does not originate with the Salamander Letter.

The source I read said that Joseph was told by a heavenly instructor (Nephi or Moroni) that another would be provided for Joseph to take with him when he goes to get the plates. The messenger told Joseph he would know the other person when he came across them. Joseph briefly thinks it's some guy he meets then he is for sure certain that it's Emma Hale he is supposed to take with him when he meets Emma Hale. The account says Emma is with Joseph when he secures the plates.

If this story is real, it should show how absolutely important Emma's role was in the retrieval of the plates. Joseph could not retrieve the plates when he did not have Alvin. If he was not obedient and did not bring Emma with him, he would not have been able to retrieve the plates.
re written history . . .like the salamander letter

logonbump
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by logonbump »

blitzinstripes wrote: September 1st, 2022, 5:19 am
thaabit wrote: August 31st, 2022, 8:28 pm
blitzinstripes wrote: August 31st, 2022, 7:10 pm I am currently binging the series with my wife. We will prob finish it tomorrow. I actually really like it. It showed way too much of the temple, but other than that I have no quarrel. In all honesty, Mormons who watch it with an open mind will probably be in for a very uncomfortable look in the mirror. And that's not necessarily a BAD thing. Their portrayal of LDS culture is more accurate than most within the church would like to admit. It's a very well executed production and the actors and screenplay are excellent. I was surprised to find the "Swede" from Hell on Wheels. He plays a despicable villain in that series (who also ends up in the church, ironically) and plays an excellent and convincing role of the over zealous "patriarch" of the Lafferty clan. I've known more than a few like him in my lifetime.
Stranger Things had a much more spot-on recreation of LDS culture..
Really? How so?
The show in question, this one, is not a good representation at all.

Acc to "Former American Fork Police Chief Randy Johnson said "I find the book to be substantially more accurate than the miniseries. ... I cannot recognize any actual person that I knew or came to know, accurately depicted in the series. The series does not reflect the actual investigation that I oversaw. Nor does it reflect the attitudes, behaviors and conduct of me or any of my officers. It is clearly a work of fiction as indicated by the disclaimer.”

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zionssuburb
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven Show

Post by zionssuburb »

One only needs to compare the newer show, 'A Friend in the Family' - That one is much better at portraying an LDS culture of the 70s and 80s.

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