So I figured since my recommend was still current, and since my TBM DW was mentioning how I hadn't been in a while, I'd take her to see the new movie.

First the great news: she commented after on how the garden of Eden in the video didn't look anything like what she saw when we visited Missouri, and how nothing in Missouri looked like it could have ever hosted the Garden of Eden.

Let's start at the beginning: the first thing you notice is that this was definitely done in HD. It's all much sharper and crisper than the previous generation of movies, which were really starting to show their age, especially at our recently built local temple, which had the latest and greatest projection system.

The outer space opening (we worship aliens) was very well done, a major step up from the fake rocks on strings look of the previous gen. That said, with the panning shot of a nebula while an orchestra played, I kept expecting the USS Enterprise to appear in the shot.

Instead I got a visual effect that looked like an away team beaming in, and when the brightness faded, there was God and Jesus and Michael standing in space while god gave his order for a custom-made planet.

The first day's events reflect an effort to align more with the scientific origin of the Earth, as we see solar dust and debris coalesce into a new planet, which then appears as a dark world with molten fissures where the tectonic plates are forming.

The film progresses along the creation of the day and the night (no LED stars in our room as I've read about in some reports). The spiritual/physical creation concept still uses drawings, but they are more dynamic than the old films (which looked like a camera panning around an existing mural), these move slightly here, get drawn in there, etc. to give a much more animated view.

The physical creation scenes are much better this time around, the church spared no expense on stock footage this time.

So we get to the garden, and it looks much more like Hawaii than Jackson County. Palm trees, green mountains, the whole shebang. Oddly we see a scene where there's Adam looking at a Lion, Sheep, and Bear in the same spot in the lush tropical setting. I can accept that in Eden the animals don't eat eachother, but those three don't belong in that environment, let along the same environment. That bear and sheep would have been sweating something serious.

As things pick up we see where the extra 12 minutes came from. They didn't modify the dialogue, but everyone in this version came from the William Shatner school... of acting! There are dramatic pauses thrown in everywhere! Satan was annoying, and looked more like he was proposing to Eve than offering her fruit, with big puppydog eyes trying to convince her. I really missed Michael Ballam.

Eve cries when she takes the fruit, Adam cries when she offers it to him, but not before doing something I remember from Friends. In Friends, Joey told everyone how when he wanted to look dramatic, or have time to remember a line, he'd look off into the distance like he just smelled a fart (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0FoAilP1K0), and Adam did just that before accepting his fate (and crying).

So they get cast out of Hawaii, I mean the Garden of Eden, only to wind up in Arizona. Yup, the lone and desolate world is a desert canyon. I have no idea how Adam is supposed to eat by the sweat of his brow in this place, or why God cast him halfway across North America when he was cast out of Jackson County.

Next up we get Peter, James, and John. Peter looks like an overweight, balding bishop, James look latino, and John looks mediterranean. Satan does a lowsy job of asking if they have any money and telling Adam he can get anything with money (the movie may have a better cinematographer but it had an awful director). Again you miss having Michael Ballam and wooden actors.

The whole thing is a visual step up, and a performance step down. They tried to make up for the wooden acting and lack of drama in the last movie with melodrama in this one.

There's another review here that I found pretty much in line with my views (except the actor similarities): http://zomarah.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/new-temple-movie-review/

Thanks for sharing. Very descriptive. We appreciate it since most of us at RfM have no inclination of ever going back there.

I'd be very happy for that to be my last, first time since figuring things out and it is very cultish now. I literally rolled my eyes at times.

I can't believe no one had the gift of discernment to realize that an apostate was present in the House of the Lord...
;)

+100

I'm a ninja.

That will do.

Thanks for the "return and report"!

squeebee Wrote:
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> The first day's events reflect an effort to align
> more with the scientific origin of the Earth, as
> we see solar dust and debris coalesce into a new
> planet, which then appears as a dark world with
> molten fissures where the tectonic plates are
> forming.

But wait! What about the dinosaur bones being left over from
the pieces of other planets that our planet was formed from?

I was in the back of the room, if I had been closer I assume I could have seen the tiny bones coalescing with everything else.

Satan already had them packed up in his bag along with the shovel ready to start burying them around the world to confuse us all in the "latter days".

That's like expecting to be able to melt a mishmash of jaw breaker pieces together to form a new jaw breaker and expect the colored layers to still be in tact.

Mmmmm, frankenbreaker...

Can't wait until it's on Netflix!

Seriously though, the whole review had me rotflol. Very well done.

Glad you liked it.

I found this link in the comments section of the review on zamorah.wordpress found above:



August 14, 2013 at 9:25 pm

Just FYI: The new Satan is played by the “dad” actor in the ‘stop whooping cough’ commercial… http://stopwhoopingcough.org/.

Reply
ldsrevelations says:
August 15, 2013 at 3:44 pm

Isn’t that the guy from Saints and Soldiers? Corbin Allred?

Reply
Madiantin says:
August 17, 2013 at 12:36 pm

Indeed it is.

Looks like him.

That's Satan???? He doesn't look like he can hurt a fly, nevermind threaten people. Did the whole room burst out laughing when he threatened that they will be in his power?

squeebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So I figured since my recommend was still current,
> and since my TBM DW was mentioning how I hadn't
> been in a while, I'd take her to see the new
> movie.


You are such a hot date! ;-)

It must be really, really strange attending a temple (or however you say it) with an entirely new set of eyes. In a sense you are very fortunate to be able to have that experience.

I had a leader in one ward who lectured us about treating the temple with soberness. He got all mad, because he'd heard it called "dinner and a movie" because you do an endowment session and then get something to eat in the cafeteria. I had never heard it called that before, and I almost laughed in the meeting.

Did anybody have to excuse themselve to go potty? Seriously. With an extra 12 minutes, I don't know how those little old ladies can control their bladders.

I was in my 30's and could barely hold it in by the end of the last film!

;o)

Depends!
Brought to you by LDS, Inc.

Wow, sounds far too disappointing to want to pay admission again.

I"ll stay home & watch cable with popcorn & a glass of wine.. :D

Way back when I was active TR's were good for one year. Sometime between then and now, the TSCC started the two year TR plan. So as it stands, a person could "fall away" and have a lot of time left on their TR, resulting in the YouTube videos and "return and report" posts we see today. I was thinking the TSCC might come up with the brainy idea of going back to one year TR's to try to reign in some of this. What do you folks think?

Please please PLEASE post this on a movie review website or six.

Rotten Tomatoes?

Yes!

left4good Wrote:
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> Please please PLEASE post this on a movie review
> website or six.

I posted a few months ago that, to my surprise, an earlier version of the LDS temple movie is actually reviewed by a few people on the IMDB. You could add the updated one there.

I was laughing so hard my never mo fiance asked me what was so funny. I had to preface my remarks by telling him a little bit about the temple film and the main points of it. He was rolling his eyes and when I started reading your report we were both practically rolling on the floor! It all just seems so silly now, doesn't it?

Thanks for the laugh

Thanks for the report. I remember reading that the previous movies were produced with a lot of closeted gay Mormon men on the set doing the creative direction. With them now out of the church I bet the creative essence has departed as well. Just guessing.

I'll be watching for it at Redbox.