Witnesses Trailer a Triumph
Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:09 pm
So, I have to apologize for dropping the ball here, but I finally got around to watching the trailer for the much-anticipated Witnesses movie. It is really thanks to our good Doctor Scratch, who included the trailer in his wonderfully informative and guffaw-inducing yearly Top Ten of Mopologetics that I became aware that this trailer had dropped. I was expecting the trailer, because of the way I found out about it, to be a goofball caper of a flop.
Here it is for those who have not seen it: https://witnessesfilm.com
Well, I could not have been more mistaken. This trailer is a stunning success! I don't care who you are; if you have an open mind, yes, even an unbelieving open mind, you are going to want to see this movie, judging from this trailer. I think a person has to squint pretty hard to blur their vision into one that is unfavorable toward what we are seeing here. If Interpreter has done nothing else, and personally I think it has done a number of cool things, THIS tops the list as the coolest thing thus far.
Why am I so enthusiastic? Because this is as much about religious experience as it is about the Book of Mormon, its discovery, and its witnesses, and Mormonism. It invites its readers to contemplate exactly what the plates claim is and what is at stake. It explores what it means to believe or disbelieve. It allows frankly outsider views such as that of the highly distinguished Religious Studies professor Ann Taves. I'm sorry, but the fact that Taves is in the trailer is, for an LDS production, gutsy in the extreme. Consider all of the gatekeeping that happens in the LDS-sphere, and my jaw drops to hear her say the things she says in this trailer.
If this is propaganda, and doubtless there is a strong element of advocacy for the cause in this, it is mixed with a strong dose of genuine searching and questioning. What does the Book of Mormon, as an artifact that was witnessed but is now missing, really mean? What do the witnesses mean? What does the fact that their testimonies mix together the physical and the spiritual mean? In the latter question, one cannot help but detect the plates' (as an event and object) strong consistency with the rest of Joseph Smith's theological vision.
I really want to see this movie, and I recommend that everyone else see it too. This movie looks like a very good thing, perhaps the best thing that has ever come out of the world of LDS apologetics. We'll see if the movie itself lives up to the trailer, but I cannot see many people, including critics, who are genuinely interested in the foundations of Mormonism not wanting to see this film at least once. Before I saw this trailer I was anticipating I would want to see the movie, and I am in no way disappointed by what I have seen in the trailer. To the contrary, I am bursting with enthusiasm.
Shout out to friend of the board, Don Bradley, who puts in an appearance in the trailer. I enjoyed his brief comments and I hope we see more of him in the film.
Here it is for those who have not seen it: https://witnessesfilm.com
Well, I could not have been more mistaken. This trailer is a stunning success! I don't care who you are; if you have an open mind, yes, even an unbelieving open mind, you are going to want to see this movie, judging from this trailer. I think a person has to squint pretty hard to blur their vision into one that is unfavorable toward what we are seeing here. If Interpreter has done nothing else, and personally I think it has done a number of cool things, THIS tops the list as the coolest thing thus far.
Why am I so enthusiastic? Because this is as much about religious experience as it is about the Book of Mormon, its discovery, and its witnesses, and Mormonism. It invites its readers to contemplate exactly what the plates claim is and what is at stake. It explores what it means to believe or disbelieve. It allows frankly outsider views such as that of the highly distinguished Religious Studies professor Ann Taves. I'm sorry, but the fact that Taves is in the trailer is, for an LDS production, gutsy in the extreme. Consider all of the gatekeeping that happens in the LDS-sphere, and my jaw drops to hear her say the things she says in this trailer.
If this is propaganda, and doubtless there is a strong element of advocacy for the cause in this, it is mixed with a strong dose of genuine searching and questioning. What does the Book of Mormon, as an artifact that was witnessed but is now missing, really mean? What do the witnesses mean? What does the fact that their testimonies mix together the physical and the spiritual mean? In the latter question, one cannot help but detect the plates' (as an event and object) strong consistency with the rest of Joseph Smith's theological vision.
I really want to see this movie, and I recommend that everyone else see it too. This movie looks like a very good thing, perhaps the best thing that has ever come out of the world of LDS apologetics. We'll see if the movie itself lives up to the trailer, but I cannot see many people, including critics, who are genuinely interested in the foundations of Mormonism not wanting to see this film at least once. Before I saw this trailer I was anticipating I would want to see the movie, and I am in no way disappointed by what I have seen in the trailer. To the contrary, I am bursting with enthusiasm.
Shout out to friend of the board, Don Bradley, who puts in an appearance in the trailer. I enjoyed his brief comments and I hope we see more of him in the film.