Watch With Jeff: Legacy

[December has been a pretty barren month on the old blog. Wrapping up the semester kept me very busy, and fortunately that coincided with stake conference, then back-to-back weeks with Christmas lessons in Sunday School. This means I didn't actually have to skip any potential BASOTRUSSL posts. This Sunday is the final lesson from the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History curriculum, and it's about Zion. And what could be a better way to get people thinking of Zion than giving the cheesy classic Legacy the "Watch With Jeff" treatment? (Actually, Toyland from my last post has plenty of Zion parallels as well.) I doubt there will be many weeks with two WWJ posts, but one per month going forward seems pretty realistic. Enjoy!]


0:27: If there's one thing you'd expect a boy who lives in a desert to wear, it's a sailor suit. Does he aspire to captain a vessel on the Great Salt Lake?

2:42: There's scant information to be found about the actor who plays the Prophet Joseph Smith. Apparently his name is Tim Gail, and the consensus is that he's gay. I remember back in the late '90s hearing a bunch of rumors about him, that basically centered around him being a disruptive on-set influence, though I can't remember specifics (not like that would make them true even if I could remember). Smith is a minor character in the film; if the rumors have any basis in reality, it's possible they trimmed down the part.

4:35: I've spent a fair amount of time in western Missouri, mostly in the summer...there's definitely a part of me that agrees with Johnny that Missouri couldn't possibly be Zion.

5:32: Snazzy dissolve. Now Eliza is...16?

6:10: I think that's Mike Huckabee's great-great-grandfather conducting that town hall meeting.

7:24: The tarring and feathering of Jacob (unknown last name) is heartwrenching, slightly graphic compared to what you normally see in LDS fare, and the first of a number of events that happened to real people that the movie co-opts into the narrative of this fictional family.

9:52: Nice to meet you, Sister Catherine.

11:30: "Don't just up and join the Church because of a pretty face." Come on--pretty faces are our top advertising tool!

11:55: Yes! They're finally in England--now the movie can really get going.

15:01: The letter--such blatant exposition--I love it.

16:01: The infamous Governor Lilburn Boggs issuing his even more infamous extermination order. It earned him the #7 spot on my list of names Mormon parents will probably never give their children.

18:30: Still don't know if Sister Catherine can speak. I think she whispered to Eliza's father earlier, but I can't be certain. I wonder if there's a "deleted scene" that gives more of her backstory.

20:28: Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Pretty sure that's her only line. I feel like she should have more of a Scandinavian voice.

23:45: What I meant to say earlier was, "Yes! Now they're back from England!" Now it's really time for the good stuff. #LoveTriangle

28:06-29:03: David Walker is not a master of subtlety, but he gets away with it because he's handsome (and has an accent). Can you imagine if the roles were reversed, and Jacob was trying to woo Eliza away from her fiance? We'd all think he was a creepy jerk that's way too old to be marrying Eliza. (Okay, that last part is probably true.) Instead, the last line of this segment (the "slow down and work just one day in ten") got a huge sitcom laughtrack-style "ooooohhhh" from the audience the first time I saw it in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building theater.

29:15: Classic bro-off--who can saw through the log the fastest, and the prize is a woman. Sanctioned by Joseph Smith, no less. The testosterone is practically oozing from the screen.

30:41: Aaaaand......there goes all the testosterone. This scene just perpetuates the myth that Mormons can't dance. At least Jacob forced his fiancee to dance with her stalker in order to maintain his honor.

32:05: "...and I will make you laugh." This is the line from the movie I quote most often when I'm in a mocking mood, but realistically, it will be my top selling point too if I ever propose marriage.

32:30: David: "Marriage is a grand reward for kindness..." Jacob, popping out from behind a bush: "But it's just recompense for kindness, and getting tarred and feathered, and keeping the family from dying of starvation or malaria, and..." To borrow from that other bastion of Mormon cinema, the Twilight series, I think I'm on Team Jacob a little bit.

34:17: Okay, Jacob, you lost me there with that double negative ("I am not unaware of your feelings..."). All in on Team David. Still, though, classy of Jacob not to smash Brother Walker's head in with the sledgehammer after the limey gave his girl a flower right in front of him.

35:13: Wow, she dumped Jacob and then made him drop her off in front of her new man? Marriage may be a grand reward for kindness, but sparing someone humiliation shouldn't be too grand a prize to ask.

David Walker was kind of a jerk, but it's probably best that Jacob and Eliza didn't marry, and I'm not opposed to this practice in general. Being engaged is quite different from being married. I hometaught a guy at BYU who was engaged to the daughter of emeritus Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen; she had been engaged to another guy when he met her, and I loved hearing him tell the story of how he wooed her away.

36:32: Just what was the defect with that rocking chair, that it took a decade or more for it to finally get repaired? Or is it just that Johnny (rest in peace) was a slacker?

38:22: Boy, that Jacob just can't help but be a buzzkill, can he? Just kidding, that's unfair. As I'm rewatching this now, it turns out Joseph Smith was in the movie more than I remembered. And I kinda dig the performance, in spite of the critics. Some of the line readings were a little weak, but I really liked his look and his bearing. Monday would've been Joseph's 208th birthday. Praise to the man.

43:12: Once when driving to Omaha, my friend Will and I took an accidental detour to Council Bluffs, which apparently now has a reputation for being one of America's biggest hotbeds for crystal meth use. Sad. On an unrelated note, seeing a man outdoors with his face covered in shaving cream reminds me of the Mormon TV ad from the '80s where the dad and his son rush after the garbage truck with their trash bags because the son forgot to take it out. Alas, I can't find it online. Isn't it about...time, that every video ever made was uploaded to the Web?

44:58: I take back what I said at 32:05..."if we ever meet again it'll be Zion to me!" is definitely my go-to line when I want to mock this movie's cheesiness.

48:32: A family struggles with an injured ox, but the rest of the wagon train continues on without offering to help? No wonder some women want to be ordained. But this woman at least has some pretty impressive powers (or at least knows how to access impressive powers) even without ordination.

51:51: Eliza's flower received the exact opposite treatment of the one Elaine Benes was given by her poor boyfriend on an episode of Seinfeld (like David, he plucks it off a cart and hands it to her; Elaine smiles but immediately thinks, "how long do I have to hold this?"), but again I can't find the video. Lousy Internet.

52:52: I was 13 or 14 when I first saw Legacy, in the theater on Temple Square where it debuted. As the movie ended and the lights came up on the 100-plus people in the auditorium, some were crying, some were whispering reverently about the film's message, most were quietly contemplating their faith and the sacrifices made by early Mormon pioneers.

And two rows in front of me, two 20-something girls were giggling and debating whether David or Johnny was hotter. I would never be able to watch Legacy non-sarcastically again. Hope you had fun watching with Jeff!

(There are plenty of stories about real pioneers that I view with solemnity and respect. This one is probably my favorite. (Yes, that's the second James E. Faust link of this post. Loved that guy.) Read it, especially if my cynicism left a sour taste in your mouth.)