Saturday's Warrior, Mini Movie Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

I grew up hearing stories about the very first production of Saturday's Warrior in 1974.  My Grandparents knew Doug Stewart who wrote the LDS musical, and my Mom saw it on opening night and then got to go to the cast party.  She told me that story again last week.

It's hard to explain the phenomenon of this musical to someone who isn't Mormon.  I was a child of the 80's/90's and this musical maintained popularity all the way through my growing up.  Everyone knew the songs.  I had the "Line Upon Line" song memorized, singing it randomly at times as a reminder that understanding the gospel is a process.

And I still remember taking a Dating and Courtship class over at the Institute of Religion more then a decade ago, and hearing my teacher exclaim, "There's no such thing as soul mates!  It's not like Saturday's Warrior!"  You know the conundrum girls face while waiting for a Disney prince?  it's nothing compared to the misconception girls in the LDS faith face thanks to this musical.  Saturday's warrior is very Mormon.  Very.  And there's no explaining anything.  The musical hops right into it.

The musical mainly starts with pre-mortality, the idea that our spirits existed before this life, that we all lived together as a large family.  In past versions this part of the play is represented by a star backdrop and mist on the ground.  In this new version pre-mortality is represented as a large room.  There's doors leading out, but we don't see beyond the doors.  But inside we see everyone meeting.  The main family, all siblings, waiting to be born, singing about what life will be like.  The soul mates pledging their forever love for one another.  And the future missionary companions singing about how they're going to rid the Earth of sin; the lack of humility with one future Elder apparent.

It's not until we see all these characters on Earth living in mortality that Saturday's Warrior become truly interesting.  I cried so many times!

And I'm glad they decided to set the movie in the 70's instead of making it modern.  It really does work better this way, and the songs fit better as well.

Their are some changes between play to movie, but they're good changes.

The songs are still fun.  (They got rid of the really corny songs and added some new ones!)  And the cast is really good, corny moments aside.

My main complaint is with the lip singing during the songs.  The reverb added to the vocals separates what we see, and when watching it's obvious the music was all pre recorded.  Some actors are better then others at this.

Still this is a fun version of Saturday's Warrior that was crowdfunded through Kickstarter.  Over $100,000 was raised on the site.

For any fan of the original Saturday's Warrior, this is a must see.

MPAA: Rated PG for thematic elements throughout