Joseph Smith: Plates of Gold

I loved the movie !!! I'm a Mormon Sister

Knowing productions like this are necessarily made with a low budget in most cases, given the limited audience, I bought this with some trepidation. My family could tell you that I'm a pretty picky movie critic, even when a film depicts subjects I care a lot about. While this production won't measure up to films that cost much more money to make, I was very pleasantly surprised. Our family just finished watching Joseph Smith: Plates of Gold, a feature length film about Joseph's experience of preparing to receive the plates, getting them, hiding them, translating them and printing the Book of Mormon. It focuses a lot on his relationship with Emma too. The actor playing Joseph is the same that played him a few years ago in the video the Church made about his first vision called The Restoration (so now he's appropriately a bit older). It's very well made and even held my teenagers' attention. It's perhaps not quite as excellent as The Work and the Glory series of movies, but better in my opinion than Emma: My Story and even the movie by the Church called Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. The big advantage it has over all these is that it's extremely accurate historically. Pretty much all the story elements, even minor things, are documented history, but it usually feels more like an engaging story than dry history. It feels perhaps a bit like a good Masterpiece Theater or BBC drama, except that perhaps the actors aren't quite as accomplished, but they're better than average and are quite adequate. The cinematography is terrific. For someone with no knowledge of Joseph Smith or Mormonism, this movie provides a very good visual summary of the early events. My teens were asking lots of questions about Joseph's experiences that they never knew about before. One thing I really appreciated was that the characters, at least all the major ones, felt like real people in real situations (even my kids remarked about that), unlike many of these re-creations of church history. Many scenes of this movie would be good for use in the classroom. The movie indicates it's part one of an anticipated series, so I encourage you to buy it and support these filmmakers so they might continue their work.

Received the DVD promptly. The characters play their parts well. Some of the stories associated with the historical accounts have had some liberty taken with the actual facts as I understand them. However for the most part the movie portrays the great gift from heaven of the restoration of the gospel in the latter days. A promise that was made long ago to the scattered tribes of Israel. By the way I am not a Utah Mormon.

The only problem I have with this, is the portrayal of Joseph Smith translating without looking at the plates. Maybe I misunderstood and he was getting a revelation and it was being written down, later becoming the Doctrine and Covenants.?? He was always using a translating tool, called seer stones or Urim and Thumum. Go to momon dot org for an explanation of how it was translated.(Amazon.. This is a qualified purchase. Others have written a review of this. This DVD did not cost $50!)

Fast Delivery!!! Good history lesson in the history of the founder of the Mormon Church "Joseph Smith".

The movie is a good one because it kind of explains what Joseph Smith had to go through to get the gold plates translated. The commandments of the Lord are not always easy but does provide the way when we are in tune with Him.

A beautiful film about the origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It shows Joseph Smith as a human, the circumstances, good and ill, of the translation and printing of the Book of Mormon. Is everything included? No, that would take a movie 4 to 5 times as long. But it does a good job covering what it does cover. Worth seeing for anyone who wants to know how it got started.

Very informative and uplifting , love it.