Saturday's Warrior (1989)

Directed by

Bob Williams

Genre

drama, family

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 55m

Rating

4.8 of 10 from 5 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This musical follows a Latter-day Saint family as their children navigate personal challenges while remembering promises they made before birth. The story focuses on two siblings who rediscover their life's purpose.

hopefulearnestfamily-centricmelodramaticinspirationalgentlemoralisticretro

What happens

Saturday's Warrior is a religious-themed musical written by Douglass Stewart and Lex de Azevedo about a family who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The musical tells the story of a group of children that are born into a Latter-day Saint family after making various promises in the premortal life. Two of the children, Jimmy and Julie, encounter personal struggles that help them rediscover and fulfill their foreordained missions in life. Although no explicit time frame is given in the dialogue, certain contextual clues (in particular, a song that references the Zero population growth movement) suggest that the story takes place in the then-current and then-recent period of the late 1960s or early '70s, similar to other religious musicals such as Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. The musical explores the Latter-day Saint doctrines and views on the plan of salvation, premortal life, foreordination, and eternal marriage. It depicts abortion and birth control as being contrary to the divine plan of salvation. Saturday's Warrior was first performed in California in 1973 as a college project. In early spring 1974, the play was performed at Brigham Young University's (BYU) Spring Arts Festival by a cast of BYU students. Bob Williams made a video version of the musical in 1989, setting it on a stage as opposed to giving the movie a more naturalistic look. It is among the first popular LDS films to not be made or sponsored by the LDS Church or BYU. Stewart wrote two sequels, Star Child (music by Gaye Beeson) which debuted in 1981, and The White Star (music by Janice Kapp Perry) which debuted in 2007. In 2016, de Azevedo and Stewart produced another filmed remake with a more naturalized look. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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