Talk:Saints and Soldiers

message: Despite the explanation given in the movie, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that men belonging to the 101 US airborne could have been present at Baugnez crossroads (i.e. the place where the Malmedy massacre actually occurred) on 17 December 1944 at 2 p.m. (i.e. when the massacre was perpetrated by the German troops.  In fact, at this time, the 101 Airborne division was still in its barracks of Reims (France) and didn't not receive an order to move to Bastogne from General Eisenhower before 8 p.m. the same day.  The first troops of the 101 Airborne did not reach Bastogne before the early morning of the 19 December, although some senior officers, including General Anthony McAuliffe might have reached Bastogne a little earlier.  Knowing that both St. Vith and Malmedy are located 80 km (i.e. 50 miles) further than Bastogne, it's actually difficult to imagine how these two men could have bee caught by the Germans in the morning of the 17th December,knowing that at this point of time the German had still not reached St. Vith nor Malmedy.  Another Hollywood miracle? --81.241.154.59 15:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, good catch. I didn't even realize that. My recollection is that Gunderson states he was taking Deacon out of the front lines to St Vith, when in fact he would have had to be doing the exact opposite. The 82nd would be near St Vith, but not on the 17th. Well, at least it was an enjoyable movie, if egregiously inaccurate at many points. --Habap 16:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The 82nd arrived on the combat zone on 19th December, but was still 25 or 30 miles away from St Vith and 20 miles away from Malmedy.  But in they helped to stop the "Peiper Group" (usually held responsible for the Malmedy massacre) in the vicinty of Stoumont and La Gleize.--Lebob-BE 14:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  101 airborne presence in Malmedy 

message: The purpose of this section is to root out some more historical inaccuracies in this film.  First, I like this film, but the discussions above about the beginning Malmedy massacre, medics carrying weapons and the two characters from the 101st Airborne have prompted me to question what else may be innacurate.  (Those specific discussions should continue to occur in those sections.)  Let's ignore that they made up specific characters to follow and the specifics of what happenned to these specific characters.  Let's concentrate on if what was portrayed could have happenned during the few days portrayed in the film, including the flashback to the "little town in the Eisenborn Ridge."  I've numbered my questions so that they can more easily be referenced once this discussion gets further downstream.
#Given that the 101st wasn't in the area, what unit was in the Eisenborn Ridge a few days before?
#During WWII, would they have pulled someone from the front lines that was acting like Deacon (unable to sleep, jumpy, about to shoot at anything that moves)?
#The Malmedy massacre article says that the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion made up most of the Allied troops in the massacre.  What other units were represented?
#After the massacre started, about half of the prisoners (about 60) were able to flee into the woods.
#The Battle of the Bulge started on the 16th, so it is conceivable that an Allied pilot could have been sent to gather intelligence and found out about the extent of the German offensive.
##Did any such flights occur?
##When did the Allies know about the extent of the German offensive?
#Were there survivors of the Malmedy massacre that waited behind the lines until the front line went past?
Even if we don't find inaccuracies, we could find some additonal historical notes to add to the article. Val42 06:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd advice to get some quality information on the "massacre" first, I see some have done that ready elsewhere in the discussion. --197.228.62.55 (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: What they got right

message: For a kid who likes to hunt from a town called Snowflake, he sure didn't know how to follow fresh tracks in deep snow.  As far as that goes, the Germans should also have seen the tracks of our heroes many a time.  I think the director must be from some southern California city, or perhaps has never walked in the snowy woods.  Oversights like this gave the movie a bit of an earnest low brow feel.
76.170.86.78 (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: What else they got wrong

message: Did anyone else have a problem with the medic (Who is obviously Jewish) being portrayed as a snide asshole for most of the film?  This isn't quite Gary Busey in "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," but it was definitely perturbing.  Commander_PoppinFresh 01:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Watching it, I totally had the same offense.  I couldn't help but think the entire time that this movie was just a big christian propaganda film, and that the notice at the beginning "based on true events" was entirely misleading.  Let's make up people for a story, plop them in say... the WTC, and say it's based on true events, because we depict the collapse of the buildings.  The characters are fake, and you're using them as tools to advance an ideology... that atheists are all pissed off at the Christian god, and just won't admit it.  I initially thought, wow, how cool that they make the death bringer (sniper) the religious Mormon, and the life bringer (medic) the atheist... but I was grossly disappointed by the atheist being totally stereotyped into a nihilistic bastard.  --Puellanivis (talk) 06:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gould 

message: Doesn't the final paragraph in the "Religious Overtones" section provide a spoiler when it says:
"During an exchange during the movie, Deacon offers Gould his book (which contains scriptures). At the end of the movie, Gould takes it."
It seems to imply the fate of the Deacon character.  I don't think this paragraph is relevant to the article or the section. Trippz 03:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it acts as a spoiler, as a live Deacon could have offered it again to Gould, who "takes it" when it is offered. --Habap (talk) 22:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoliers 

message: :Image:Saints&Soldiers.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Saints&Soldiers.jpg

message: There is a Mormon documentary called Saints at War (http://deseretbook.com/item/4348618/Saints_at_War) which deals with accounts about Mormons during World War II (and I?). I think there might also be a book. I have seen a clip of the documentary, and I'm pretty sure that the scene when Deacon shoots at Rudi and misses is parallel to a story that comes from this documentary. In fact, before the movie was released, I thought that it was going to be named Saints at War but was later changed. I did notice that there is no mention of the documentary during the credits, so maybe Saints and Soldiers didn't draw on material from Saints at War, but did use some of the same source material. Anybody know if and to what extent Saints at War was used as source material and whether it should be included in this article? Jefflithe (talk) 22:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influenced by Saints at War? 

message: I've pruned down the amount of unnecessary detail in the article - esp the plot and cast. The Plot was far too detailed, and the individual bloated character notations in the Cast section was really not required. Londonclanger (talk) 21:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessively bloated article 

message: I do not think that the religious overtones section belongs in this article. The maintenance tag says this section violates NPOV and I agree. As explained in the reception section and news sources, references to the LDS Church in this film are subtle and make up a small part of the movie. Having not seen the film myself, I am only speaking from what I see in the sources, in order to avoid bias and original research. Because of this, I think that the religious overtones section needs to be removed to prevent undue emphasis on a very small part of the movie, not even considering the fact that the section is not properly cited and high-quality sources on this film are difficult to find. 
The film shows a character devoted to reading the Book of Mormon and the film mentions his "church-mission" and his standards. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not mentioned and the man is not identified as a member of the LDS Church in the film (only on the commentary track). That is up to the audience's interpretation, so I would highly disagree that this is a "Mormon propaganda piece". The filmmakers have a right to create a film that reflects their values and religious beliefs without it being called a religious propaganda piece.
Based on the research I have done, it seems that Little and Abel were interested in creating a WWII film that would be appropriate for LDS audiences rather than creating an overtly LDS film such as The Singles Ward and The Best Two Years. In a Daily Herald article about the film, Little and Abel discuss that they were hesitant to cast Heyborne due to his appearance in every "Mormon" movie, because they did not want to create a film that would be categorized as the latest "Mormon" movie. They ended up altering Heyborne's appearance drastically to avoid audience's immediate recognition of Heyborne as a frequent LDS film star. 
Due to everything I have discussed, I think the LDS Church can be adequately mentioned in a "see-also" section, per WP:Neutral Point of View. I can imagine keeping the information about Excel Entertainment, but moving it into the production section and editing the statement to better reflect the source. The source presented by the article does NOT say that "The Excel Entertainment Group is heavily influenced by the LDS Church", though that may be an opinion (original research). The source rather says that Excel Entertainment, "target[s] to a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints audience". Feel free to chat with me about it, but I am committed to upholding Wikipedia standards. Skyes(BYU) (talk) 16:00, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Religious overtones