"Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

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IHAQ
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by IHAQ »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:40 pm
IHAQ wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:20 pm
Thanks! I am now left wondering why someone thought putting a freely available You Tube video on the worlds worst pay-to-view streaming service was a good idea?
Agreed. Can you imagine Netflix/Hulu/Amazon having any interest in paying money to stream a movie that’s available for free on YouTube?

I get the distinct feeling that nobody involved with Witnesses has a clue to successfully market a film.

Why on earth would anyone pay for a crappy app to watch the movie when it is available for free all over the internet?


ETA It looks like Witnesses is also now available on two other popular media sharing websites.
I suspect Deseret Book has paid for the rights to stream the movie. And now they see Interpreter make it available for free…I’d be checking the contract and demanding a refund if I was in their shoes…
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

I think they disabled comments on the YouTube channel. :lol:

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Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Doctor Scratch
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Doctor Scratch »

Dr. Peterson has been strikingly quiet about this latest controversy. Does he really not care that the film’s streaming platform is basically a crap-fest? Has he given up on the movie at this point?

Instead, I see that he’s giving free publicity to a film called “Who Killed Joseph Smith?”—available for free on Vimeo (a platform that actually works, by the way), and which posits that Joseph Smith was actually murdered by Willard Richards and John Taylor! Lol! Well, hey: I assume this story is roughly as plausible/believable as the witnesses’ story, and so long as the filmmaker sticks to his story until he dies, then the Mopologists will have to take him seriously.

In any case, expect multiple, massive blog entries on Interperer in the coming weeks.
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Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Everybody Wang Chung »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:58 pm
I think they disabled comments on the YouTube channel. :lol:

- Doc
It also looks like Witnesses has just been removed from youtube too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pVjm7yXLuLQ

Maybe DCP wasn't aware Witnesses was on youtube until he read Dr. Scratch's post?

Well, in any event I see that Witnesses is still streaming for free on at least two other popular media sharing sites. I don't think Netflix/Hulu/Amazon or any other streaming service would consider touching Witnesses now. Epic failure by the Interpreter/DCP.
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Doctor Scratch »

To be clear: I was unaware of the fact that the film was on YouTube until it was brought up earlier on this thread. That said, I think it would be worthwhile for the Mopologists to consider YouTube or Vimeo if their goal really is to gain the widest possibly audience.

But that has never been their goal. Above all, DCP wants recognition and a huge “megaphone”—he wants power. While money tends to grant that, there are other ways of accruing it. “Witnesses” was—and is—meant to do that, for better or for worse.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Moksha »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:44 am
It also looks like Witnesses has just been removed from youtube too.
Doesn't make sense that it should be available as long as there is money to be made off of it, besides, do we know whether the makers ever intended it to be viewable by the masses?
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Dr Exiled »

It's too bad it was taken down from YouTube. I was suffering through it and made it to the 28 minute mark before it was taken down. I don't think I will be paying for the propaganda and I think that might be the lesson from the poor showing at the box office and the lack of high brow streaming services willing to show it. No one wants to see a missionary tract in the form of a movie.

Regarding the faithful, they may not like yet another piece of propaganda shoved at them, regardless of how well the cinematography is. They are tired of hearing about the controversies probably from friends and family who have left. The narrative has been shown to be exaggerated fluff over and over again. That is obvious and so selling the history is clearly not working. It's bad enough to have to deal with the mindless repetition from the lessons each Sunday. Follow the prophet, FOLLOW THE PROPHET, DAMNIT!!! They probably don't want to deal more propaganda in their free time.

Perhaps members are like my former stake president brother who simply won't engage with the history, instead, wanting to focus on how the church teaches good things and good families result from it? It's probably the only thing the Mormon church has going for it and so why not focus on that? It makes questions about where the money is going seem easier to avoid.

So, I think DCP should allow his propaganda to be streamed for free. Otherwise, who else will watch it? The mope cheerleaders are a dying breed and maybe this propaganda and the poor reception is really telling about where things are going for the exaggerated narrative, at least the mope version of it?
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canpakes
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by canpakes »

Dr Exiled wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:23 pm
It's too bad it was taken down from YouTube. I was suffering through it and made it to the 28 minute mark before it was taken down.
Same here. I had made it about as far (on 1.5x speed) yesterday when I needed to attend to something else, and I set it aside for later.

The visual detail and quality of the filmmaking seemed pretty decent, but the delivery and pacing of the story has a distinctly ‘testimonial’ feel to it.
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by Dr Exiled »

canpakes wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:50 pm
Dr Exiled wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:23 pm
It's too bad it was taken down from YouTube. I was suffering through it and made it to the 28 minute mark before it was taken down.
Same here. I had made it about as far (on 1.5x speed) yesterday when I needed to attend to something else, and I set it aside for later.

The visual detail and quality of the filmmaking seemed pretty decent, but the delivery and pacing of the story has a distinctly ‘testimonial’ feel to it.
Yeah, too much testimony. But, the project was all about testimony, DCP's and his mope buddies' testimony. Not many wanted to pay for that and looks like not many will want to pay for the privilege of hearing DCP's testimony.

I was taking notes on all the exaggerations made in the movie and was going to point them out on this thread. However, anyone knowledgeable can see through the fluff. David Whitmer left the church and didn't want to deal with the nonsense. It seems he wanted to live a quiet life in Missouri of all places. I think he reluctantly came out at the end of his life to say what he did because he was being called out, as the Mormon question and polygamy was at the forefront in the late 1800's. Otherwise, he probably would have been content to never deal with that chapter in his life again. So, he persisted in his story and made his declarations, justifying his delusion, not wanting to admit folly. Being called out tends to force retrenchment, like the mopes today will do.
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Re: "Witnesses" Movie is Consigned to a "Backwater" Streaming Service

Post by IHAQ »

IHAQ wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:43 pm
Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:40 pm


Agreed. Can you imagine Netflix/Hulu/Amazon having any interest in paying money to stream a movie that’s available for free on YouTube?

I get the distinct feeling that nobody involved with Witnesses has a clue to successfully market a film.

Why on earth would anyone pay for a crappy app to watch the movie when it is available for free all over the internet?


ETA It looks like Witnesses is also now available on two other popular media sharing websites.
I suspect Deseret Book has paid for the rights to stream the movie. And now they see Interpreter make it available for free…I’d be checking the contract and demanding a refund if I was in their shoes…
It looks like that’s exactly what happened once we drew attention to the fact someone had put it on You Tube.
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