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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5406814]Ok, but the point I'm trying to make is that many children's films have a tendency to ignore adult subject matter as if it doesn't exist in that reality. For example, My Neighbor Totoro takes places in post WWII Japan. Does that mean that Hiroshina bappened in the same world where a giant Cat-Bus exists? Am I the only one weirded out by that?[/QUOTE]
Let's see how many adult, relevant, realistic movies reference a year and a half of society shutting down because of Covid?
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[QUOTE=MyriVerse;5405947]That time the horse got stuck in NeverEnding Story. I never even remembered that happening until I rewatched it with my daughter in my 30s. I must have blocked it out.[/QUOTE]
The horse in the swamp? Is that what that's from?
I know I saw that movie as a kid, and I have no memory of that. Then again, all I remember about The Never Ending Story is the flying dog and the fact that I hated the movie.
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[QUOTE=Kirby101;5406849]Let's see how many adult, relevant, realistic movies reference a year and a half of society shutting down because of Covid?[/QUOTE]
Movies don't reference Covid not just because of escapism but because setting it during Covid would completely change how stories have been told.
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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5406864]Movies don't reference Covid not just because of escapism but because setting it during Covid would completely change how stories have been told.[/QUOTE]
But that's ignoring reality. More so that the kids in Totoro not talking about Hiroshima. COVID affected the world as much as anything since WWII, but it's okay to ignore that.
I really think you are singling out kid films in a way that isn't true.
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[QUOTE=OpaqueGiraffe17;5406831]Willy Wonka/Charlie and the chocolate Factory creeps me out as an adult, as do a lot of Christmas themed childrens movies. Like those Tim Allen Santa movies. Loved those as a kid. As an adult, yeah a lot of them are pretty freaky.[/QUOTE]
I was probably a teen by the time I saw WILLY WONKA on T.V., but I knew it was creepy. And if I had been younger I would have realized that, too. It's not hidden at all. If kids don't get it, they must be psychopaths. I thought maybe I was seeing something that others didn't see--but now I know everyone sees that it's a horror story. Some people just like horror stories.
Actually, Sammy Davis, Jr. had a hit with "The Candy Man" and I heard that before I ever saw the movie. The song is nice and happy when sung by Sammy. But in the movie, it's creepy as everything else.
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[QUOTE=Kirby101;5406884]But that's ignoring reality. More so that the kids in Totoro not talking about Hiroshima. COVID affected the world as much as anything since WWII, but it's okay to ignore that.
I really think you are singling out kid films in a way that isn't true.[/QUOTE]
No one is saying that My Neighbor Totoro should reference Hiroshima. In fact I'm not advocating any kind of change in children's entertainment. I just find a lot of them weird for the reasons I mentioned. That's just a emotional response.
You could say that ignoring Covid is "ignoring reality" but it's mainly for pragmatic reasons not because it's too dire a topic. It's much more difficult to do a conventional film with characters going from location to location and interacting with strangers when you have covid as a backdrop.
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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5405364]
Do I sound insane? Probably.[/QUOTE]
You don't sound insane. You just sound incredibly bitter and cynical.
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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5405364]I just watched My Neighbor Totoro and came out of the film with a rather uneasy feeling. This is pretty weird because I can watch plenty of films geared towards adults that show the horrors of the real world and get no reaction.
Children's films feel like alternate universes, because they only show a sanitized view of the world when in reality, life is far more vulgar and cynical.This leads me to thinking while watching the movie, does My Neighbor Totoro take place in a more innocent world than we do or is it supposed to take place in a reality exactly like our own, where everything terrible about real life happens off camera?
Do I sound insane? Probably.[/QUOTE]
Not every film has to be dark, gritty, and reflect the real world. As another person said, you just sound way too damn cynical for your own good.
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[QUOTE=Cyke;5406524]I mean, you could really say the same thing about any of Aesop's Fables and all those magical creatures; many of them seem messed up by today's standards, but the bigger picture is the lessons and morals they try to teach, and that's what tends to remain timeless.
For films, though, if you're reassessing things differently as an adult than when you were a child, it's only proof that you're adding in what you've learned in life since you were a kid, and that's natural. Moreso, if a movie intentionally creates those layers and themes, then that definitely adds to a film's rewatchability factor. Those more surreal or alternate universes help to highlight the discrepancies we face in real life, because in real life those struggles and pains are monotonized and get lost in the background noise of daily life.
I'm glad Wizard of Oz was mentioned above -- as bright and colorful and almost utopian as Oz seemed initially, the final scene when Dorothy wakes up and points out there had a counterpart in Oz, showed how fantasy really highlighted the things that were in front of her all along, making her see them in a different light. As sweet and picturesque as Oz may have been, her adventures and all those encounters with evil (so no, not quite as idyllic or sanitized at first glance) her appreciate her real life that much more because she didn't notice those things *in* her real life before.
[B]Not a film per se, but I keep rewatching X-Men: TAS partly because I pick up on things that I didn't notice as a kid, partly because those layers mean both adults and their kids can have a good time watching it for different reasons, and partly because even 30 years later many of its themes are *still* relevant, even if they were coded differently (for example, as a kid I thought it was messed up that Beast put up his best defense in court and still not found innocent -- these days, adults see courtroom injustice *so* much in the news and moreso, Beast showed that, just like in real life, respectability politics are ultimately pointless if the court of law sees you as less than human).[/B][/QUOTE]
Looper already cover this about the series.
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu98gITAnhs[/url]
I remember this as well, also isn't that the episode that Craydon creed tried to inject himself with the legacy virus on live TV, claiming it was beast who infected him because all mutants are sick with it and must be got rid off before they infected the entire population?:eek:, Even as an adult now, it still is disturbing.
Also, I never understood some of the things Apocalypse said in the series, I will say he was speaking gibberish but now he was speaking in big metaphors. Why would a kid know who [B]Sisyphus[/B] was. Most adults don't even know who Sisyphus is, it's was too much for a children series but I like that now as an adult.
He had other strange quotes you dont really understand as a kid. You only respect and know what they mean now as an adult. examples.
[B][I]"[I]Evil? I am not [U][U]malevolent[/U][/U]. I simply am!"
"I am the rocks of the eternal shore. Crash upon me, and be BROKEN[/I][/I][/B]
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[QUOTE=Castle;5407617]Looper already cover this about the series.[/quote]
Yeow, I didn't know my 10 yr old - to modern day self was competing with a YouTube channel this whole time. I should have known better back in 1992.
But while I appreciate that video, it's not really saying anything new -- Honest Trailers and even Marvel's own channels have done that adult retrospective. And that's okay.
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[QUOTE]"Evil? I am not malevolent. I simply am!"
"I am the rocks of the eternal shore. Crash upon me, and be BROKEN[/QUOTE]
Those are fairly obvious lines. I understood them perfectly as a kid.
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[QUOTE=Alan2099;5408008]Those are fairly obvious lines. I understood them perfectly as a kid.[/QUOTE]
I didn't, at least not really.
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no i usually cant sit through childrens movies i find them boring but i wouldnt say disturbing either
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Pinocchio. kids turning into donkeys after drinking beers.
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I saw My Neighbor Totoro for the first time ever earlier this year - the only thing I found disturbing was how wide his mouth would open and how big his teeth are, but other than that? Meh.
I also don't find it that sanitized. The real day to day world isn't all about wars and famine and poverty and horrible depressing shit. Sure, if you watch the news daily, yeah there's always some awfulness happening somewhere on the planet. And we're so torn by divisive politics now, and we're all tired of dealing with the pandemic. But most of the time, most of your life? Stuff's usually not that bad. Most of the actual, real stuff that matters to you is smaller and personal. Look at Totoro, the girls' mother is sick in the hospital throughout the movie, and there's the worry she might die. The sisters love each other, but they still fight. There's that scene where they find a shoe near that lake or whatever and there's a tense moment where you're worried the little sister might've drowned. That's not sanitized. That's the stuff that really gets to kids.
It's not bitter, cynical, nor depressing, but it isn't a sanitized world free of pain and fear either. It tends towards optimism and is balanced for kids and ends with a happy ending, but it still shows the worries and fears and problems that resonate with kids - and most adults if we're honest. It's just smaller scale, more personal, balanced. If that's disturbing to you, you might need to turn off the news for a while, watch some sitcoms or something.