Confession time! I have never seen Labyrinth. I know, I know I've had many a wide-eyed look of disbelief from people when they first hear that. The thing keeping me from seeing it is the fact that I didn't grow up with it. I feel like if I see it for the first time as an adult so many years after it was made, I just won't "get" it. Conversely, I'm hesitant to recommend and sing the praises of movies I saw and loved as a kid, especially fantasy films, to someone who has never seen them because they probably wouldn't get it either. When I find out somebody hasn't seen The NeverEnding Story, The Goonies, or Flight of Dragons (which apparently NOBODY has seen), I just say "Aw, you missed it!" Some movies you have to grow up with, or at last see it in their time when it wasn't quite so dated (talking puppets, anyone?). Looking at the films on our 80s poll, I have a feeling nostalgia played a big part in many of our choices. There's something very special about feeling like a kid again, enjoying a movie that you've loved for years. And if you missed it, well, you missed it!
Are there any films you missed? Does nostalgia make just-okay films greater in our memories than they really are? Am I full of it? Has ANYONE seen Flight of Dragons??
I never saw the movie House (the 1986 one, not the 1977 Japanese one), until my boyfriend insisted we watch it last year. It was one of his favorite scary movies when he was little - his sister's too. I watched it -and liked it- but I could look through his little-kid-nostalgia-eyes and see just how a little kid could enjoy it. I am extremely reticent to show people movies that I hold dear for fear they won't "get" it.
ReplyDeleteThis article is right on the money! I've never seen The Goonies. When people give me guff about it, I just say "I missed my window".
ReplyDeleteI 'missed' Flight of Dragons; watched it sometime in the past year with you for the first time, and you're right, I didn't really 'get it.' But I DID see The Last Unicorn, which seems to me to be very similar to Flight of Dragons - the animation styles are similar, and both movies are kind of bizarre, even for fantasy-lovers.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I want to point out, is how when you watch a movie repeatedly as a child until the point that you can recite the whole thing by heart, and then someone decides to re-make it, you almost instinctively reject the new version; "Yeah, it's okay, but the original is much better." ...Is it really? or is it just that the sentimental attachment to the version you grew up with gets in the way? For example: I grew up with a VHS of My Neighbor Totoro, which was distributed in the US by Fox Video. In 2004, the rights expired and weren't renewed, so Disney snatched it up (along with signing a deal with Studio Ghibli for future distribution rights for their movies). Then they re-dubbed Totoro because they couldn't get the rights to the original English dub track, although they were able to get the rights to the original Japanese track. But even though their English dub track is technically a more true translation of the original Japanese, and it even features the voice talents of the Fanning sisters as the two main characters, I just can't get into it, because it's not what I'm familiar with. It's the same movie... but it's not.
And yes, nostalgia definitely affects how you remember things... take quite a few of the Don Bluth movies, for instance. With a few exceptions (The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, and Land Before Time in particular stand out).... his films were not nearly as great as I remembered them. I couldn't even finish Thumbelina; I got too annoyed.