Showing posts with label theme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theme. Show all posts
Friday, October 19, 2012
Children’s Movies with Thematic Device
When I worked in the bookstores, I looked forward to the new
Graeme Base books. (I still own Animalia.) And those illustrated by Michael
Hague? Oh, divine! (I own Peter Pan and several others.) One of the most
delightful elements of a good science fiction fantasy convention is the art
show. And a great many of the artists are inspired by movies, television and
children’s stories. Totally twisted art, full of humor. (You should see what a
group of artist’s can do to Smurfs…) (Or maybe not.)
I can’t draw a straight line. Oh, I wish I could! But
sometimes, creative talent just doesn’t spread that wide! Maybe that’s one of
the reasons I love the big animated movies. I gape at what they can do with a
computer…
I’ve seen a fair amount of this year’s animated movies. I
have no children. Doesn’t stop me from going. I often find myself laughing as I
see a joke coming…and no one else does. (It get some odd looks sometimes.) I
grew up with Looney Tunes! What can I say?
Frankenweenie…a
boy and his dog. Okay, the dog is dead, but it’s still a story of a boy and his
dog! And girl and her cat, and another girl and her dog… There’s a re-animated
turtle, rat, hamster and sea monkeys in there, too.
Madagascar III:
Europe’s Most Wanted – Figuring out where home is and what you’ll do to get
there. With a love story. Between a giraffe and a hippopotamus. Who do a high wire act that was mind blowing.
The Pirates! Band of
Misfits – A man and his desire for fame! And the love of the crew for the
ship’s parrot. Which is really a dodo bird. Who they have to rescue from
Charles Darwin who is trying to impress the Queen of England. (Granted, that’s
not a plot you see very often.)
Ice Age: Continental
Drift – Continents breaking up and again, parents who worries about their
daughter. Mastodons. Oh, and pirates. One of which is a walrus.
ParaNorman – He
can talk to ghosts and doesn’t fit in. Finding his group and making it work is
the theme. And this movie had one of the best lines of the year, right at the
end, when the teenage girl swoons at the brainless, but built side kick, about
maybe they can go to a movie sometime,
and he replies, “Oh, my boyfriend would like that. He digs chick flicks.”
Brilliant!
None of these stories are terribly different than what is
read in adult fiction. Loves stories, family struggles, pirates… Just a different cast of characters…with all
sorts of twisty elements.
I figure I’ll catch Brave
OnDemand, and Rio. And I really would
like to own several older ones, like Igor,
Puss n’Boots, and Rango. Rango, one of the strangest animated movies I’ve seen in a long
time…
Not only is storytelling simplified in animated movies, as
Hellie once wrote about the animated short, Partly
Cloudy and the opening sequence of UP,
but the stories are the same basics we all know.
I think it takes an ability to totally suspend disbelief to
enjoy animated movies. I’ve often been the only unaccompanied adult in movie
theaters. (Meaning, I had no young’uns with me.) A lot of people just don’t see
the point of these movies, just as I struggle with the idea of YA novels. (I
seemed to have skipped from childhood to adulthood without an appreciation for
adolescence.)
Perhaps it’s because I’m one of those people who grew up
treated as an adult from very early on. When I stepped from believing in my
invisible playmate, I went straight to reading Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.
From Mighty Mouse to I, Robot.
And the memories of watching Looney Tunes on Saturday
morning with my Dad, who loved the Tasmanian Devil if probably part of it all.
Even as an adult, he was into Taz and at his death, at 77, we kids divided his
Taz memorabilia among us. I think I inherited the love of cartoons.
For those of you with
kids, what cartoon shows did you watch with them? Or fav animated movies? Or
what shows (movies) did you watch with your parents? What are the stories you
remember that perhaps, sneakily, show up in what you write and read? (Yes, I
know, Disney kills off mothers…but how many regency stories revolve around
motherless girls?) Or do you find animated movies an insane thing to spend
money on? (It’s okay, I won’t scream about it!)
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