While writing the recent pairing for Return to Oz, I did a lot of thinking about the movies from my childhood that were ostensibly designed for children. They were a far cry from the movies being churned out for kids today. Movies today are toothless. There is no danger, and therefore no deeper connection. When Kevin performs a heroic sacrifice at the end of Minions, there is never any doubt that he will survive. Illumination Entertainment would never kill one of its main protagonists, even if it is just one out of a horde of identical sentient yellow blobs. That might upset someone, and you don't hit a billion dollar worldwide box office gross by upsetting people. And why even bother making entertainment for children if you aren't going to make insane amounts of money by doing so? The thing is, plenty of 80s movies for kids were wildly successful without being watered down. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is number 11 on the all-time domestic box office list. And mortal terror is a very real thing in E.T. Everyone remembers poor E.T. lying dead on a table, all shriveled up and chalky-white like dog poop that's been in the sun too long. Sure, Elliott brings him back, but that moment when E.T. is dead is truly devastating. You don't have that safety net of "It's a kids movie, so nothing bad will happen." 80s movies didn't give a fuck. Billy's mom kills one gremlin with a blender and another in a microwave. That's gruesome, even if they are the bad guys. In fact, the original draft of Gremlins had Gizmo dying and being reincarnated as some kind of glowing butterfly creature. Gizmo dies! Even if he comes back as some stupid-ass fairy Mogwai, that's still fucked up. Death (without the coming back to life bit) is a regular occurrence in these 80s movies. Littlefoot's mom dies 25 minutes into The Land Before Time. Artax slowly sinks into the Swamp of Sadness in The NeverEnding Story. Even Optimus Prime eats it in Transformers: The Movie. But death wasn't the worst thing 80s movies had to offer kids. Worse than what they took away were the things they introduced. Things straight out of a nightmare. The Skeksis from The Dark Crystal are super creepy. As is Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness from Legend (and the dancing dress, and the swamp witch). Return to Oz has the Wheelers and head-swapping Princess Mombi. Even (or especially) Pee-Wee's Big Adventure has the pants-shittingly spooky Large Marge scene. That one had the biggest effect on me because it comes out of nowhere. All of a sudden this goofy movie turned into a horrorshow, and the jarring shift in tone fucked me right up. I watched that movie dozens of times as a kid, and I always hid my eyes when Large Marge was on the screen. That scene is up there with the clown from Poltergeist (and, admittedly, the clown from The Brave Little Toaster) as far as creepy shit that lingered in my brain long after the movie ended. Other things that stuck with me were not scary so much as confusing. Things like Jessica Rabbit. Jessica Rabbit made me feel like no cartoon had since naked Cheetara in the pilot episode of the Thundercats cartoon. Even more confusing was David Bowie's prominent bulge in Labyrinth. You couldn't look directly at it without being hypnotized. How did that 15 year old girl ever resist him? Better question: who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have Bowie seduce an underage girl in a fucking kids movie? There are other things that differentiate 80s kids movies form those of today. Like swearing. The kids in The Monster Squad can't stop talking about dorks and nards. One kid even calls another a faggot, which is a sign of the times, sure, but it is still kind of shocking when heard today. Beetlejuice drops an F-bomb. The kids in Stand by Me can't stop swearing. I know that one's Rated R, but it's still a movie about kids if not necessarily for them. Even Elliott calls his brother Michael "penis breath" in E.T., which is awfully close to calling him a cocksucker. Speaking of which, Ghostbusters, Rated PG, has a blowjob gag where a horny ghost sucks off Dan Aykroyd's character, Ray. I know it was not made specifically for kids, per se, but you're crazy if you think kids weren't all about Ghostbusters. Something else I've always felt was a purely 80s moment occurs in Poltergeist, which is also not technically a kids movie, but is also Rated PG. It's when JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson smoke weed in their bedroom after the kids go to sleep. There's not much to it, really, but it's refreshing to see nonetheless. They're not made to look like bad parents, they're just adults doing adult things in the comfort of their own home. But that's not the kind of thing you see in movies these days. These movies hold a special place in my heart because I saw them when I was a kid, but I don't think I'm being sentimental when I say that they don't make movies with this kind of depth today. Okay, Pixar is pretty solid, as is Studio Ghibli, but all-in-all the kind of entertainment marketed to kids is insulting and inferior. Which is a real shame because studios invest so much money into kids movies, you would think they would take the time to make them resonate. Instead they just make sequel after sequel, knowing that parents will keep bringing their kids to see them no matter how crummy they are. And while the movies I loved as a kid are not perfect, that hasn't stopped many of them from being remade or rebooted.
Now, I've made my peace with remakes. It was either that or explode from nerd-rage. But why are do the remakes have to be so bland? Not even Richard Linklater could pull off a decent remake when he remade the Bad News Bears. Tim Burton shat out a disgrace of an Alice in Wonderland movie. Craig Brewer, a director I was really into at one point, made a fucking Footloose remake. Who the fuck needed to see a remake of Footloose? Even Disney seems prepared to live-action-remake all of their classic animated features for some reason. I'm not asking for much here. All I want is for studios to make decent movies that I would feel comfortable spending $50 to take my kids to see. Not the bland, boring, toothless rubbish that gets churned out every day, but something with substance. Until then, I'll just have to freak them out by showing them The Secret of NIMH and The Black Cauldron until they beg me to stop. -Dustin
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