I'm torn...
On one hand, I'm such a huge scifi geek that the idea of Steven Spielberg doing a remake of the scifi classic "War of The Worlds" with stars like Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins thrills me. Mr. Robbins might be a hopeless liberal, but the guy can act!
On the other hand, do I REALLY want to see another movie with the general theme being the untimely deaths of tens of millions of innocent men, women, and children? I thought the disaster movie craze of the 1970's was bad... That was NOTHING compared to these past five or ten years! And, these days, it's just really difficult for me to watch that kind of movie.
Five years ago, when I first became a Dad, strange things began to happen to me. First of all, I began noticing that there really was a lot of crap-ola on television. "Uh oh," I thought, "how am I going to protect my kids from all of this?"
Part of my solution was to do the opposite of what some family groups have recommended. Where quite a few conservatives downgrade their television and confine their scope only to local channels, or get rid of the thing entirely, I UPGRADED our cable service and am actively locking out any channel I don't like. That way, I get to keep the channels with the good content and filter out the bad. Yes, I'm paying more for less, but there really is a lot of great programming for kids on cable TV, and I want them to have access to that.
But I digress...
Another strange thing began to happen to me after becoming a Dad... I suddenly became almost hyper-aware of all the terrible things that happen to kids in the world every day. Yes, I knew about it all before, but, for some reason, all of it really began to impact me on more of an emotional level, whereas, before, it was more factual.
My wife even got upset with me recently because, when she tried to tell me something she had heard on the news regarding some children, I cut her off and asked her not to tell me. At first, she was just surprised by my reaction. Which makes sense because, in her mind, she was asking me to take note of an incident so that, ultimately, we could better protect our own children.
Article comments
1 - RJ
Oh, this is one movie I am amped for!
I must admit to being a bit infatuated with "end of the world" movies. I absolutely loved Independence Day, for example.
Does this say something bad about me? Or our culture (these movies generally do quite well as the Box Office...?
2 - -E
I don't think that a hardened heart against violence in movies means you will be less concerned about violence in the real world. I love films like Pulp Fiction and Boondock Saints. The unforgiving violence is a source of humor in them. In real life? I've been known to cry just thinking that people have to suffer from [insert whatever people suffer from] or even suffer from it on a regular basis.
What do I think that means? I think it means that parents, teachers, guardians, role models, and every adult has to make sure they teach that very thing- that being ok with death or pain in a movie doesn't mean it is "no biggie" in real life, but quite the opposite. I think these movies provide people with a sort of release where it is ok to see it and not have to react emotionally. It is an escape from reality in that sense. That way, when you go home and turn on the 10 o'clock news you have just that much more in you to be able to handle the world and react accordingly.
3 - Steve S
I love horror, sci-fi, battle epic, military, thriller, espionage, action and hitchcock films! I also love to read Clive Barker and HP Lovecraft and can hold my own against veteran Doom players, armed with only a chainsaw. But I also care still enough about lives that I'm willing to be called a ranting fool for trying to save them.
I guess it's different for everybody. I get caught up and emotional in the sweeping epics and great cinematography and in tragic love stories.
4 - Eric Olsen
very thoughtful David, and the thinking viewer does have to reconcile the often tossed off mass violence of film and TV as "entertainment." I agree entirely that Savign Private Ryan and Schindler were in no way gratuitous and forced you to FEEL the loss.
We picked up the original Star Wars trilogy DVD sert over the weekend, and I was reminded that the destruction of an entire planet by the Death Star was perhaps the most massive act of murder in screen history, yet it carried relatively little emotional weight, which bothered me quite a bit.
5 - DrPat
Should this be in Video? Maybe as a secondary category, at least?
6 - David Flanagan
DrPat: Good point, I've updated the categories to include a few video categories like "horror," "scifi," and "movies."
RJ: I loved ID4 too. I still like the movie. I wasn't a Dad yet when that movie came out, but I think of the scene where the First Lady is dying from internal injuries in a hospital bed and she wants to see her daughter so that she can say goodbye. That was a moving scene in an otherwise shallow action epic.
As scifi goes, ID4 is first rate. Not much there in the way of plot and character development though. With that said, Spielberg is a master at character development, as he has demonstrated over and over again. I thought "Minority Report" was a fascinating movie, not the greatest scifi flick I've ever seen, but one in which we got to know the characters and the motivations of the characters.
War of The Worlds will likely be a powerful movie, and I'm worried that the mass slaughter side of the movie is going to very tough to deal with. It gets too depressing for me sometimes.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for your great comments.
David