Jill and I saw this movie for fun, but there’s many reasons I didn’t like it and kids’ movies like it. Here’s why:
1) TV and movies today change scenes much faster. I read about this in Culture Jam. It suggests that people today have shorter attention spans and so keeping someone’s interest is done by changing scenes often. The mind must continually reacclimate itself, so you are less likely to change the channel or get bored. Try watching some old black & white shows or movies, and then turn on MTV for 2 minutes and you will see the difference almost immediately.
Chicken Little opens with a huge action scene which jumps from scene to scene roughly every 2 seconds. To me it’s awful, my feeble mind can’t seem to keep up.
2) Much of the music is rock or pop based. This is also distracting to me… I miss kids’ movies with an orchestras, jazz choirs, and beautiful singing. Compare this to this – both are opening songs for successful movies, but in different decades.
3) The theme/moral values of today don’t want to offend, they want to be cool, or empower kids to do what they want. Compare the Jungle Book (1967) – “If you do what you want despite good advice to the contrary, you may end up getting your friends killed,” to Chicken Little – “If your parents don’t believe you when you tell them something, it’s their fault and they will probably end up apologizing later.” There is some stuff about sharing feelings and talking things over. That’s decent I guess, but the majority of morals/lessons today don’t want to offend, lest their small audience think it uncool.
4) A surprising amount of adult themes have been introduced into “kid” movies. In Chicken Little, at least four people are vaporized by mean-looking aliens. You learn later that they weren’t killed, but I could see how it would be scary at the time. Chicken Little gives Ducky Wucky a drawn-out kiss. There is kissing in older kids’ movies too (like Sleeping Beauty), but it doesn’t seem the same somehow. Jill and I were grossed out. Some kid movies have nasty language that I was absolutely forbidden to say growing up. Example from Shrek: “Please keep off of the grass, shine your shoes, wipe your – face.” That’s funny to me, but I wouldn’t want a child inferring what was left out. Also from Shrek: “Well, I have to save my ass.”
Well that’s my rant about movies. If I ever have kids, I’ll make them watch movies like Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, and Bambi.
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