Solid Snake

Kid being.... a broad term but you get my point.

I was thinking about this earlier how those Mexploitation films that were the norm on Univisión may or may not be any good but I still like them. The quality that I recognize in them now doesn't trump that I like them. Nostalgia or not towards my youth. I still love Predator. My earliest life memory is watching RoboCop at 3 years old and I still fucking love that thing. I seriously can't come up with anything that I still don't like. My exposure to movies cradled the mainstream of my youth but also the niche stuff that my Dad showed me, the cultural or foreign material.


Anyway.. Do you still like the films you did as a kid?

stvn1974

Besides the three that were ruined by George Lucas I still love most of the same films. I didn't really get into watching movies until around age 11. I was allowed to watch Terminator, Aliens and Robocop on VHS dubs that my neighbor would make for me. My parents were (still are) pretty cool.

Never was into the Disney films even as a kid. The ones that I had on VHS that I would watch over and over were:

Star Wars Trilogy
Back To The Future
Robocop
The Terminator
Predator
Alien
Aliens
The Thing
Gremlins
Ghostbusters
A Christmas Story
Lethal Weapon
Die Hard
Howard The Duck
Nightmare On Elm Street
Night Of The Living Dead

Neighbor had a double deck VCR so she would record things that I had rented. I still have some of those tapes.

Ash Ketchum

I was pretty lucky because there weren't a whole lot of "children's films" shoved down our throats when I was a child, other than the Disney features that kept getting re-released (SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, CINDERELLA, PETER PAN, etc.). On TV, we watched old Hollywood classics like: KING KONG, SON OF KONG, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, THE INVISIBLE MAN, FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLF MAN, ONE MILLION B.C., THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, ANDROCLES AND THE LION, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, BEAU GESTE, plus all kinds of westerns and war movies. I remember sitting with my father one Sunday afternoon and watching two war movies in a row, ASSIGNMENT BRITTANY, which I've never seen since, and Raoul Walsh's DESPERATE JOURNEY, with Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan!

In theaters, when I was seven, I saw a double bill of the Russian fantasy film, SWORD AND THE DRAGON and FRANKENSTEIN 1970, starring the master himself, Boris Karloff. SWORD AND THE DRAGON was great and I would later see another Russian fantasy film by the same director, MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD, which was an English-dubbed, retitled re-edit of SADKO, and it played on a double bill with LILIES OF THE FIELD, for which Sidney Poitier got his Best Actor Oscar. Also when I was seven, I saw a double bill of THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER, with effects by Ray Harryhausen, and STOP, LOOK AND LAUGH, a compilation of Three Stooges shorts intercut with new footage with TV host Paul Winchell and his dummy, Jerry Mahoney.

I saw two other Harryhausen films on the big screen when I was a kid: THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD when I was five and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS when I was ten. I later took my daughter and my nephews to see Harryhausen films at the Film Forum when they were kids.

So the answer is a solid "Yes!"

Aren't you glad you asked, Solid Snake?

Trevor

This seems like a Scott thread? Did you get his permission before starting it?

And to answer the question, yes. Everything I liked from about age 10 and up are still my favorite things. Monster movies, Godzilla, comic books, football, video games, wondering about God, Monty Python, nachos. My life hasn't really changed.

Solid Snake

Out of films, Cheetos and I have grown apart. Can't stand them fuckers now.

Outside of like Lion King, Pocahontas, and Mulan... my theater experience was all live action. T2, JP, Batman flims, Titanic, etc. Going to the movies was a big deal for us cuz my father worked a lot with having his own construction business. We probably went out like 4 times max in a year to the movies. I know wanted to go out more being a stupid little kid.

kgrogers1979

The question is too open-ended. Like with all things, some movies have aged well and others have not. Everyone is listing the best movies that have aged well, but there are certainly many that have not aged well too.

Talking strictly movies meant for kids (and not more adult movies many people here are listing) there are movies like Goonies and E.T. that I still love today. There are also movies like The Last Starfighter, The Wizard, Three Ninjas, the Ernest movies, etc that I loved as a kid, but I just can't stand watching them today with adult eyes.

mrhan

That's pretty much my list except for Howard the Duck. I couldn't sit through that stupid movie. My friends loved it 'cause they played extras in it.

I will add The Warriors, The Wanderers to that list and all the Bruce Lee movies minus Game of Death.

Pizza

Yes, probably even more today for the fond memories they bring me when I watch them.

bluetoast

I started to watch Three Ninjas a few years back (thanks to one of those infamous DDD sales) and turned it off about 5 minutes in. Saw it twice in theaters as a kid.

But like Snake, I too saw RoboCop at a young age, at 6. Loved it then, loved it now. Depends on the movie, but I was exposed to a lot of good movies as a kid (as were most of us on this forum, presumably).

Solid Snake

I was lucky that my parents didn't really take us to the movies for kid stuff. It was more stuff they could enjoy as well. I didn't grow up w/ SW, ST, Back to the Future, or whatever else a kid in my period would soak up for my part. My youth kind of touches what mainstream US kid would grow up watching but barely skids on it for long. I grew up on Mexploitation, Hong Kong movies, US action films, and Godzilla. That's my pool. I know my mother probably preferred us to watch more Disney but my father worked too much to give a damn about that stuff. Our exposure to it was on VHS. And even with that it was only animated Disney. Never cared for live action kids stuff and thankfully nor did my father care for it to be shown to us cuz I saw it on TV and holy fuck did that shit suck.

printerati

It depends on the film. Off the top of my head, I still enjoy:

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Ghostbusters
The Goonies
UHF
Young Sherlock Holmes

On the other hand, I find these insufferable now:

Flight of the Navigator
Iron Eagle
Krull
The Last Starfighter
The Running Man
Star Wars (trilogy)

inri222

There are some I still like, but the majority I don't. As an adult I look for different things in films. As a child I loved sci-fi and fantasy films, as an adult that is one my least favorite genres.

PatD

I think my film tastes have become more sophisticated as I've gotten older, but most of the films I like I still find enjoyable. Some I appreciate on a more adult level and less on a visceral right brained level.

However, there are kids films like the 1986 Transformers: The Movie, which is a deeply flawed film, but there's a lot about it I still appreciate (the pacing, the music, the operatic epic scope of the fight scenes).

Then there are films like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure that I loved as a kid, that growing up have found to be a much smarter and sophisticated film that one would take at a youthful face value.

resinrats

There are some films I liked as a kid & now as an adult, I really don't like them that much. Most of the older Disney cartoons are not enjoyable anymore. Rewatched Goonies and that is no way as enjoyable as it was when I was 10. Also noticed the kids swear a lot in it.

PhantomStranger

It depends, some movies haven't aged particularly well and are stuck in a certain era. A lot of the television I watched as a youngster and greatly enjoyed has fallen apart under adult scrutiny.

I can't believe how some people could have enjoyed Star Wars as a child and then grown up to dislike it. Those movies still hold up very well.

Sean O'Hara

That movie really falls apart once you realize how small an eight year time jump is. The things that shocked the kid were so minor -- wow, a TV show he liked has been canceled! -- or already existed in 1978 -- he's never hear of heavy metal or punk? -- that the alien might as well have picked him out of some remote part of Alaska and returned him to Times Square by mistake.

creekdipper

Thanks for explaining your preferred posting vocab, Snake!

Good thread topic. The few of us here who grew up in the pre-VHS era may have a much more limited view of things unless going to the movies was a big thing (not in our house), especially since the movies shown on tv usually weren't recent (took years to make it to tv) and were often heavily-edited.

Lots of favorites then are still favorites (Great Escape, Good, Bad, & Ugly, Sand Pebbles, Butch Cassidy, Jason & Argonauts, Shane, The Birds, The Desperate Ones, The Vikings). On the other hand, some of the live-action Disney stuff seems lame now along with some of the "cool" movies that were era-driven (60's & early 70's) seeming very dated with cheesy music, questionable special effects, cringe-worthy dialogue, and gimmicky effects that seemed really neat when we were kids. A lot of "spy" movies and Rat Pack movies that were "high concept" movies look pretty bad in retrospect.

It's sort of gratifying when you see things that you liked then hold up well today...but maybe others are like me & have blocked out some of the "bad" movies that we liked then. Or we see them as campy nostalgia and don't really dislike them not...we just see them differently.

On a related note (and I think there have been recent threads about this), I'm sure that most of us can cite lots of films that we hated as kids but like now. There are many classic films, actors, and directors whom I didn't "get" as a kid but absolutely love today.

aintnosin

Depends on the movie... My early childhood was the late 60s and early 70s.

Kurt Russel's Disney movies or the Love Bug movies? Not so much.

The Jungle Book and The Aristocats? I'll watch them with kids.

Andromeda Strain and Le Mans. I'll watch them again anytime.

Hazel Motes

I never really watched kids movies. Maybe when I was 5 and younger. I watched a ton of kids tv shows though. GI Joe, Transformers, Batman, X Men, Rambo, Duck Tales, Inspector Gadget, C.O.P.S, He Man, Saved By The Bell, Darkwing Duck etc. I like some of them still today, some not as much.


Movies, I was brought up on Bill Murray, early SNL cast movies and other comedies. Ghostbusters 1&2, What About Bob?, Groundhog Day, Big, Three Amigos, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors, Vacation, Summer Rental, Dumb & Dumber, Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Along with films like Stand By Me, Harry & The Hendersons, The Wizard of Oz, The Indy Trilogy etc. I still LOVE all that stuff.

The only movies that come to mind that I enjoyed as a kid that I'm speculating I wouldn't like now is the Pauly Shore movie of the early 90's. I loved them as a kid and haven't really seen them since then, but i've seen bits and pieces here and there and I doubt I'd still like them.

Brack

Certain movies I watched a lot that I knew they weren't very good, but they were fun enough at the time were those Mighty Duck movies, Ninja Turtles sequels in the 90s, Little Monsters/The Wizard Fred Savage movies, Masters of the Universe, stuff like that. If I see them now it's only by chance and I laugh at how bad they are. But for the most part I grew up watching late 70s and 80s stuff that I still enjoy today, but I don't nearly watch movies over and over again like I used to. Then again, when you're a kid a lot of days you don't have anything better to do to kill the time.

joliom

My thoughts exactly. As a kid I saw a lot of adult-oriented movies (not porn) and the majority of the ones I liked then, I still like now. But with kid-oriented movies, it's more like 50%. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Cloak & Dagger, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Princess Bride...still love 'em as much as ever. The Last Starfighter, Iron Eagle, Short Circuit, SpaceCamp, Howard the Duck, Masters of the Universe, The Wizard...not so much.

B5Erik

The movies I saw as a kid in the 70's I still love.

Star Wars
The Spy Who Loved Me
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Star Trek The Motion Picture (OK, I don't love this one, but I do like it)
Midway (I saw it in SENSURROUND)

I also saw some Disney live action stuff like The Strongest Man In The World and Never A Dull Moment, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Cat From Outer Space, etc, all of which I still find somewhat fun and amusing to watch.

milo bloom

Still love the Star Wars and Star Trek movies, I love the old Disney animated movies (and certain live-action ones like The Black Hole).

I've also found myself going back to things I missed and still enjoying them (The Last Unicorn).

A lot of the cartoons however are pretty bad. The Looney Tunes ones are still good, but a lot of the stuff made in the 80's did not age well at all (tried to watch Transformers and it was kinda painful). (Though my wife and I still enjoy the Smurfs, and now our son does too.)

Nick Danger

I wasn't allowed to watch Chiller Theater on Saturday afternoons, so I missed out on all those old horror movies that Ash loved.

Fantasia - I liked the dinosaurs best, but now I prefer the ostrich and the crocodile.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Beautiful, but I no longer identify with the bossy little girl.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes - Nope.
The Love Bug - I haven't seen it since 1969.
The Gold Rush - The jokes are still great, but the love story is mawkish.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Still a favorite.

Randy Miller III

Really? I don't think that part of the story was much of a factor, at least not as much as seeing his older parents and "younger" brother (which would freak out any kid, really). He just hadn't seen a music video before, which makes perfect sense: things come and go quickly, like how music videos are rarely a thing now, DVDs graduated to Blu-ray, phones get smaller, etc.

Consider this: eight years ago, YouTube and Facebook were barely a blip on the radar, and some MP3 players were the size of a deck of cards. Nobody really used "cloud storage", Circuit City was still in business, the 1st gen iPhone had barely launched, and the real estate market hadn't crashed yet.

On a related note, a remake of that movie has been in the works for awhile...and I think the way the world moves faster now would be even more jarring.