"Just a kids movie" is no excuse....

[Dane Tesston]

As I see it, as long as the movie treats it's audience with dignity, it's all good.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Try watching Toy Story, it's pretty fabulous.
And I don't ever remember critiquing a movie when I was a kid. If it works, it works.

 

[Vault101]

I recently bought the first season of Rocko's Modern Life on DVD and let me tell you...I am BAFFLED as to why I was allowed to watch this as a kid. That show is lewd, crude, filthy, loaded with innuendo and in some cases downright nasty.

...and I wouldn't have it any other way. See, I actually remembered a lot of the lines, characters and stories from when I was a kid and enjoyed it because it was a fun cartoon with well animated humor.

But now that I'm older, I get all the jokes, and I'm able to enjoy it on the same levels as when I was a kid, and levels beyond that.

It's part of the reason why Pixar movies are so good as well. Because sure, a lot of it is aimed at younger audiences, but it can be enjoyed by anyone.

but thats the thing though, I can garruntee that stuff goes over kids heads, theres no way it could "corrupt" them

ever see disneys peter pan? the part with the native americans is kind of racist/rediculous, but to me as a kid it was all fun, or we had a video of bugs bunny having a showdown with THE most racist interpretation of a black man Ive ever seen....but as a kid it went over my head

not syaing that stuffs acceptible though

 

[Vault101]

Just somthing I have been thinking about just now,

"Family movies" or "Kids movies" often have a reputation for being bad, and some people say; "Well its a kids movie" BUT I say theres no excuse for bad movies(though the kids are gonna enjoy it either way I guess).

The reason I was thinking of this was because I was thinking about the Star Wars prequels (random I know.) I've never actually seen them except for bits and I know...They just aren't that great, and you know that I'm not even a Star Wars fan

I remember some people had pointed out in their defense that "Star Wars was/is now kind of for kids anyway". This also could be seen as a somewhat passive aggressive insult to older fans since it is implying that they are losers.

WRONG, whether or not those films were made with children as the target audience (E.G Jar Jar Binks) it's no excuse for them being bad films, even aside from that certain characters are incredibly annoying.

So what do you think? Do you cut some movies some slack because they are "for kids"? Do you think Star Wars is "For kids"?

You're a brilliant poster, most of the time, but the abuse of the English Language in this was terrible. So I fixed up as many of your errors as I could see to make the post a bit more legible.

Sorry, I'm being a bit of a Nazi, but it was a bit odd considering your normal glowing posting record

Anyway, Star Wars should have been made for the original fans, which it wasn't, and kids movies aren't just to entertain, they are to keep the child's interest. Since they have shorter attention spans, they need to be entertained differently. It's why you don't enjoy kids shows, but can't look away anyway, they produce an effect akin to mild hypnosis.

Really, it's a low state of epilepsy, I wish I were making this up.

Will source later, this was mostly for Vault Dweller.

Ego boost levels at 100%, ha yeah I should work on my spelling

anyway I'm not saying that the starwars couldnt apeal to kids and adults (like in the same way the spiderman or even iron man movies might) but saying that at the time, it just seems like a huge excuse and cop out

no Lucas you made shitty movies, regardless of WHO they were ment for

(and pissed off the fanabse, I know I would be for already getting shit for being "30 somthing loser" and NOW Im being told I like somthing FOR KIDS)

 

[Grell Sutcliff]

I don't cut stuff slack because it's for kids, all Toy Story movies are for kids and they're great, Kiki's delivery service is for kids/teens and that movies great, so is The Cat Returns, Spirited Away, Rock-a-doodle, Who Framed Rogger Rabbit, the Looney Tunes. What I'm trying to say is that the age rating is no excuse for poor quality.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Star Wars currently exists as a multi-purpose entity which can be used by children (clone wars and, LEGO game series) older kids (non-CG clone wars, episode 1 and, episode 2), teens (episodes 3-6, Force Released), older teens (KotOR and many of the books) and, adults (99% of the stuff on deviant art).

As for things being bad just because they're for kids...it wasn't always like that. Jim Henson made kids stuff that's still really great. Dark Crystal and, Labyrinth for example. The latest iteration of My Little Pony is also good despite being for children.

 

[orangeapples]

I think the problem is that everybody wants to be a famous critic and cannot just enjoy something for what it is. To those people I say, "You can look at a movie' story, characters, ambiance, whatever without getting into the technical nitty-gritty."

is there really dumb stuff released for children? yes. But there is really dumb stuff released for adults too and for some reason they get a pass because they're grown-up toilet humor as opposed to the schoolyard toilet humor.

What a lot of people here tend to forget is that some of the most popular stuff on this site are comic books, video games and cartoons. Lets face it: geek culture is just adults who enjoy kids' stuff (not like that internet). Most people know this, but some believe their geekness has somehow ascended the ranks of enjoying things targeted to children and can only appreciate things that were once targeted towards children but have since "grown up" and believe that anything targeted to children automatically sucks, even if they are quick to defend something like say: ThunderCats.

 

[badgersprite]

I recently bought the first season of Rocko's Modern Life on DVD and let me tell you...I am BAFFLED as to why I was allowed to watch this as a kid. That show is lewd, crude, filthy, loaded with innuendo and in some cases downright nasty.

...and I wouldn't have it any other way. See, I actually remembered a lot of the lines, characters and stories from when I was a kid and enjoyed it because it was a fun cartoon with well animated humor.

But now that I'm older, I get all the jokes, and I'm able to enjoy it on the same levels as when I was a kid, and levels beyond that.

It's part of the reason why Pixar movies are so good as well. Because sure, a lot of it is aimed at younger audiences, but it can be enjoyed by anyone.

+1

I still watch quite a lot of shows I used to watch as a kid, for the simple fact that I can think of quite a few kids shows that I personally think are smarter (or have more thought put into them), more creative, more entertaining and have more layers to them than a lot of the stuff made today for adults that you see on TV. I mean, yeah, it's kids stuff, but that doesn't mean it isn't great when it reaches a high standard.

Then again, I do kind of feel sorry for today's generation, in that a lot of stuff made for kids now is just bad sitcoms that involve people being hyperactive and yelling random things, but, that said, on the whole, I don't think that's the majority of children's programming. I've seen plenty of shows aimed at kids in recent years that I actually like and have watched. Yeah sure, there's nothing I consider as good as Batman: The Animated Series or Pete & Pete or Samurai Jack right now, but that's not really a fair comparison when shows are trying to do their own thing.

Movies are a different kettle of fish, though. 99% of 'family comedies' released today are utter shit, but that's more to do with the movie industry in general having problems than with it specifically being kids' films that are suffering.

And, re: The Star Wars Prequels are for kids so expectations should be low, The Phantom Menace came out when I was nine and I hated it then too. If those movies were made for children, I don't think George Lucas knows what a child is, because all three prequels bored the shit out of me. Star Wars is and always has been a "for all ages" sort of thing, like Batman, who through all his incarnations can be entirely aimed at kids, to being entirely aimed at adults as in The Dark Knight. The problem with the prequels was that they took the "for all ages" thing to mean they needed to put in stupid comic relief in the form of Jar Jar for kids, put in a little boy that kids could identify with, and put in all kinds of boring exposition and a convoluted nonsense plot that actually doesn't make sense and add gratuitous amounts of child murder for the adults to take it seriously. It failed.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Yeah, I agree. Children deserve quality as much as grown-ups do. I also wouldn't be surprised that if you raise a kid with crappy stuff, he won't be able to recognise the good stuff when he's older.

It's all been downhill since Battlestar Galactica made dark and depressing cool anyway; where's my hopeful sci fi, like Star Trek?

Heeeej!! One of BSG's major themes is hope y'know. Plus it's like, the only show that did social space drama right. Then Stargate: Universe copied it...*groan*

 

[Adrian Neyland]

The fact that they are often advertised as fun for the whole family, they have to be fun for the WHOLE family, in a good kids film the parents should be able to enjoy the film, not just the kids.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Yeah, I agree. Children deserve quality as much as grown-ups do. I also wouldn't be surprised that if you raise a kid with crappy stuff, he won't be able to recognise the good stuff when he's older.

It's all been downhill since Battlestar Galactica made dark and depressing cool anyway; where's my hopeful sci fi, like Star Trek?

Heeeej!! One of BSG's major themes is hope y'know. Plus it's like, the only show that did social space drama right. Then Stargate: Universe copied it...*groan*

Maybe, but everything from the plot to the writing to the flippin' camera angles and lighting just lent itself to a highly depressing atmosphere. We haven't had a hopeful sci-fi show that was actually well written and entertaining in years, and as your example of Stargate Universe illustrates, it goes back to the 2005 version of BSG.

This of course applies to US made shows; England never really stopped producing good Scifi. And yes, I know we've got shows like Warehouse 13 and Eureka, but they all have this "wink at the camera" feeling to them, like the show isn't supposed to be taken seriously, while not going far enough into the camp side to make them Hercules or Xena-esque examples of fun, campy action. We need more shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Stargate SG-1, something we haven't had in a very long time.

Edit: To expand, hope may have been a major theme of the BSG remake, but it was the characters who had hope that their lives would eventually be less crappy. By "hopeful sci-fi" I mean stuff like Star Trek, where the people of the future have a better quality of life than the people living today. Even shows like Andromeda, where the future is pretty crappy, have the main characters making the world better. The characters in BSG were too worried about surviving to do that.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Kids should never be spoken down to. It's a rule of mine. The Lion King handles themes similar to a fucking Shakespeare play, and kids dig that shit up. Disney had this down (for a while, anyway), it probably came with the territory though. If you're going spend millions of dollars and thousands of manhours drawing every single frame painfully hand-by-hand, you might as well make it appeal to more than just little babies.

And yes. Star Wars, made for kids. Which is odd considering the hackneyed and pointless political jargon of the prequels. It's like, Jar-Jar is there doing slapstick and the kids are eating it up. Then Palpatine starts talking about trade routes and how they should vote no confidence in the chancellor and ... ohhh. There's crickets from kids and the adults. That's a good sign that it's a shit movie...

 

[tFMechanic]

And yes, I know we've got shows like Warehouse 13 and Eureka, but they all have this "wink at the camera" feeling to them, like the show isn't supposed to be taken seriously, while not going far enough into the camp side to make them Hercules or Xena-esque examples of fun, campy action. We need more shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Stargate SG-1, something we haven't had in a very long time.

Edit: To expand, hope may have been a major theme of the BSG remake, but it was the characters who had hope that their lives would eventually be less crappy. By "hopeful sci-fi" I mean stuff like Star Trek, where the people of the future have a better quality of life than the people living today. Even shows like Andromeda, where the future is pretty crappy, have the main characters making the world better. The characters in BSG were too worried about surviving to do that.

I think that "wink at the camera" kind of style isn't meant so much to make the shows not serious; rather, I think it's meant to make them a little lighter than straight drama, and to give the characters a little more relatability/likability. Similar to, but distinct from, the way Joss Whedon writes characters that the audience actually likes to watch every week.

As far as "hopeful future" type sci-fi goes it doesn't really seem to be the 'popular' thing with audiences right now. You'd have to come up with a pretty interesting way to portray such a show's universe to keep it from appearing like 'passe' bright-and-cheery sci-fi. Hmmmm, maybe a series set in the Mass Effect universe? That might work well, but I'm not sure who I'd trust to make it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

And yes, I know we've got shows like Warehouse 13 and Eureka, but they all have this "wink at the camera" feeling to them, like the show isn't supposed to be taken seriously, while not going far enough into the camp side to make them Hercules or Xena-esque examples of fun, campy action. We need more shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Stargate SG-1, something we haven't had in a very long time.

Edit: To expand, hope may have been a major theme of the BSG remake, but it was the characters who had hope that their lives would eventually be less crappy. By "hopeful sci-fi" I mean stuff like Star Trek, where the people of the future have a better quality of life than the people living today. Even shows like Andromeda, where the future is pretty crappy, have the main characters making the world better. The characters in BSG were too worried about surviving to do that.

I think that "wink at the camera" kind of style isn't meant so much to make the shows not serious; rather, I think it's meant to make them a little lighter than straight drama, and to give the characters a little more relatability/likability. Similar to, but distinct from, the way Joss Whedon writes characters that the audience actually likes to watch every week.

As far as "hopeful future" type sci-fi goes it doesn't really seem to be the 'popular' thing with audiences right now. You'd have to come up with a pretty interesting way to portray such a show's universe to keep it from appearing like 'passe' bright-and-cheery sci-fi. Hmmmm, maybe a series set in the Mass Effect universe? That might work well, but I'm not sure who I'd trust to make it.

A show set in the Mass Effect universe would be awesome -- there's more Star Trek in those games than there has been in Star Trek itself for quite some time. There's a lot of Star Wars too, but unlike the most recent Star Trek film, it doesn't completely overpower the Trek-like aspects. As for the "wink at the camera" style being done to lighten the tone of the series, I understand that, but I just haven't seen it done in a way that worked without going full on camp, which these modern shows are reluctant to do. For example, Doctor Who is as light as it gets, but it takes itself relatively seriously; the characters, at least, don't act like they're in on some big joke. On the other hand, Xena: Warrior Princess didn't take itself too seriously (at least in earlier seasons) but it was full on camp, not these half measures you see today. Ever since 9/11, American writers seem to have forgotten how to write a show that doesn't involve a world just as crappy as our own -- which is a shame, because a lot of people watch scripted TV to escape from reality, not to be reminded of how terrible the real world can be.

 

[Mr. Google]

I just saw Whinnie the Pooh and it was short but it was still really a good movie. I loved it!

 

[penguindude42]

My answer to the whole 'Just a kids movie' is Adventure Time.

ADVENTURE TIME

Which is amazing btw.

Also, Pixar works too.

WHAT TIME IS IT!?

~Tom<3

 

[BRex21]

Yknow, I find it sad that most kids movies are better in almost every way that "adult" summer movies. They usually have Better than the average plot and character development, they often use more intelectual humour than the "Dur Hur guy got hit in the nuts" type that seems to be par for the course in more grown up movies.
This isn't by all means all movies, but I have just seen far too many come out with unlikeable characters, terrible plots and an entirely immature and bland sense of humour. Its pathetic when a cheap marketing ploy like Cars 2 has more likeable characters, more intelegent humour and is more memorable than the allegedly adult movies I saw immedeately before and after it.
(bad teacher and I can't for the life of me remember the name of the other)

 

[Nouw]

I agree to the extent that they shouldn't be compared to other films except ones in their own category. Then again this applies for every type of film.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, it is an excuse, sorta. The creators know that they can sell crap, so why bother putting the effort into it?

This hardly applies only to kids movies. When people don't have to try, they won't.

 

[shedra]

I think kids movies are better done than movies for adults...Despicable Me is one of my new all time favorite movies....so I don't know where your observation came from.

Serious question: Why?
It doesn't really bring much to the table. Grumpy loner makes unlikely friends and becomes an all around better person? Shrek did that way better.

I have never heard people, critics or otherwise, permit bad movies simply because they're marketed at children.