The Story Telling of My Youth

I gotta tell ya, I'm feeling a little adrift on the proverbial sea of not-knowing-what's-whatishness. I'm sure you remember that proverb. It's the one with that guy. A good proverb. Very proverbial and adagey and stuff. My lostitude stems from the staples of my childhood, how awesome they were in my memory, and how not entirely awesome they actually were.

As I've discussed on here numerous times, I've been introducing Gabe to many of my childhood loves for the better part of the last year. Transformers and Star Wars were the biggies (G.I.Joe and Thundercats also fall into this category, but, honestly, I enjoyed the cartoons growing up but didn't get into the toys all that much), but we've recently been plumbing our DVD library trying to find some stuff that is rated PG and appropriate for both of them to watch (figuring that they've seen Star Wars and seem none the worse for wear). And we also bought The Never Ending Story off the bargain rack the other day as it was one of the movies Libby and I watched a thousand times and loved.

And, you know, these movies and shows--the things I loved so much while growing up, these things that defined much of my youth--really weren't very good. Studios really didn't try very hard with the stories or to make sure there weren't any gaping plot holes or continuity problems. Technically speaking, Transformers was so poorly done that characters would change their colors (effectively making them different characters since many of them were only differentiated by their colors) or their bottom halves would be missing. And from a storytelling point of view, there was simply no rhyme nor reason to almost anything that happened in the episodes. I could provide a systematic deconstruction of an episode as an example, but I don't think it would be time well spent for either of us.

Even Star Wars . . . .  Oh Star Wars. I hate to admit this, but . . . .  Well, I hadn't really watched any of the original movies, from start to finish, since college. Even once Gabe started watching them, I usually just turned them on and then came in from time to time to watch a few minutes. I mean, I've seen them so many times that I can just about speak the dialogue verbatim as it's going, so it's not like I really NEED to see them anymore.  But Sunday, Libby and I sat down with Gabe (and Norah--poor, poor Norah, forced to like everything Gabe does because she just doesn't like enough of her own things yet to provide alternatives) to watch A New Hope (which, since I'm opening up here, is a pretty stupid name for a movie--just calling it Star Wars, as I have done all my life, is a much better option).

That movie . . . oy. It is a mess. I can't stand to go into it too much. It just breaks my heart. But so much of what happens just doesn't make much sense or stand to any sort of reason. And throw into the mix everything that happened in the prequels (which doesn't pan out AT ALL with what is said and done at the beginning of New Hope, proving that Lucas didn't have a clue what was going to happen in those movies before hand, as he's always insisted), and I spent about two hours of the run time internally sniping at obvious problems. I still believe that Empire and Jedi hold up a little better in terms of simple storytelling (ignoring the Ewoks, of course), but still. 

The one bright spot in all of this is The Princess Bride. I'm happy to say that it can safely be called one of the best movies of the 80s. Yes, the ROUS's look like pigs wrapped in dog skins by some sadistic taxidermist. Yes, it's an undeniable fact that Andre the Giant would have never gotten work if he wasn't enormous--you can barely understand anything he says throughout. And the baseball video game at the beginning of the movie is pretty hilarious. But that's kind of it. Everything else has held up amazingly well. Even Fred Savage has grown up to be, by all accounts, a pretty swell guy--which is a pretty amazing accomplishment for a child star from the 80s.

What has changed? Were we such slathering primates back then that we watched everything, no matter how terrible it was, and thought it was wonderful? Or was everything from that decade just awful and, since it was all we knew, we didn't know that shows could NOT suck? I mean, across the board. Everything from my childhood that I thought was great I can only appreciate now if I write it off as "campy."  A-Team, Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Mork and Mindy (oh. my. god. They just started showing these on The Hub recently. I watched an episode. How did we EVER think Robin Williams was a viable option?), and on and on and on. All awful. What was wrong with us?

But even that is just looking back on my childhood with a doubtful, disappointed, and mildly ashamed eye. What is truly rocking my world is MODERN storytelling. Ever since Jurassic Park came out, I have been complaining that movies (mostly--there are exceptions) have used special effects in place of storytelling. The most glaring example of this--and it is 100% true still, even if I analyze this according to ANY criteria--is the Star Wars prequels. Lucas was just throwing shit onto the screen because he could, not because it was the least bit necessary. HUGE segments of each of those movies could have been removed entirely because they were nothing more than eye candy--actually, they were often eye candy that just complicated or confused the already convoluted story all the more. 

But I digress. 

I just don't know anymore. Sure there are plenty of movies where the special effects ARE the story. But there are plenty of movies that have storytelling that is FAR better than it was in the 80s. And the kids' shows? They are SOOOO much better than what we grew up with. I can watch these new shows now--being the person who tears apart the stuff I watched as a child--and not have many problems with the storytelling. The new Transformers series is pretty good. There are a few pretty glaring plot holes (if Megatron, who has always controlled a MUCH stronger force in all of the series, really wanted to end Optimus, then why not just launch a huge assault on Earth, drawing the Autobots out, then wipe them out completely--tactically speaking, Megatron is either an idiot or the writers take some liberties just to play up the "hopelessly outgunned" trope that a tireless number of shows use these days), but if you can suspend just a little bit of disbelief, then you can get through pretty well. And then there are shows like Phineas and Ferb, which actively points its own plot holes out for viewers to question and/or enjoy. That's some complicated storytelling for a cartoon targeting the under-10 crowd.

I don't know where I'm going with this. It was just something I was thinking about after seeing New Hope and Mork and Mindy these past few days. I guess if I need some sort of Big Wrap Up, then I should throw out something hopeful about the future. We obviously think that this current generation of children will be a bunch of shiftless lay-abouts. Because ALL current generations of children will grow up to be a bunch of shiftless lay-abouts.  But, honestly, if our kids are processing complicated story elements like this, and paying this much more attention to the stories that are being told--to the point where the writers actually have to put forth a little effort--then maybe, at least, they will get some good stories written up while they are shiftlessly laying-about.

Gabe Is Pre-K Out

About two months ago, Gabe started referring to his preschool graduation as Pre-K Out. We're not sure why he started calling it that, but it's stuck and now many of the adults in and around the school are also calling it that. The kid's got a knack for coming up with catchy phrases, I guess.

Last Friday, they had their yearly program for the graduating kids. I'll post it here for anyone who is interested (and if Blogger will allow me to put all the videos up). The ceremony is cute and what-not, but there wasn't anything crazy or hilarious that happened, that I remember.  Anyway, here it is.

Gabe's Movies

Gabe has recently discovered movie making. Well, actually, he's discovered playing with his toys while we film him and he gets to watch the movie played back. Which, really, isn't all that different than what we've been doing with the camera and him for the past almost five years, I suppose.

But instead of just him acting like a goof in front of the camera and then wanting to watch it because, I assume, he wants to take some notes on his performance for future reference, this time he's trying to tell a story with his toys which he can watch to take notes on their performance.

So here's some video of him making a Star Wars movie. But Gabe really isn't what's going on in these videos. Norah is.

Effing Blogger. They still haven't fixed the thing that's not letting me post more than one video at a time (if I'm uploading it--I might be able to if I felt like uploading everything to youtube first, which I don't). God, I swear, how has this blogging site stayed around for this long, it's been garbage this entire time.

Well, there's ONE video of Gabe and Norah doing Gabe's movie. I guess I won't be loading anymore for the time being.

Stupid blogger. OK, so they will let me load videos again, but I have to load all the videos together, then there's a weird block of them and they can't be separated. Moreover, I can't type AFTER the videos now either. But, here are the other two videos of Gabe's movies.