Saturday Roundtable – Childish Things

The topic on the table today is this: What movies were so cool to you as a kid, but now you are embarrassed to be in the same room as them?

Let’s hear what the Mutants have to say!

Mike: It’s funny, a friend of mine actually coined a term for this phenomena: Darkman Syndrome. It’s a weird category here. Mortal Kombat at the time it came out was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and upon seeing it more recently I literally cringed at the crappy CGI, atrocious dialogue, and wooden acting, but alternatively, Howard the Duck has only improved in my estimation. Go fig.

Lissa: I’ll take your word on Howard the Duck, because there’s no WAY I am EVER watching that again. The once from my childhood was enough, thanks, and there’s not enough booze in the world for me to recant that.

It’s been mentioned before in reviews, but The Neverending Story is one that just doesn’t age well. Which is sad, because the book is even cooler than I remember it, especially with its colored text. But the movie… yeah. Wish dragons aren’t as awesome as I remember.

Heather: Um…it’s a luck dragon, Lissa. Get your outdated 80’s icons right, won’t ‘ya? Sheesh! Well as I’ve just made painfully obvious I can still stomach Neverending Story (and love to dance to the theme on DDR Extreme). What really wrenched my childhood memories on the rewatch is Flight Of The Navigator. That was my favorite movie of all time and I spent countless hours in front of the television watching it whenever it ran on The Disney Channel. I only wish it were half as amazing to me now as it was then. “Get around, ’round, ’round, I get around!”

Mike: That’s funny! My four-year-old nephew just now picked that movie out of my DVD collection. Also, did you know it looks as though Disney is remaking it? I’m still kinda blown away by the space ship design, if a tad underwhelmed by some effects and Joey Cramer’s performance (and yes, I had to look him up). PS – I’m not saying Howard the Duck isn’t a miserable, poorly written failure, I’m just saying it’s the kind of miserable failure I can get into…for free…on Hulu.

Lissa: Luck dragon, wish dragon… either way it doesn’t breathe fire and smite its enemies, and therefore it has now become lame (says the woman who reviews any princess movie that comes out).  You know, speaking of Disney, there’s a category in itself.  I used to love all things Disney.  Still do like a lot of it, but now that I’m being forced to rewatch much of the collection, I’m rather amazed that I was as devoted to some of the older movies as I was.  (Although I still love the Prince John song from Robin Hood, and always will.  Phil Harris =  one of the best voices EVER in animation.)

Drew: Any movie I dragged my poor mother to in the theater. Mom, I’m so sorry. Masters of the Universe was not worth coming back to the next day because the projector broke in the middle of the film. And that one about the kid who gets a blank check and cashes it for a million dollars? Ugh. Home Alone, of course. Oh, and The Wizard — in those pre-Internet days, we would have paid $6 just for a glimpse of Super Mario 3 ahead of time. The rest of the movie was superfluous… but, much like the Power Glove, so bad.

Justin: One of my nephews’ name is Lucas, and every time I see him, I make a Power Glove joke (much to the dismay of his parents).

There were a ton of movies we watched repeatedly “back in the day” that aren’t worth spit to me now. Neverending Story, yes, although it’s iconic enough to still be useful. Lots of Disney movies come to mind — Sword in the Stone, Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers (that was Disney, right?). My brothers and I also watched this TV movie called “The Rescue”, which was a highly-laughable ripoff of (of all things) Iron Eagle — Navy SEALS are captured during a dangerous mission, and it’s only up to their kids to invade (I think) North Korea to bust them out of jail.

Oh, and Short Circuit 2… yeah, I wouldn’t give it the time of day right now, but I must’ve memorized it way back when.