Let sleeping dogs (and movies) lie

I have this habit of reminiscing too much. I often think about how it was, growing up in the 80’s and the early 90’s and love thinking about all those shows and movies that defined those wonderful years of my childhood. To name just a handful, I was crazy about the Knight rider, the Ninja turtles, the Terminator, Home Alone, Back to the Future, Perfect strangers and countless other movies and shows that to this day, bring back fond memories every time I hear some tune from their respective soundtracks.

Well, ever since YouTube and online video hit the scene, and I mean really became a part of everyday life, I have been constantly tempted to re-visit some of these old shows. Not just movies or shows that I watched and enjoyed, but even those that I missed that I wish I hadn’t when growing up.

Take the Star Wars trilogy for instance, and I mean the original trilogy(4,5 and 6 in the series). I watched it when I was way too young to understand or remember it, and so I lost out on the Star Wars phenomenon… which, for kids of the 80’s is a cardinal sin. At 25, after watching more than a 100 pop-culture references to scenes from the trilogy and failing to understand them, I finally decided to sit down and watch them. And that’s where I am taking you with this post …

Let sleeping movies lie.

There is really *no* way you can put yourself in the shoes of someone who is living in the 70’s, and honestly enjoy all that the movie has to offer. This is 2008, and there is no way you can turn back time. You are not only used to some serious out-of-the-world computer graphics, but even without your knowledge, you have come to expect so much quality from the direction, cinematography and editing. Things just aren’t the same. That which you call a ‘cliche’ today, was at some point perhaps the best line in a movie !

The first of the trilogy was seriously hard to get through, but the next two were thankfully better. Had it not been such a legendary trilogy, I would have gladly abandoned the series after the first one. I should have learned my lesson after watching an episode each of the Ninja turtles and Perfect strangers, both of which I found much less exciting than I remembered them to be, but no – I forgave and forgot. Finally, a week or so ago I picked up this movie, ‘The Running man’, which I must have watched in ’89 or ’90 as a little kid, that I had really found exciting and had always wondered about since I’d forgotten most of the story. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in a futuristic action packed reality show…. and boy, right from the opening scene I just couldn’t wait for the movie to get over! It was one of the most horrible movies I’ve ever seen – the cheesiest of dialogues, the most cliche-ridden characters ever, and a story so predictable that anyone who watched it would consider pursuing fortune-telling as a career. It was that bad.

That was the last straw. No more sci-fi movies of the past. Missed ‘2001: a space odyssey’? Well, too bad. Missed the original Star Trek series that *everyone* swears by? Too bad, I missed that too. Don’t know head or tail about the characters in the ‘Wizard of Oz’? So be it. I choose ignorance over a waste of 2 hours.

And I will definitely choose the gradual waning of my fond memories over the complete erasure of their beauty. These movies shone at some point in time, and unlike books or even songs, they have an ‘expiry date’ whether you wish to believe it or not. Feel lucky that you tasted it while it was good, but don’t ever eat a ten year old apple.