Sometimes when you watch a movie as a kid you dislike it because it doesn’t have anything happening that would appeal to a kid. Every once in a while now that I am much older I try to give a movie from my childhood I disliked another shot. Sometimes I am suprised to discover I enjoyed it more than I thought. Other times I just remember why I avoided it in the first place.
Then there are the movies I missed out on as a kid even though I was the right age to see them and they were popular back then. Two of those were The Goonies and The Neverending Story.
I am goinna discuss 4 movies that fall under both of these categories.
I will start with The Goonies. while it was always on TV and my ssite watched it a lot, it never looked appealing to me so I never sat down to watch it. I was into my 20s the first time I saw it and I was an 80s kid. I discovered not only did I rather enjoy it considerably, I felt like I cheated myself by not seeing it when I was the right age for it. This was the first time I realized there were fantastic movies from my childhood that I let myself miss out on.
Next up is The Neverending Story. This is another one that was always on TV that I just thought looked boring. Don’t get me wrong, I read the book once in 1st grade and it was fine but whenever I saw the movie playing I just thought it looked, off to me. So I avoided it until I was damn near 30. Unlike The Goonies where I felt like I missed out on an amzing childhood classic I would have loved, I felt disappointed in this one. So much I wrote it off as boring and uninteresting. I figured maybe I was being too harsh on it so I gave it a second shot a few years later only to reaffirm my disdain for it held up.
Now for the two I did see as a kid I hated then that I rewatched recently.
The first is Top Gun. I saw it on TV all the time cuz my dad loved it. As a child who was into sci fi and fantasy, it was just so boring to me I never could pay attention to it whenever it was on so I wrote it off as boring and lame. I watched it again for the first time today and was blown away at how much I actually enjoyed it. I guess it is another one of those 80s movies that doesn’t have much to offer a kid but as an adult I really appreciated it so much more.
Then there is The Karate Kid. Admittedly I saw the 3rd one the most because it was the one my sister liked so she had it on all the time. I only saw the original a couple of times and was bored to tears every single time. So I decided to give it another shot recently and once again I was just bored to tears. Absolutely nothing happening at all to keep my attention.
I learned a couple of things. Some kids movies would have been better enjoyed had I seen them as a kid while some adult movies a kid found disinterested could turn out to be entertaining as an adult. But I also learned not every first impression is off. Sometimes my first instinct about something remains true even after reevaluating it.
