May 3, 2009

• 1.21 Gigawatts!!

  This past semester Christy has been in classes on Thursday night from 2pm until about 10pm. This means “Daddy Night” at the Semsen household, which translates into “Spaghetti and Movie Night with Popcorn”. We have gone on a Daniel-sentimental-movies-from-when-I-was-a-kid marathon (including gems like “Escape to Witch Mountain” and “The Brave Little Toaster”), and this week we landed on Back to the Future, part I.

  Now, it is difficult to really remember movies you haven’t seen in twenty years, except for that feeling of I liked it or I disliked it. It has been quite the experience to go back and watch these old movies. I have a completely new perspective on the films, and I’ve also REALLY noticed the way movie making has changed since I was Nathaniel’s age.

  For instance, we had to shut off “The Brave Little Toaster” after about 25 minutes due to the fact that it was FREAKING ME OUT because it was so scary! I mean–I remember being slightly frightened as a child–but I was frightened NOW while watching this thing. It had a level of scary that you would never see on screen in any Disney/Pixar film or Dreamworks picture. There was an evil clown in the toaster’s dream. AN EVIL  CLOWN FROM HELL. I looked at Nathaniel when that came on and he was covering his eyes (a good move) and Noah turned to me and said, “Dad. I don’t like this movie. Can I go play DS?”

  “Yes, Noah. Let’s ALL go play DS…this movie is freaky…” (click)

  This week Christy got home early from school and we didn’t get to Back to the Future until today…and after watching this film again, I can safely say that it stands the test of time. The only thing that took me by surprise was the amount of swearing that it contained. It’s rated PG (in 1985 standards) and there were many, many times the characters used foul language…ugh.

  Dear Robert Zemeckis:
  The Back to the Future trilogy ROCKS. It is by far one of my favorite movies/trilogies of all time, right up there with the other great studio franchises-Star Wars, Trek, and LOTR. You could have made a fantastical family film IF THERE WASN’T SO MUCH DARN CUSSING in the movie!! Really? Really? Did you have to leave in all of those expletives? Huh…because I just went to see the summer movie-tentpole “X-Men: Origins” and it had less cuss words than I could count on one hand. And it’s rated PG-13…hmmm…weird. You know what other movie was surprisingly clean a couple years back? Live Free or Die Hard! Yes, the previous 3 Die Hard movies were laced with F-bombs, but the PG-13 Theatrical Release of LFoDH (not the unrated DVD version) was squeaky clean. Even the f-bomb catchphrase was muffled by a gunshot at the end, leaving us with only, “Yippee-Kay-Yay, Motha (BOOOOOM)”…yeah…soooo even though there are no f-bombs in BTTF, there is still an unnecessary amount of cussing.
  And you don’t need it.

  So take your time machine, go back to 1985 and fix THAT so I can enjoy this movie with my almost 8 year-old without cringing every time I hear a foul word…

  Sincerely,
  dsemsen from xanga land

  Now on to Back to the Future II…

  • 1:02 am
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