MRose

Bit it also teachest kids not to make deals with bad guys. Find the positives!

I need to watch it again with my grown up literary mind. But… I’m scared to….

I feel like this article could be a prequel to Disney Parenting, how parents use disney movies to teach their kids lessons and to look at what’s actually happening vs what’s in plain sight. Oh. My. Gosh. We could totally write this.

Hmmmmmmmm…
The love stories were always…. different. Yes, Sakura was a bit extreme when the topic of Sasuke was brought up, but so was Ino. Although, Sakura wasn’t blindly in love like Ino was. I remember when she got really excited when she saw Sasuke again but everyone else was cautious. The fact that Sakura is cautious around her love interest shows that she knows who she’s in love with, and despite all of that, she is still in love with him. Whether that’s stupid or not really isn’t up to me, it’s up to her.
That also brings us to the topic of the author and characters. Sakura is a fictional character, and no matter how many times writers will say ‘the characters write themselves,’ they really don’t.
I hate to admit it, but I also believe the relationship with Hinata was forced. I haven’t read the manga, but I am a serious watcher and I have seen ‘The Last’ movie. I absolutely hated how Hinata and Naruto were put together. The way Naruto acted didn’t fit his character at all, and I don’t care that he grew up. He’s always a little bit on the slow side when it comes to romance and because they fell into this bubble of whatever it is and her scarf happened to reach Naruto and thus their feelings were shared and mutual…. that’s bull. I’m so sorry, but I really dislike it. Naruto needed to come to like Hinata on his own and throughout the series. Like after Hinata confessed her feelings for him when she was fighting Pain (Pein, however you want to spell it). After that, whenever he saw her, he could be thinking about her, or we (in the anime) could see him looking at her a little longer than necessary. It’s those little things that would make the transition to HinataxNaruto smoother. I have so much to say about this, but I’ll stop for now.

The fans… BEWARE THE FANS! That was the first thing I thought of when I began reading this article.
I get goose bumps when i see ‘what to cut’ and ‘fan appeasement’. I like to think of myself as a fair fan-critic when watching movie adaptations. As a literary scholar and having a persona interest in film, I understand that not everything can be put on the big screen. I never read Harry Potter (shame series), but I heard that they cut a lot out of the films. For someone who has only ‘watched’ Harry Potter, I think they did a great job. Sure, they didn’t add all of the extra details and maybe some things came in the third movie when they should’ve appeared in the second, but in the end, the movies accomplished their goals of telling the plot and doing its best to support the main themes.
I am also a fan of Young Adult fiction, so I’m going to mention “Fault in Our Stars.” A lot of people didn’t like the movies, but they never read the book. I don’t know how I would’ve felt about the movie had I not read the book. Would I have liked it? Would I have conformed to popular opinion? But because I read the book I was able to appreciate the smooth adaptation from book to film. I think they did a great job! Sometimes we have to remember that we’re not getting the full experience of a story if we don’t both read and watch it. In a book you might get some inner detail that helps you reach a deeper level of understanding or a deeper connection to a character or situation. If you just read the book and completely ignore the film, you might miss out on a great adaptation. A book can make you feel something for the main character, but the movie might shed light on a secondary character that you never really ever paid attention to. In order to fully experience a story, you need more than just story or movie. So… I guess I’ll be reading Harry Potter before I die. I had planned on it anyways.

I’ve always wanted to read/write an article like this, and I think you did a great job!
I grew up with Disney movies and I have grown older, gone to college and learned the secret messages between movies and literature, It’s amazing what film makers can get away with. I don’t mean that in a negative light, not at all. But I find it amazing that these Disney films can be enjoyable for both children and adults. When re-watching some of my favorite disney classics, I wonder “How did I miss that as a child? I watched this?” when there is some joke or sexual reference I didn’t understand as a child. But as a child, I wasn’t looking for those things. I liked the songs even though I wasn’t 100% sure what they meant, and I enjoyed the romances between the characters.
That is something I’ll have to remember when I’m a parent. Children don’t see all of the immediate references that we adults do. Even if I am undermining children a bit and they do understand things more than I give them credit for (which is most likely the case, no doubt), I will still show them disney movies for the positive themes within the film, and trust my children to take the right information into their lives and to learn from the unhealthy ones. Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. She goes after her dreams by taking risks and going after what she wants. But she also changes her appearance for a man. I want my child to learn to take risks to get what they want, especially later in their career lives, but not to completely trade everything, who they are, and what they look like to get something they want. Does that make sense?
I’ve always loved analyzing disney movies and their different interpretations. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to rant about this subject!