Selling My Youth

When Blu-ray Discs won the format war, I had that inevitable gut feeling that some of the animated classics from my earlier days will get remade into the new high definition format. Many of us had the same feeling. I’m not too sure what to think about that, besides having to budget another couple Ben’s to cover the costs.

Because some things don’t age well. Would I want to pick up a copy of the Pinocchio 70th Anniversary edition? Probably. I still remember it just like yesterday; I probably have watched the stuff like a dozen times when I was little. Disney’s The Little Mermaid was probably my first gateway to moe (it was that or Saint Seiya, I can’t remember), and the original Fantasia was my gateway to arthouse media. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs introduced me to … dwarfs, a valuable piece of information that saved me from probably at least one occasion in at least one D&D game I’ve been in. Okay, so some things aged better than others.

Well, okay, so Disney at least started with timeless classics, like Miyazaki’s masterpiece Nausicaa. Has he even made something greater than it, now a good 27 years has gone past? I watched the Japanese release a long time ago (as in, 2010) and it was as every bit as interesting as I remembered it from The Days Before The Promised Date Or whatever emotionally tugging jargon conjured from an Engrish perspective. But would I want to make a date with every Ghibli film? Probably not. Just like I am going to probably pass on Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar or other wrecks better not remembered.

I mean, I would totally not buy Ponyo (again).


No Responses to “Selling My Youth”

  • shumbapumba

    Interesting how Disney films stemmed your interests into a range of other film genres and styles. Good onya Walt!

  • omo

    Considering anime is, too, an offshoot from the efforts of Disney, I ought to be more surprised that this isn’t the common case.

    But then again, I’m probably more of an animation fan than most anime fans, and liking some of Disney’s classics is invariably true among all animation fans.

  • shumbapumba

    Yes anime maybe not so unique (especially Ghibli) but Disney–>arthouse = interesting.

  • omo

    It’s probably the first time I watched wordless animated shorts that engages the power of my imagination more so than the visceral portion of my senses (although that was being engaged too). Enjoying it means being able to think about it in a comprehensive way.

    I mean, there’s a reason that they don’t make films like that in the mainstream anymore, and why films like that are basically all arthouse stuff by and large.

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