Great Movie! Then I grew up.

[KINGDINOSAUR]

I've teased a couple of friends mercilessly about movies they thought were fantastic when they saw the films as kids, but shook their heads in disbelief after re-watching them as adults.

One friend went on and on about how great LATITUDE ZERO was when he saw it with his parents at a drive-in theater.  When it ran on TBS revealing a cute stuffed animal-like Griffin and the two bat creatures with Caesar Romero he was in shock!

Same goes for another guy who swore REPTILICUS was one of the best rampaging giant reptile movies ever made!

I, myself, remember being scared watching the end of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE at age 5 or 6.  Mainly because Vampira looked freakish! Like she was missing several ribs or had no stomach.  I thought Criswell was no different than Walter Cronkite.

What movie (or movies) did you think was just amazing as a young child only to be stunned by how goofy it was when you watched it again many years later?

Scott
MOTAZart.com

[Grumpy Guy]

I get that more with TV shows than with movies  As a matter of fact, I can think of several TV shows, but no movies.  No, wait - when I was a kid I though Godzilla movies were quality filmaking.  Heh.  Of course, they're still fun to watch, but as an adult, I can see the crappiness I missed as a kid.

As for TV shows, there are a lot of them that I loved as a kid. but when I saw them recently, I was in shock at how bad they were.  Here are the two biggest ones:

The A-Team

Knight Rider

Those were such crap, and I never knew as a kid!

[Bmeansgood]

Battle Beyond the Stars.  

Great special effects, Cool ships, fantastic aliens.  Of course those were only my memories of the movie.  I rented it a couple months ago and crushed a small part of my childhood with it.  What was I thinking!

[jmc]

I feel that way about the STAR WARS movies.  Well, I guess it's not that they were goofy or poorly made, just that they no longer appealed to me after childhood.   On the other  hand, stuff like WILLY WONKA still holds up really well.

I liked Romero's MARTIN when I was in my teens...tried to watch it a few months ago and couldn't sit through it.

[Conrad]

Hmmmm.  Well, for TV I would mention "The Banana Splits Show", which I loved to death as a kid.  Seeing it years later as an adult (well, errrrr, technically an adult) I thought "My God!  This is undiluted crap!"  and I was right.

As for films ... actually I can't think of *any* FILM that manages to seem small and petty today by comparison.  Even "Jason and the Argonauts" - which happened to be on TV this afternoon - is still worthy of respect and awe, after having seen it *)%&£ years ago (in fact the moment when Talos, the giant statue guarding the treasure, comes to life, is even more creepy now than when I first saw the film).

[Neon Noodle]

I used to love "Cloak and Dagger" when I was a kid - I thought it was such a great espionage flick! Watching the branding of Atari throughout the whole movie and Dabney Coleman as Jack Flack as an adult was pretty lame.

God, this next one is so embarrassing: "On The Right Track" with Gary Coleman, I saw in the theater many moons ago. Gary could tell which horses would win in their respective races while shining people's shoes and looking at newspapers. So cool in the Diff'rent Strokes era but O, so bad in any other era.....



Post Edited (01-03-04 19:37)

[JohnL]

For me, it's Baby, Secret of the Lost legend. When I first saw it, I thought the dinosaur effets were great. I saw it again a couple years ago after having seen the Jurassic Park movies and I couldn't believe how bad the effects were.

[Kieth Partridge]

I remember seeing conquest of the planet of the apes when i was about 12 and i thought it was the coolest movie! It took place in the future ya know..1980 i think. And all the dogs and cats died off from some weird disease like thingy. so what do we replace them with? Apes! not little spider monkeys....or ferrits...NO!......Apes! And they can cut your hair, serve your meals,clean your house, and wipe there own butt.
yea, that movie was cooool. Key word=was

[trekgeezer]

Automan, the virtual cop show with Desi Arnaz Jr.  as the computer geek at  the PD that  invents him.  I thought  it cool when it first came out and then I saw it on SciFi a couple of years ago and it really stunk. Some of the concepts are still actually cool, like Cursor, just order up a car or helicopter and he could draw it for you .

The acting really stinks in it  though.

[BGrade]

For me it was the first horror movies that I saw.
"The Car"
"Link"
and "Dark Night of the scarecrow"

Others include "Beast Master"
and
"Critters."

In an opposite direction, as a middle aged adult,  I now have a strage respect for "Goonies" and can't turn it off when it is on TV.