Somehow, I Wish I were Kicked In the Nuts Instead
Of my over 60 Gigabytes of mp3 files meticulously arranged alphabetically by album, artist, and year, only 2.3 Gigabytes remain, due to a disc error. Thanks fate!
On Change
I watched Disney's take on Aladdin a few hours ago. I remember that this was the last movie that my entire family watched together. That was back in 1993. It was strange really, my dad and my mother weren't even talking to each other then, and they wouldn't talk again until 6 years later. They lived in the same houses (we moved a couple of times) but always slept in different rooms. Talk about a poisonous atmosphere.
Anyway, back to the movie. What can I say? It still holds up. I found myself enjoying it immensely, probably even moreso than that night 14 years ago. It's definitely better than the other Disney animated features that followed it, except perhaps for The Lion King (which COMPLETELY ripped off Kimba the White Lion). I've seen each and every Disney feature up until that Atlantis: The Lost Empire, because I didn't care anymore at that point. I actually regret not watching it though because I heard that it was pretty good in its own way.
The reason I decided to stop watching was because all the Disney movies had lost their magic for me some time after The Lion King came out. The other Disney Features that followed left a bad taste in my mouth and didn't do much of anything for me at all. The magic was lost. The only animated film that really did it for a long time afterwards was the criminally underrated (and box office flop) Iron Giant. I loved that movie to death. I still do. And of course, it was not Disney.
Disney just came out with dog after dog. It's like they decided to just phone things in. It's never good when anyone (or any company) does that. It makes me feel that someone or something dear to me died and I didn't know when.
I've had this feeling in other situations as well. It's like what would happen if a close friend you know dearly just ceased to exist and this dry facsimile took his or her place. It may look like your friend but it isn't the same person anymore. The realizations that come when this happens are never pleasant. These realizations are something that I in fact... dread.
The loss of familiarity can just be as tragic as any other loss. We've all had this kind of thing happen to us. Whether it's a major studio losing its familiar touch or when your friends suddenly become alien to you or when you graduate from five years of college or when your family becomes irretrievably broken, it's kind of difficult to immediately accept that things have changed and can never be changed back. 'The change' is sometimes kind of slow to register.
You may sort of know that things can never be fixed when these things happen. Just sort of. In my case, I find that it's hard to really, really know for sure. Then, eventually you just give up and move on.
Perhaps the time between 'the change' and the 'moving on' is the cruelest time of them all.
Anyway, back to the movie. What can I say? It still holds up. I found myself enjoying it immensely, probably even moreso than that night 14 years ago. It's definitely better than the other Disney animated features that followed it, except perhaps for The Lion King (which COMPLETELY ripped off Kimba the White Lion). I've seen each and every Disney feature up until that Atlantis: The Lost Empire, because I didn't care anymore at that point. I actually regret not watching it though because I heard that it was pretty good in its own way.
The reason I decided to stop watching was because all the Disney movies had lost their magic for me some time after The Lion King came out. The other Disney Features that followed left a bad taste in my mouth and didn't do much of anything for me at all. The magic was lost. The only animated film that really did it for a long time afterwards was the criminally underrated (and box office flop) Iron Giant. I loved that movie to death. I still do. And of course, it was not Disney.
Disney just came out with dog after dog. It's like they decided to just phone things in. It's never good when anyone (or any company) does that. It makes me feel that someone or something dear to me died and I didn't know when.
I've had this feeling in other situations as well. It's like what would happen if a close friend you know dearly just ceased to exist and this dry facsimile took his or her place. It may look like your friend but it isn't the same person anymore. The realizations that come when this happens are never pleasant. These realizations are something that I in fact... dread.
The loss of familiarity can just be as tragic as any other loss. We've all had this kind of thing happen to us. Whether it's a major studio losing its familiar touch or when your friends suddenly become alien to you or when you graduate from five years of college or when your family becomes irretrievably broken, it's kind of difficult to immediately accept that things have changed and can never be changed back. 'The change' is sometimes kind of slow to register.
You may sort of know that things can never be fixed when these things happen. Just sort of. In my case, I find that it's hard to really, really know for sure. Then, eventually you just give up and move on.
Perhaps the time between 'the change' and the 'moving on' is the cruelest time of them all.
