What childhood film makes you emotional?

Post Reply New Topic

Anybody watched a film during your childhood that you used to cry through, or still makes you cry?

Mine was Don Bluth's 1988 film Land Before Time (you know, the good one produced by Steven Spielberg & George Lucas). The death of Littlefoot's mother tore me up when I was younger. I'm now a 20-yr-old Southern guy yet I still cry a river throughout the rest of the film after that scene.

I'm not emotional myself, although i imagine that watership down would be an emotional movie to others.

I read a lot of hype about Watership Down being depressing, but when I watched it it resounded more like a brutal folk tale with me (except with rabbits). I guess it's kind of dark but it's not as utterly bleak as all that. The Plague Dogs, now, that's dark - the film adaptation from the maker of Watership Down, not the book itself. But neither of them really strike me as "children's films", older children maybe.

Pinocchio still terrifies me and moves me to tears. One of my favourite films and possibly my favourite animated film.

i saw "audrey rose" when i was about 11 and i was sad about the end of the movie.

I was bummed by the end of Disney's Jungle Book, when Mowgli goes off to join the man-village with the pretty Indian girl. I understood why he did it - she was cute and he'd only known those losers for an hour - okay, 24 hours in movie time. But I always felt bad for goofy Baloo, who didn't seem to have had any real friends before Mowgli came along.

Disney does that with every classic story they animate. They have some sort of dumbing-down formulae for turning literature into pablum. Gotta take 'em for what they are. Cartoons.

Let me see...

1. An American Tail: I haven't seen this movie in years. I've tried to watch it on youtube and I never realized that for an animated flick, it's kinda depressing.
2. Up: I almost cried in the beginning of the movie.
3. Pinocchio: Where everyone thought Pinocchio was dead and he finally gets turned into a real boy. I've never realized for a Disney flick, it's kinda disturbing (an old british guy, luring little boys to a giant theme park, where they will be turned into donkeys and sold to salt mines).
4. Lion King: I always cry when Mufasa dies.

The Neverending Story. When Atreyu's horse Artax dies in the Swamps of Sadness.

When I was little, the Little Princess made me cry. It was the second or third time I was watching it, and I felt really stupid. It was the scene where the girl's dad couldn't remember her.

There are very few, if any, faithful Disney adaptations of stories. Usually someone else's vision of what the story should be gets in the way, I wouldn't necessarily agree that it is always a straightforward "dumbing down" but they tend to find ways to get around anything that would be considered too adult. You kind of have to take the films as they are as ends in themselves, rather than as depictions of the novels.

I've heard that the Watership Down film is relatively faithful to the novel, and having seen it I can confidently say that it is not like Disney at all.

When I am and was able to express some emotion to a movie (it has to be a REALLY good movie), a childhood favorite of mine was Dot and the Kangaroo. Not only did it make me cry at the end when Dot could no longer communicate with the animals, but it scared the pants off me with the Bunyips (have you heard its call? SCARRRRRY!)

Not a kid's film, but when I was a child, I saw the WWII movie Stairway to Heaven on tv (also known as a Matter of Life and Death in the UK). The scene where the pilot (David Niven) is certain he's going to die in his flaming plane is talking on the radio to a woman at the base about his passion for life gets me every time.

I was allowed to watch Watership Down as a kid and I still think back on it as a think of unspeakable horror. All I remembered for years was the scene with a rabbit struggling desperately against a snare, its mouth working with the struggle and blood around its throat. A couple of years ago, I listened to the song "Bright Eyes" (from the movie) after seeing it recommended on the internet, here possibly, and I was seized with an unaccountable horror. I listened to it through and sat terrified, wondering how anyone could think such a dark and hopeless song was beautiful. I attributed that to the lyrics, which are lonely and desperate, referring to the dimming of the light in someone's eyes upon dying (yeah, that's pretty sick) and the obscurity of the world after this one. I have deep beliefs in the continuation of life after death, and believe in seeing my loved ones again, and usually I don't fear death itself much, yet here I was, suddenly afraid. I understand now. I'm sure that somewhere in my mind is the memory of watching that horrible movie, too fascinated to walk away, too repressed to cry, but still horrified... As a kid, I didn't speak up much.

And I heard it was not all that faithful to the book in that the book had some hope in it.

Now the movie that always gets me weepy is It's a Wonderful Life, particularly the scene where Mr. Gower hits George's sore ear. To hear that kid cry sets me off every time. Even in this age of horror movies, I still consider that a fairly shocking scene, just for that little moment.

I wasn't as able to cry at movies as a kid, though. I remember wanting to but being unable to. It was like I didn't know how. My kids have been known to sob in terror at a movie, though... Specifically: my oldest ran howling from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when the creepy guy melted that cute little toon shoe. Man I felt awful... I had forgotten how graphic the first dip scene was, seeing the little shoe's look of terror and all. To this day she's never seen the rest of it, and I haven't ever suggested it.

I wouldn't say Watership Down as the film portrayed it was absent of any hope, but maybe there's something extra in the book.