Now part of me thinks “hey, it was directed by Spike Jonze, what did you expect?” He took a children’s book popular with people our age and made a movie of it for people our age. The fallacy in that way of thinking is the book isn’t just ours. It came out in 1963 and is just as popular today as it was back then. Kids were reading it in the 60s and 70, and they’ll be reading for decades to come. What you would hope for is a timeless adaptation that will hold up for future generations, sort of how I envision the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
I just know how much I loved this book as a child and can only imagine how excited I would have been back then if a live action movie adaptation of this caliber would been in the works, especially if the kind of CGI special effects they have today was around in the 80s and 90s. With that being said, I am awe of these newly released Where The Wild Things Are promotional character movie posters. Just looking at these one sheet movie posters and seeing these characters from my childhood look so real and alive is amazing.
I was hoping that same kind of excitement and awe would be instilled in children all around the world by looking at these movie posters. But now I worry that even if it is, they won’t enjoy the movie because it’s too adult and scary. Hopefully the critics are wrong and kids today are able to handle more than we could when we were their age, but I’m not so sure. And if they can, is that a good thing? Either way, I’m still really excited to go see this movie and purchase the soundtrack. I could want the film’s trailer everyday and never get sick of it!
Where The Wild Things Are premieres in theaters next Friday, October 16, 2009.