Flashbacks to Childhood

There is a certain fondness that we hold to the movies of our childhood. Whether or not they're still even good movies or not, we talk about movies, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, more enthusiastically than any movie we're liable to ever see in our adult lifetimes. It's just an interesting thought. Why do we have such a connection to certain movies from our childhood?

For my brother, one of his favorite movies from when he was little, is Jurassic Park, but now he is the farthest thing from a Spielberg-fan, but yet he still loves this particular movie. So his liking for this movie, unlike me, does not come from the director behind the camera, but more so from a nostalgic place deep within. To him, Jurassic Park is an encapsulation of that carefree innocence and joy of his childhood, much how I am with the original Star Wars or Indiana Jones movies. It's the same reason for me, I do not associate Indiana Jones with Spielberg, as I do with E.T. or Jaws, because to me, Indiana Jones is more about my childhood, where as I didn't discover E.T. or Jaws till I was a teenager (primarily cause I was too scared to get past the first five minutes of E.T. as a kid).

See, to my brother, Jurassic Park is that constant that has never changed, regardless to all of the changes that we must face in an ordinary life. I think we all face so many major changes in our lives, that having these little shreds of our innocence, like a favorite toy or a favorite movie, can take on a meaning in our own minds that nothing else shares. It's an interesting connection, and it's sort of funny to think that in twenty years time or so, the kids of the future will be talking of Avatar in a similar way as to how I talk about Star Wars, Jurassic Park, or Indiana Jones.