24 June 2004
upon my triumphant return…
Some may wonder what finally prompted the end of my hiatus. Others may wonder why I didn’t just throw up some haiku again.
Truth is, I just walked away and didn’t look back. Until yesterday. I’d had little bits of ideas here and there and thought about posting them, but it wasn’t until I re-watched Secret of NIMH that I just had to say something.
Blame Wil Wheaton.
He’s in it, you know. Well, as much “in it” as a voice actor can be. Shannon Doherty’s in there, too. They, though, are not the matter at hand.
You know, that has a neat ring to it. “Blame Wil Wheaton.”
Anyway, it had been a number of years since I’d watched this movie. Back in college in my tiny little single room in the dorm I’d watched Tim’s copy on my open-air computer (I hadn’t gotten around to getting a new case yet. I had some fifteen computers in my room at the time, but none of the cases would fit my motherboard. For some reason, that one got the DVD drive and the DXR3) but I remembered little from that viewing.
When I was a kid, I’m pretty sure I saw it in the theather (Akron’s downtown classic the Civic) on second or third run, but that too left little impresion in my mind other than I actually do remember the beginning of the film (or at least, the lights going down and the curtains opening).
Well, I don’t know if I enjoyed it then (either time) but here, now, watching it with Jessica I didn’t like it all that much. The premise is great, the animation adequate and the writing is at times brilliant, but there are just too many cop-outs. The rats have considerable intelligence, the power of speech, and electricity, which are impressive enough, but Don Bluth gives them mystical powers too of telekinesis and a crystal ball thing. He tosses in a sperical mystical thing (not unlike the evil ball of Heavy metal or so I’d say) and a bunch of pyrotechnics, and they just don’t jibe with the rest of the stuff for me. The film’s got its time and place, though, and I’d probably show it to small children, but I’m in no hurry to watch it again any time soon.