What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

This is not a review of the new movie per-say. Though I might get around to grading it in the end. This is more of what my thoughts were before I saw the movie.

I read Bridge to Terabithia sometime in high school, probably for my Independent Reading Course. If I recall, I was looking for an easier book to knock out of the way quickly. Much to my surprise, this book packed quite an emotional punch. Bridge to Terabithia became one of my more memorable books that I have read.

I was excited when I saw that Walden Media was making Bridge to Terabithia into a movie but then I started wondering how they were going to market a movie based on this book. It is a children’s book so that narrows your audience somewhat. Compound that by the content of the book and you have yourself a sticky marketing quagmire. How does one market a chidlren’s movie about the loss of innocence and dealing with traumatic events. Let’s face facts, the reason the book has such emotional impact is because it is kind of a dreary and sad story.

When I saw the first trailer, I was concerned. I feared that the movie makers had totally restructured the story. From the trailer you would expect Bridge to Terabithia was a sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia. With all that CGI of fanciful creatures that was in each scene in the trailer, it seemed that they ditched the meatier content for an emphasis on the fantasy element. I was more than concerned, I was horrified.

Today, I went to see the movie and I was quite pleased. They didn’t leave the story untouched. They left out the development of the story from the first couple of chapters of the book. They updated the time period and modernized the story a bit but for the most part they kept the story the same. Every bit of CGI in the movie appears in the trailer. You see it all in the trailer. I was quite amazed. So Disney has chosen to ignore the weighter issue for the marketing and focus on a small fraction of the movie. Which begs the question: How are people who are only familiar with the movie trailer going to react to a movie that is going to make you cry as long you aren’t too cynical? The showing I was at was filled with about 50% children and it was one of the quietest movies that had a large number of children that I have ever been in. After the movie was over, it was pretty quiet and I heard several kids say that the movie was really sad.

I was pleased with the movie. I wouldn’t recommend it to small children. Parents should be prepared to deal with questions about death, God, and whether God sends people to Hell. Hopefully Christian parents will correct the movie’s bad theology.

Overall, the movie was good. I found it cheesy in some parts at the beginning of the movie but on a whole the movie worked (but not will the force that the book did) and yes, it did get dusty in the movie theater. I swear something got in my eye.

Okay, so it was a review, you should never believe the trailers.

Class dismissed!