So, the wife is working on a horror story. She wants to put some type of creature in it. Not just a single creature, more like a swarm of them. We were kicking around ideas but my mind kept going back to some of the classics like Critters or Gremlins. The wife hasn’t seen either one so I figured this was a good excuse to watch them.
My copy of Gremlins was lost in the Purge of half my library. So I got out on loan from the local library on DVD. Yes, kids, I know DDs are old tech, as are libraries. I mention it though because shockingly, people do not go to the library as much as they did in my previous age. So, kids, they don’t just have books. They have DVDs , CDs, audiobooks, and even those new-fangled eBooks. Many of them also have makerspaces where you can use 3D printers, laser cutters and other wonderful pieces of technology that will let you create things. You should go check it out. Okay, Public Service Announcement (PSA) over.
Anyway, we sat down and watched Gremlins this evening. The wife thought it was fun, and now has a greater appreciation for the toy Gizmo Magdalena uses as her security toy.
For me, it was a nice trip down memory lane. The movie came out in 1984, forty-two (42) years ago now as I write this. I remember watching it in the theatre. Yes, that’s what people did before home theatre automation became a thing. People would go to these big buildings and sit in the dark with lots of other people they didn’t know and watch a movie. You just don’t get the same experience in your home. When Luke Skywalker blew up the Deathstar, the audience cheered. When Christopher Reeves flew across the screen as Superman, the audience collectively felt a swell of wonder. It was a way of bonding the human race through shared stories that other media just don’t give you.
Anyway, 1984 doesn’t seem like all that long ago to me. Certainly not four decades. I was in my twenties, in college, and things were pretty good. I would even go so far as to say that the 1980s were the peak of civilization and it’s all been downhill since then. So many great movies came out then – Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, Time Bandits, Eric The Viking, Ghostbusters, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Explorers, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Cartoons had Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Thundarr The Barbarian, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone hung out at the mall, and pumped tons of quarters into video games at the arcade. You had every kind of junk / fried food you could want in the food court. The Space Shuttle was going to space and back again. The Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War wound down. The Internet was just getting going and you could send an email in seconds as opposed to days or weeks through snail mail. The future seemed hopeful.
These were all things that formed the core of my personality back then as I was starting to make my way in the world. It just doesn’t seem like it was forty plus years ago. A lot of those things the younger generations aren’t even aware of. I tell people tat beig married to the wife is like living in an episode of “I Love Lucy” and all I get back is blank stares.
Maybe I’ve just been in the world too long? Maybe I’m just becoming an old fart and looking back with nostalgic rose colored glasses and remembering things as better than they were. I guess I’m just reaching that stage of life where it is time to pass the torch on to the younger generations and let them carry it forth into the future.
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