Let's talk movies · 4:38am Jul 30th, 2013
I'm taking a little bit of a break from the next PonyFall chapter and as it seems as though more and more people are reading the story. I feel as though I should explain how and why I write the way that I write and visualize things. So, over the next few weeks, I am going to write three blogs about the most influential things in my creative mindset.
First of all, we're going to talk about movies. Now, the list below is not my list of favorite movies, not even close. This is the list of movies that had a palpable effect on my creative process.
1. Spirited Away - Easily the greatest animated movie of all time, and one of those movies that I can just watch over and over again. While I always enjoyed animated movies before this movie, this was the first movie, in my mind, that really hammered home how beautiful a movie could be and how powerful the story can hit you if it really is that good.
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - This is literally, the first movie that I ever watched. I think that I was four or so and my dad sat me down with him while my mom was out and we watched this movie. And I can still say that I remember every single detail about that first time we watched it and how many questions I asked about what was going on.
3. Lord of the Rings - a faithful adaptation of one of my favorite book series ever. Gave a face to characters that I could never really picture in my mind and focused my interest in blacksmithing, my favorite hobby.
4. Wall-E - a beautiful love story, an adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet' without words.
5. Fight Club - Violence as an artform and one of the greatest mindfucks that I've seen in movies.
6. Pulp Fiction - I love Tarantino movies and this one, one of his best, isn't even my favorite by any means. Its important because it was the inspiration for several papers that I've written for college, not to mention it really helped me understand how to weave stories and characters that, at first, seem to have nothing to do with one another, together in a organic and natural way.
7. Star Wars (IV-VI) - While I count myself as a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars, I would say that it was the original trilogy that really sparked my interest in the Science Fiction genre. And, if I remember correctly, the remastered trilogy were some of the first movies that I camped outside a theater for in order to see the first showing.
8. Princess Mononoke - The first DVD that I purchased for myself. I bought it at a 2nd hand books store because I thought that the cover looked cool. I had no idea what Studio Ghibli was not what I was getting myself into. The world in Mononoke is so massive that I keep seeing new things every time I watch the move. The reason that its on this list is this: the violence. I grew up with Disney animation and that nonsense, everything was nice and peaceful; Mononoke took that idea and threw it out the window. Its violent and bloody without being stupid and it all had a point. The characters were meaningful and full of heart. If you haven't seen this, you need to see it.
9. Hero - Jet Li's best Wushu movie. The combat and philosophy are beautiful.
10. Godzilla vs. __________ - After Khan, the only movies of my childhood that I watched were the old Godzilla movies and I still watch them.
Honorable Mentions:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - the single best Western ever.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Watchmen
Superman
Alien
Please keep in mind that everything above is my OPINION only. Let me know what movies that changed/influenced you, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
MrBackpack
Next we'll talk about books.
Hmmm, that's a tough one me. Unfortunately, no movies really stick out in my mind as life changing movies.
I watched a few anime movies as a kid and it was usually a mature one like Akira or Galaxy Express 999, this was back when SyFy was known as Sci-Fi and had anime movies on Saturday mornings. I'm surprised that I was sane during that time, but it helped me realize that there was a new type of animation I should watch.
I haven't really seen many movies that change the way I think but I watch stuff like LoTR and The Matrix quite often. My friend and I watched the Back to the Future trilogy and movies like Con Air and Weekend at Bernies during the school year, but other than that I don't really watch movies often. I end up playing video games more frequently, and there have been plenty of games that change the way I think.