As far as the subgenre known as the “kid’s movie” goes, there’s a wide variety of tones and messages you could spot in any given corner. Just looking at the 2024 movies aimed at younger audiences, as there are titles like Inside Out 2 and Netflix’s Orion and the Dark that continue to prove that you can go pretty deep when it comes to a younger audience.
So it only seemed fair to ask actors Jacob Tremblay and Paul Walter Hauser, the people playing Orion and Dark, respectively, about the first time a kid’s movie did just that. I was able to pose that question to director Sean Charmatz and producer Peter McCown as well, seeing as we were all on hand to celebrate Orion and the Dark to what could be considered among the best movies on Netflix.
So it only seemed fair to ask actors Jacob Tremblay and Paul Walter Hauser, the people playing Orion and Dark, respectively, about the first time a kid’s movie did just that. I was able to pose that question to director Sean Charmatz and producer Peter McCown as well, seeing as we were all on hand to celebrate Orion and the Dark to what could be considered among the best movies on Netflix.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00What's the first kids movie you remember going deep for you?
00:02And how would you say it inspired you afterwards?
00:05I mean, we grew up where we got some years between us,
00:08so we probably won't give the same answer, but I think mine might have been
00:14Toy Story, maybe.
00:16I think Toy Story was one where it was like, oh, I'm going to say the same thing,
00:20too, though. Oh, really? Yeah.
00:21Yeah. Are my toys sentient?
00:23Is this a thing? Yeah.
00:24Do they have feelings?
00:26Should I not be throwing them across the room unthinkingly?
00:30I don't know. Yeah.
00:31I mean, that just made playing with toys so much better.
00:33I think just thinking that they could be real.
00:36Yeah. Yeah.
00:37That was a big one for me, that.
00:38And and I just think Lion King is a really.
00:42That's crazy, because that was the other one that I was thinking of saying, too.
00:45Yeah. Fathers and sons and the idea of taking your rightful place
00:50in the world and and stepping into your destiny.
00:53And those are big themes.
00:55And I think this movie, you know, DreamWorks has told so many great stories
00:59from Shrek to how to train your dragon.
01:01And with this one, I feel like we're really delving into some heavy material
01:06that's going to hit both adults and children.
01:08Yeah. I mean, that's crazy, because those were two of the same things
01:12that came out of my Lion King and Toy Story. Yeah. Yeah.
01:15For me, it's probably Secret of NIMH.
01:17That was the one that I kind of globbed onto when I was a kid.
01:20It scared the bejesus out of me.
01:23I don't know if I can say bejesus, but it did.
01:25And as you know, it's like that it got a little deeper when it went
01:30a layer or two deeper.
01:31That and Fox and the Hound for me explored the characters
01:35and their friendship and their bond.
01:37And it just like, you know, tore my heart apart.
01:40I remember when I was a kid.
01:41So maybe those two are the two that went deep for me early on.
01:44Yeah. For me, I think, well, there's two that come to mind.
01:48Stand By Me is one, but I know it's not a kid's movie.
01:51But as a kid, it was like a very
01:55impactful movie on me and memorable.
01:58But American Tail, I think, animated was one that
02:05really got me.
02:06And I think it's that feeling of being
02:09left, lost, abandoned,
02:13pulled apart from your family that I think really
02:17was relatable and emotional for me as a kid is like
02:21that that the character is is not
02:25is basically lost, it feels like.
02:27And and that that had a lot of impact on me as a kid.
02:31Oh, another one is E.T.
02:32And it's not dissimilar from this story and the fact that Elliot is very smart,
02:36very wise behind his ears.
02:37And he's scared of this alien for obvious reasons at first.
02:41But then over the course of film, he gets to know him.
02:43And then you can love something so deeply that you previously were terrified of.
02:47It was was really.
02:48Yeah, E.T. was a big one for me as well.
02:50I cried at the John Williams.
02:53John Williams played E.T. in Indiana Jones.
02:56And when they played the music for E.T., I was crying.
02:59Yeah, absolutely.