Sunday, June 29, 2008

Utter Disappointment

Poor Ethan!!! He has been so excited to see Wall-E ever since he saw a preview on the Playhouse Disney website. He has been asking to go see it for months, trying to save money, reminding us it was almost time, etc...

So, finally, the family loads in the car and drives to a local theatre. We fork out $30 for matinee tickets, a small popcorn and a drink. Of course the line is huge, but Ethan is so excited he can hardly sit still. We get seats and sit through some previews.

Next up, the short film. We laughed the whole way through, as it is one of the best short films I've seen from pixar. Ethan was laughing so hard we almost needed to shush him.

Then Wall-E starts. Ethan was a little confused by the setting, but got to see all of his favorite parts within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Then wham, the political message hit and continued through the rest of the show. Ethan was not very interested in the show anymore and asked repeatedly to go home.

I can't blame him one bit. Most of the humor is adult humor. Little kids don't pick up on the small nuances in love and attraction. While animated, it is not meant for small children, even less so than Ratatouille. But even Ethan couldn't miss that Earth was messed up, and wrong.

That brings me to the political statement. Okay, obviously I should have done a little more research about what the show was about. But I hate, repeat, hate being force fed a political message, whether or not I agree with it, especially after spending $30 of my own money to do so. We wanted to be entertained, not preached to.

We left with a bad taste in our mouths, and it wasn't from the popcorn. We all agreed that it was one pixar show that we would not be buying.

I feel especially bad for my poor four year old boy. This is one of the largest disappointments he has had to face and survived it with just a few minor meltdowns. Next time we will have to read all the reviews and spoilers to be sure that we don't waste our time, money or disappoint our little ones.

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