A Darker Kids Movie

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Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

A Darker Kids Movie

Matt Patches: As Zack would say, 'That's awesome;' I have to say, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but the movie reminded me of some of the older animated movies that I grew up watching. They were a little more...dangerous...

John Orloff: Right! Have you ever seen Snow White?

Matt Patches: Have I seen the original Disney Snow White?

John Orloff: Yeah!

Matt Patches: Of course!

John Orloff: It's scary as sh*t!

Matt Patches: [laughs]

John Orloff: You know, so is Bambi, so is Pinocchio! Yeah, yeah, Secret of Nimh or Watership Down...somewhere along the way we sort of decided that people want to see cute talking cars and cute talking toys. I love Pixar. They made some of the best movies in the last ten years, but there's something else to be made besides those movies.

Matt Patches: Why do you think that has changed? What's shifted our demand?

John Orloff: I don't know, I really don't. I really don't know why ... I can't answer that. I don't know if it's a culture thing, or moviemakers have been sort of scared of it or...I don't know why. We certainly have seen that, that kid movies we decided to pigeonhole kid movies in this incredibly specific way. One of the things that I'm excited about with Guardians is that it's not the same old animated movie you've seen before and before and before...yes it has archetypical characters and it is an archetypical quest movie, so there are those sort of touchstones to other quests and other stories. The movie itself taken in totality is a totally unique thing that people don't make anymore.

Matt Patches: Right.

John Orloff: Or that have never made, quite frankly, like this.

Matt Patches: Well I was going to go on to say that the movie struck me as the perfect adaptation of those younger teen books. They get away being scary, more adult, but it's a strange in-between place like we're not coddling them anymore. We're not going to call them kids, we're not going to call them adults, and I'm kind of curious what you think makes a great story like that? How do we introduce kids to fantasy with adult themes, and should we be scaring them a little? Is that important?

John Orloff: Wow...that's a pretty deep question. That's a deep question!

Matt Patches: When I saw the movie, there were lots of kids in the audience, ranging in ages, and some of the younger ones were definitely scared. I'm not sure if people realize that not every movie starring smiling, anthropomorphic owls is for all ages.

John Orloff: Well I took my kids...yeah I took my five-year-old and nine-year-old to the premiere, and they both loved it. My daughter just called me up, I'm out of town right now, and she told me how she and her friends are going to make a cool play at school. She loved it, but she was scared. She definitely had a moment of being scared here or there, but she loved the movie. There's nothing wrong with being a little scared in a movie, is there? I don't think so.

Matt Patches: I don't think so.

John Orloff: Ultimately the movie is about [the film's main character] Soren's journey from fantasizing and mythi-myth-or-izing...that's not a word, but what warfare is. He has this imagination of what Lyze of Kiel [a legendary warrior] is, who he is. In his mind he's this huge snowy owl, the largest owl, powerful and strong and he has no idea at first when he meets Ezylryb, this little teenie screech owl, that's all deformed and missing a claw and missing an eye, is In fact, that warrior. He tells him that battle is scary, its hard, its tough, and people get hurt or owls get hurt. I think that it's a really kind of an important message for kids to understand. My son loves to play WWII games and I say to him, 'Yeah, but you know one day I'm going to show you Band of Brothers and you're going to understand that it's not so fun.'

Right now he's only watched 1940s WWII movies -

Matt Patches: Those are a little calmer (laughs)

John Orloff: Yeah exactly.