They Used to Make Sci-Fi for Kids

Nobody wants to be the curmudgeon who can't help but utter "they don't make'em like they used to" at the end of every movie,  but there's a difference between drowning in nostalgia and digging up quality flicks.

A few decades ago, studios didn't just make movies for kids, they made them about kids and they took them seriously.  It's the difference between chasing E.T and Elliot with guns versus walkie talkies.  For whatever reason, it used to be OK to put kids in danger and have them solve their own problems.  In return, the kids watching them ate it up.

In 1975, Disney released Escape to Witch Mountain, the story of two alien children with telepathic powers, making their way to a spacecraft while running from a group of exploitive evildoers.  Yeah, you can find a remake with big special effect action scenes and The Rock, but will it feel the same as watching a twelve-year-old boy be locked up in a prison cell and fight is way out with a dancing broom?

Much like the 1980s cult film Tron, The Last Starfighter holds its place in Sci-Fi history with its mix of old fashioned, space opera storyline which catered to the emerging gaming community.  Who didn't see Starfighter and immediately head to the nearest arcade in hopes that a round of Space Invaders would send them straight into intergalactic battle?

We love Star Wars, but it was Starfighter that substituted Joseph Campbell archetypes for young folk they really wanted to see - themselves.

Does director Nick Castle collect royalties from the Ender's Game series?

Almost two decades before Spielberg asked philosophic questions regarding artificial intelligence and forced too much asparagus into David's robotic mouth, there was a small robot boy named D.A.R.Y.L.

Like A.I., D.A.R.Y.L. (the boy robot) develops feelings for a human family who rescues him from the clutches of the military.  Somehow, D.A.R.Y.L. out-Spielberg's Spielberg, turning a kid built from wires and circuit boards into your typical adolescent - who can also fly fighter jets and infiltrate the Pentagon's computer system.

I think we can all relate.