— Cruella DeVille, The Little Mermaid — Ursula, The Lion King — Scar) in them. Even the Muppets have to put up with being kidnapped (The Muppet Movie
), accused of theft (The Great Muppet Caper), fight pirates (Muppet Treasure Island), or someone trying to shut down their theater (The Muppets
). I guess most children's stories need to have conflict or someone for a child to root for — or against. And of course there are so many more. Here are just a few of the best: |
| Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz |
Voldemort and many others in the Harry Potter series
The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Principal Ed Rooney in Ferris Buellers Day Off
Biff Tannen in Back To The Future
Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Darth Vader (and his minions) in Star Wars
The mean kids who gave The Karate Kid such a hard time (in both the Ralph Macchio and Jaden Smith versions)
The White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Captain Hook in Peter Pan
The Grand High Witch in The Witches
There are a few children's movies that come to mind with no bad guy:
Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro
has some suspense, as little sister Mei goes missing temporarily when she goes to visit her mother in the hospital, but the entire spirit of the movie is loving and gentle. |
| Totoro and the gang hang out |
features a bratty kid in the doctor's office and some scary sea creatures, but no bad guy or girl — again, just suspense — will Nemo's dad and Dory be able to track him down?Disney's Mary Poppins
has an out-of touch father, but even he comes around at the end, as Mary Poppins' charm and magic is irresistible.Kiki's Delivery Service
, another wonderful Miyazaki film, features apprentice witch Kiki getting into lots of scrapes, but there are no villains to speak of. |
| Suzanne Pleshette with her canine friends |
features some pretty naughty little dachshunds, but they're so adorable you don't mind.That's all that I can think of at the moment. Not too many. Any other movies without a bad guy out there worth checking out?
Related: kiddie catharsis
6 comments:
How exactly you could get hold of this (it seems to be available only on VHS tape, unfortunately; I even checked Hulu and Amazon's streaming video) is a film called Frog Dreaming, or The Quest (in the U.S.), starring Henry Thomas (of E.T. fame). A flawed movie, slow-moving for the most part, but it has some well-handled suspense -- the opening sequence, filmed in murky water and building up to little more than an eruption of bubbles, is a prime example of how to build tension.
Henry Thomas plays Cody, a young American boy living with his guardian in Australia. He's clever, an inventor and tinkerer by nature, and his guardian trusts and respects him enough to leave him a great deal of freedom to do as he wishes. Cody becomes fascinated by the legends of a monster named Donkijen, who dwells in the dark muddy water in a local abandoned quarry. When a fisherman is found mysteriously dead in his rowboat on these waters, Cody begins to investigate, encountering along the way a mysterious aboriginal named Charlie, who does, yet doesn't, tell him the secret of Donkijen. When Cody decides to put his inventive skills to the test and construct underwater gear for closer investigation, the real suspense starts ... and, yeah, it's a nail-biter for a while there. But ... no villain, no bad guy.
I loved this film, even left a review on Amazon for it. (Just went back and added a star, explaining that I hadn't realized at the time I wrote it that 3 stars meant "mediocre".)
P.S. -- whatever you do, do not read the Wikipedia article on the movie. It explains the whole thing and, to me, spoils the ending completely.
Oooh thanks, Mario - I wil try and track this down Our local Goodwill (where I donate lots of stuff) has a pretty good VHS section, as most people have moved on to DVD and Blu-ray. Luckily I have a VHS/DVD combo, so am always on the lookout for good movies. I will steer clear of Wikipedia - thanks for the tip!
I hope you & The Kid like it, Elizabeth. It's European slow, but I dearly loved it, myself.
I am still going to look for a vhs version, but it looks like someone has posted it on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asi_CYRp7Pk - apparently it has a huge fan base and lots of people have been wanting to see this film again!
Never thought to look at YouTube ... I'll be interested in reading your reaction. I'm very fond of the film, obviously ... :) --Mario
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