Dreamslayer. Hopebreaker. Wishcrusher. Funsucker.

Why can’t Hollywood make a decent kids’ movie? It’s not like the plots of these books are difficult. But they are nuanced, and heaven forbid we make a gosh darn nuanced movie. I mean, why would we want girls that can fight alongside boys without the boys first conquering the girls in battle? Why would we want mythology and horror and excitement and LOGIC presented with any sort of seriousness? Why would we want, oh I don’t know, PLOT. That’s just silly.

Clearly all we need is shiny.

First there was The Golden Compass. I mean, whoever thought those books would get made into movies was a bloomin’ idiot; that was the sort of tremendously bad idea that leads to eating forbidden fruit and opening boxes. I love those books, absolutely adore them, but there is NO WAY mainstream America is going to let their kids watch anything approaching a truthful adaptation. A father kills his child’s best friend? God dissolves into dust? I don’t care how good the story, those books make Harry Potter look like Winnie the Pooh.

(Speaking of which, who gets angry over WITCHCRAFT anymore? Seriously?! Witchcraft? You’re gonna protest books because of WITCHCRAFT? Like, go burn somebody at the stake already so we have a reason to get you off the streets.)

But speaking of HP we should mention Harry Potter 6. Why did they change the end? Why mess with that? Let’s have a history lesson shall we? Once upon a time, in a cartoon studio that suffered bankruptcy, they tried to change LOTR into something less complex. It failed. Miserably. Nobody loved them. All of their friends left them. They died lonely and ignored. Perhaps, in a story as tightly crafted as the Harry Potter series, those making the movies should take note.

And let’s not forget City of Ember or Inkheart or Stardust. Now, some of these I really love (Stardust) and some of these were okay (Inkheart) but they could have been SO much better if just a little more time had been taken; a little more attention to detail was all that was needed to turn an acceptable movie into something really fantastic.

Is it so hard to make The Princess Bride? Why? Because true love is a storyline that nobody believes in anymore? Screw ‘em. True love is a glorious storyline and we should believe in it; we should believe in it because if it isn’t possible (I’m not talking Nora Ephron possible here but suffering, fighting, questing and finding the sort of happiness in sharing that load with another human being that makes it all bearable) then life is not only pain but ugly and worthless too.

What about The Goonies? Kids can’t handle scary villains like the Fratelli’s or skeletons or near death? Maybe that’s because we don’t ever allow them the beauty of real fear in the safety of film and books. Stories offer us the chance to experience and deal with things in a safe environment; when we deny children genuine stories with real terror (I’m not talking Wes Craven I’m talking villains that are actually scary) their imaginations cease to be engaged. Nobody wants to be pandered to. Nobody wants to be played with. You want a story that moves you, speaks to you, entertains you. That doesn’t happen when the director or the author chooses to make it “less intense.” All that does is make it boring.

The Princess Bride is smart and unapologetic. You don’t give up on true love because it’s hard. You don’t give up on being a good person because it’s hard. You suck it up and do it. The Goonies is exciting and terrifying. Not as terrifying as, say, The Dark Crystal, but I’ve never been able to enjoy the actress that played Mama Fratelli in anything else because she was so petrifying in that role to my young mind. I was intrigued by the thrill of adventure--never mind the beauty of Sloth turning out to be a good guy.

These movies have morals. They have meaning. They don’t prance around what might be right and wrong they just tell you. And not in some Jimmy Falwell “you’re all going to hell” sort of way, but THIS is a hero being heroic. THIS is a villain being evil. THIS is what an adventure could be. You can’t tone down adventure or heroism or excitement. You can’t simplify a plot or characters or the world. The kids that are reading these books have imagination and the movies should be sparking that imagination, not stymieing it. Why are we so afraid of telling seriously good stories in kids’ movies? When did parents become so afraid of their children watching something that makes them think, dream, or hope that all of our major media had to be neutered? When is Steve Spielburg going to make another blockbuster and show everybody else how it’s done?

I’m just...I’m just fed up. The new Transformers movies suck. G.I. Joe sucked. TMNT sucked. The Golden Compass sucked. The Harry Potter’s are hit and miss. I want movies that thrill and entertain and enliven. I don’t want stupid movies that assume a stupid audience and butcher good stories because the people making the movies don’t understand how storytelling works.

Our division of text into “high culture” serious Oscar films and “low” culture everything that’s actually fun means that nobody pays attention to storytelling anymore. The art of entertainment has given way to “good enough.” That’s a travesty that has finally prompted me to say something.

I want my dreams back. I want the ability to walk out of a theater without saying “it was good enough” back. I want someone to tell a good story instead of saying “well it’s just a [fill in the genre] movie.” I want people to accept the fact that it’s hard; do the task they set out to do, and to not compromise on the quality of their actions just because they won’t get awarded for success.

This is what happens when dreams die people. The vacuum of imagination allows things like Texas’ hostile take-over of education to happen.

When you stop imagining how things could be, you never question what they are.

* The above rant was fueled by watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians, walking out saying “it was good enough” then reading the first book and realizing what an awesomely engaging story it actually is.