i couldn't belive that a mum would send her son out to collect his brother by walking through the woods. i would have told her were to go
still a good movie losses it's darker edge when the comey alien is introduced
Parents didn't have the same worries back then.
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I was about 12 when the movie came out, and during that time period I'd ride my bike all over the neighborhood and had my own paper route, and my parents never worried about letting me wander off alone outside for 12 hours on a summer day.
I even remember walking to school when I was in elementary school and it was about a half hour walk and nobody was ever concerned about this.
Nowadays, everyone's worried about abductions by sexual predictors and stuff. The most anyone worried when I was a kid about was bike safety.
Plus, the mom only said it was half a mile...
"Oh motherballs" - Paget Brewster
I use to be out for many hours as well doing biking. The only time my parents got worried was when I got a flat tire and was very late.
I think back then there was much less talk about sex so as a result, the news had news not related to sexual offenders.
I still remember how no one used the word gay. Those were great and non-annoying days :)
Today, for a 10 year old, everything is gay.
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Yep, got to agree with Wide Stance. It was never a 'safer world', there were just more taboos and we are more aware now of crime against children.
share...to the point where it is shown at NAMBLA meetings. It is a big metaphor. You know those aliens had their probes on, too. And the boy stays youthful!? Geez. Creepy.
shareYea that "better times" stuff is crap. People have always been horrible and dangerous. I love it when people say the 50's was such a great time and everybody was so kind. Yea, as long as you weren't a woman or any type of minority I am sure it was always swell.
"Cool will get ya dead." -Former NBA Power Forward, Karl Malone
^ Totally agree!
shareThe funny thing is sexual predators and kidnapping are on a huge decline since back then, and they're now at record lows. Something like 60 kids out of 300 million people a year end up victims of stuff like that. You have more of a chance of being shot by a gun than a kid has of being kidnapped, yet you don't see parents making their kids wear bullet proof jackets.
It's funny how the media has terrified us all with the instant sensationalist news style of today.
Yeah, I roll my eyes when people go on and on about the world being so safe and lily white in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s sometimes.
I think there were actually probably MORE psychos abducting kids, perverts, and murderers in those days, but the MEDIA COVERAGE has gone up now (or even by the later 80s), so it therefore seems like the world is worse, when it really isn't.
Hell I'd be scared sh*tless even as an adult walking by myself in 70s/80s New York City with all the gritty crime (even if it makes movies more interesting than the modern gentrified one).
That scene with the mom not even being concerned about David going into the woods for a 1/2 mile alone at night, seemed weird to me. Although I think the suburbs were generally much more insulated from crime (or at least it seemed like it) than if they were in LA or even nearby Miami.
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Agree with all the above. Original Poster, you need to understand, that that was 1978, when that was set. Parents weren't nearly as concerned then as they would be today. They were more relaxed then. They had more faith in their childrens' self-sufficiency. Anything happening to children, like abductions, rapes, and murders were all but unheard of then. In fact, the first horrible crimes happening to a child wasn't reported until 1979, when Etan Patz disappeared in 1979, and in 1981, when Adam Walsh disappeared. And even then, parents didn't universally get more protective, for at least several years. If it was set in today, in 2012, or even in 1986 (and therefore appearing eight years later in 1994) then I would agree she wouldn't likely send her son by himself out into the woods, unsupervised. So this is consistent with the historical context.
shareDon't you think that American culture is more paranoid than it was in the late 70's?
Not that's it bad to be cautious, but I do think the mass media adds to the heightened paranoia because it's constant and sustained exposure. We really don't get a break from it.
I saw this when I was ten (it was the first movie I ever saw in a cinema) and it was a golden rule to be home before dark. Winter was crap as it got dark around 4:30 but summer was great as it got dark around 9:30. And this was before the mobile phone.
well the mobile phone had always been around, my uncle had one in the the very late 70s early 80s. it was the size of a brick but he also had money back then, but it was not main stream. i would bike to a friends place in the 80s and it was 4km's away, my mom said just be careful and watch for traffic. i was 6 at the time. in 86.
I KNOW 2 things that are clear.I'm a great sinner,Christ is a great Savior.
I agree. Why couldn't one of the parents get off of the couch, get in the car, and pick Jeff up?
Oh, that's right. If they had done that, it would have been a very short and pointless movie.
There were a few things in the movie that are frowned upon today. Besides sending David out in the woods to get his brother, he has to walk across a railroad track, not at a crossing, and earlier he hangs out he back window of a moving station wagon insulting his brother.
People would be up in arms today about that stuff.
He who fights and runs away, lives to run away again!
Talk about different cultures...
You lot are all talking about abduction and sexual predators whilst as a Brit I was thinking "She sends her kids to go walk across train tracks.", I know the world seemed safer from bad people back then but a train could kill you as easily then as it can now. In fact didn't Stand By Me come out in the same year?
You don't know sh!t, Jon Snow!