First Impressions

   Did you know "Sand" came out five years before "The Sand Castle"? Who inspired who?

  

  "Sand" was my first exposure to the apparently well-known story "Peter and the Wolf." I thought it was a good story. Yes, it was dark, but I like tragedy and black so it worked for me on a personal level. On a professional level, the execution was great and the story startling when paired with the "music."

   This, paired with all y'all's blog posts, brought up a conversation in my head about the importance of first impressions. If you understood the Disney version as the "right" story, the "original," it is your standard and I am sure this "version" was less appealing to you. This conversation really started a while ago. Remember "Circuit Marine" and how surprised we were at the content of this children's short? If we were Spartans we probably would have laughed at the weakness of the captain, and if we were pacifists we would have been appalled at the weapons being used so brazenly, or if we were animal rights activists we would have been upset simply by the act of fishing without a license. My point is culture has a lot to do with what we see.

   Cultural views were brought up in "The Owl Who Married a Goose." Some of us laughed and some of us were saddened at his untimely but obvious demise. It also comes up any time a book is made into a movie, or a movie is remade, or a movie is written as a book. This issue of first impressions arises any time we look at media. When I was young I thought animated stuff was for us kids and live action was for the adults, or at least those over four feet tall. Even today I struggle with those preset ideas. Some of you have mentioned you are possibly too used to Disney to really appreciate some of the films in class. This is the danger of relying on first impressions.