Hacker Cinema
Hook
1991 · Film · 142 min
Directed by Steven Spielberg
The boy who wasn't supposed to grow up—Peter Pan—does just that, becoming a soulless corporate lawyer whose workaholism could cost him his wife and kids. During his trip to see Granny Wendy in London, the vengeful Capt. Hook kidnaps Peter's kids and forces Peter to return to Neverland.
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6 comments on Hacker News
Same. We never had LD, though an elementary school I went to got one through a tech grant program. I remember watching some science class thing on it and the movie Hook. Though watching things on a 15 inch TV mounted up in the corner of the classroom by the ceiling from a desk somewhere in the middle doesn’t exactly let you see the full picture quality.
Outside of that my only experience was seeing them at Blockbuster or in stores before everyone gave up. I don’t remember if I ever saw the teacher holding the laserdisc, but the racks of them in movie stores let you see how big they were.
What I find interesting about this clip is that the 1991 movie 'Hook' is literally the opposite. There, Peter does make the sacrifice of maturity but the screenplay demands he re-discover the innocence/freedom of his life as Peter Pan in order to ostensibly enjoy his life. At the end of the movie he tosses his phone out the window after telling his boss whatever he's calling about isn't important as a decision to value the innocent immediacy of his family life. What the screenplay doesn't tell us is whether he had a job the next day and the consequences of that!
I think Peterson is speaking to another tier of freedom that comes with responsibility and concern for one's future and security: it tends to (non-exploitatively) benefit others around you, your community, etc.
Same here, but we haven't gone as far back as the 50s. Mostly we've been enjoying family movies from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, back when sets were elaborate and most effects were practical. Many of these older movies have really stood the test of time. Hook, The Goonies, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Muppets movies, Ernest Scared Stoopid, Willy Wonka, etc are all family favorites.
Ten years ago "looking at a cellphone" was still universal shorthand for "is a dick" in fiction. So was "talking to no-one" (bluetooth headset) which carried a further meaning of "business douche" ("carries a cellphone at all" was shorthand for this for most of the 90s—see the movie Hook for an early example). Both are normal and common now.
Ten years ago much of the population still considered paying any attention whatsoever—any—to a cellphone in the company of others, maybe unless it actually rang (remember phone calls that weren't spam?), to be incredibly rude.
All that changed very fast over the following 5 years or so.
I've had the opposite experience - once I learn something like a language, I never forget it. But people around me do, and I think it's as strange as forgetting your own name or who your family was. On the other hand, I'm mystified by how efficient "normal" people's memory for places and directions is. It takes me hours of studying a map and many repetitions of practice to learn a new route, and if I don't go a certain way (even to get to my own house or in the neighborhood I grew up in) it fades just like people describe losing language. So it's like those two capabilities are exchanged in my brain.
My best friend and I took 2-3 years of German in high school, and we'd talk to each other using the German we learned. We also knew two German exchange students. In academic meets (test taking competitions) I placed in German II and my friend placed in German I.
Unfortunately we had no one to speak German with after graduating high school. In all the time after high school, I only ran into one native German speaker, at some conference. I said something like, "Ja, Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch..." and based on my accent he said, "Oh? You've been to Germany then." I shook my head, sadly no I've never been.
Years later I saw my friend again and spoke some German to him, and he didn't understand me. So I used German phrases I remembered had been his "favorites", and I was shocked he even forgot those too. It felt like I was one of the Lost Boys in the movie "Hook" trying to get Peter Banning to remember he was Pan.
> more like an "Oh hey, this was done by John Williams" than something that best fits the film
Really? I would be tempted to argue the opposite. The theme for Jaws, for example, is instantly recognizable and well known precisely because it fit the movie so well. Star Wars is near-impossible to separate from its music - from the main theme, to the imperial march - and his use of choral music in Phantom Menace had a big impact in the years that followed, much the way the "Inception sound" has been showing up all over the place in the last few years.
And citing the bigger action-adventure movies doesn't really make a good point. Williams has done a wide variety of music for movies, all of which is very good (Hook, Schindler's List, ET, etc.)
I do think music has changed over time in how it's used in film, and that Zimmer has a more "modern" style, where the soundtrack ties more closely to the emotional ups and downs than Williams does. (Nothing wrong with that, I like them both.)