HP 4 Too Dark?

[echoriath]

Apparently there's some controversy locally about the newest HP4 being "too dark" for kids under 13. My question is...if you let them read the books, which are far more descriptive and in-depth, then what is the difference between that and letting them see the film? The film is based on the book and so the book must have been equally dark, and I

Comments

[aduial_peredhel]

Incidentally, GoF is rated PG-13.

[echoriath]

Yes, I know, but yet the same people who will hesitate to let their kids go see the PG-13 film didn't hesitate to let them read the books.

That is what I'm questioning.

[aduial_peredhel]

Ah, I see your point now.

[fafojoy]

I can read the books and be totally fine, but actually seeing it on screen will give me nightmares.

Same here. My reaction to movies is much stronger than to books, more apt to lead to nightmares. The impact of books lasts forever with me, though.

[echoriath]

Interesting. I can watch any movie and it won't bother me -- they come across as unreal and stupid but not scary. Books, on the other hand, can scare me so badly I'll sit up with a light on. I guess my own imagination supplies me with horrors that are specific to me moreso than the general ones of the movies.

Thanks..and you know, I can see how a kid would find the Ring Wraiths or Dementors terrifying.

[fafojoy]

I was thinking what Khareesa already said ... I know that I can read material far darker than I can watch. There are many movies I don't see just for that reason. I know some folks who say the opposite. Its a curious thing and makes you wonder about the types of cues that stimulate the stronger reaction - the visual you see on the screen vs the visual you imagine in your mind. I guess with a book, I can change the setting in which I read it, I can put it down and come back etc. Movies in the theater bother me graetly due to the volume.. talk about complete overstimulation! Which is why I have seen approx six movies in the last 10 years in the theater (and you can likely guess which ones they are...)...

[echoriath]

It is odd -- I was thinking entirely from my own point of view that most of the things I see in movies don't frighten me at all. I find them kind of goofy or stupid because most of the time they're so overdone. Scary movies don't scare me, they gross me out and strike me as stupid but they don't frighten me.

Books have. I've been scared by something I read and then unable to get the darn words out of my head for days, especially at night. *g* I guess it's just the way our brains work. Visual doesn't do it for me, but audio and words will. And yes...THX for all it's glory is a bit TOO LOUD at times.

[lhun_dweller]

Interesting question. My parents did just that: we could read anything. And I mean ANYTHING: in addition to sci-fi, fantasy, Arthurian legends, mythology, history of whatever caught my fancy that week, I brought home from the library at age 14 things such as "Portnoy's Complaint" (didn't finish it - too dull) and Colossus (thought it was the book version of the sci-fi movie, not a huge, torrid epic about a famous painter). Not a batted eyelash from Mom or Dad

[echoriath]

I must be a weirdo. So far I'm the only one who thinks imagination and books are far more frightening than a movie.

Images don't scare me. In fact, try this next time: mute the movie and just watch the screen. Without the music, it's hardly even interesting (to me at least). For me that's how most movies are. I don't lose myself in them, my mind wanders and that could be why I don't really enjoy movies too often.

Books, on the other hand, suck me in and won't let go. I've remembered things from Stephen King books that still scare me because of the potential.

I've always said, and still maintain, that real people scare me far more than Dracula, zombies, viruses or any other things. People are the most potentially dangerous and do the most unexpected things.