Hello everyone. recently i was eating breakfast with my nephew and we were watching power rangers samurai. I looked at the concept and started asking questions, now im writing a short story thats taking all those questions and turning power rangers into a complex adult story. so heres my topic. how many other shows or child books and series are wasted on children!? the only other one I've thought of is Inspector Gadget, seeing that as a noir pulp detective story would be fantastic. How many can you think of?
Digimon. First seasons. Seriously. When you really look at that show and the characters, you can tell there is a lot of deep emotional stuff that aren't touched upon as much as they should have, because it's a kid's show. The plot was also great, but as a child I never noticed. I just thought it was a pokemon ripoff and thought pokemon was tons better. As an adult I realize that most of the pokemon episodes were pretty much the same thing over and over (still loving pokemon though), while digimon actually had a large and continuing plot, several subplots and all characters grew tremendously throughout.
I'm not sure if this is stupidity or plain nostalgia that is guiding my fingers, but I remember the first session of Bayblade being really well written, animated and characterized.
Can I flip this round? How many good ideas are wasted on adults? As children our imaginations are boundless. Everything we see triggers something. How sharply does this contrast with adult life? How often do bright ideas get derided for not being realistic or not an accurate reflection of something? The idea is still good, it's just got an adult turning round and being sniffy, deliberately finding faults in it. A child will find faults, yes, but will they deliberately look for them just to prove a point? Saying an idea is wasted on a child is completely redundant. Keep sending them ideas and they'll come up with ideas of their own. If they see something which triggers their imagination then there's hope for the future. If we give them bland rubbish then all they'll do is grow up devoid of ideas and imagination.
Avatar: The Last Airbender seemed to blend everything perfectly. It was pretty deep and emotional and one of the best shows I've ever seen as a kid's show, and yet it wasn't out of depth.
Sometimes I still watch kid shows (not only because I have lots of annoying little brothers and a sister) some stuff would amaze you. Like Spongebob has a lot of sugestive one liners. So does Fairy Odd Parents and other funny little kid shows. Like once I walked into the room and spongebob was on TV and he said something to patrick that was kinda sugestively gay...I bursted into histarics and my brothers stared at me. ~ Now back to the topic, Many ideas the Americian might consider 'little kiddish' but can becoming an amazing story for adults are...I can't really think of anything that hasn't been said. But if you go looking for some manga or Anima that may be considered for 14 plus you'll find out the touch on more then what an American would consider for a teenager, especialy those mangas. If you read Gakuen Alice you'll see what I mean.
I totally agree with D.D. on this. Children appreciate imaginitive ideas much more, but they are also quite capable of catching onto deeper and hidden meanings and mature themes, much more so than adults give them credit for. Besides, kids grow from intellectual stimulation. Without it, they'll be far less likely to produce deep and well-thought innovation as adults.
How about the recent Disney movie "UP"? This movie was intended for young audiences, but when I watched it, I realized that the hidden meaning in the movie is very very deep. Something only an adult (or teen) could grab. The storyline (or most of it) could've been used to make a fantastic movie for adults.
I agree that ideas can't really be "wasted" on children, but there are a lot of ideas I could have wanted to be far more mature and adult. To name but a few: Transformers: If you think about it, it's all about a living robots living on a planet out in space. One day civil war breaks out, and the robots fights for so long that they end up destroying their planet. (more or less, though it's still there in the comics.) A civil war is bad enough, and has a lot of potential. Imagine something like Saving Private Optimus or Robot Platoon. It would be just as dark and creepy as the original war movies, but focuses on living robots on a robot world. When the war came to Earth, we could have gone even further. Imagine a movie like Full Metal Jacket with giantic robots thrown in on both sides. It would focus on the humans, but the robots would be there from time to time. Being attacked by an enemy tank is bad enough, but what if said tank could turn into a robot? He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Again, it's all about the war. We wouldn't even need He-Man or Skeletor. How about a tv-series like Band of Brothers, focusing on regular humans (on Eternia, of course) joining the army to fight Skeletor and his army? We could have regular apperances from both heroes and villains (even He-Man himself), but the show would be about the civilians. I don't think kids would like it much, but it would be aimed at adults and focus on the drama, human emotions and all that. For that matter, it could be about some civilians joining Skeletor's army (maybe against their will?) G.I. Joe: Not much to say about these, except they are real peopel fighting a real war. So how come it's toned down and aimed at the kids? We even got ninjas here. Adult version. Now!
I think its exceptional when a show, film, or book can transcend age ranges. IE, Harry Potter, ATLA, Pixar's "UP," and many more. All intended for younger audiences, but they wound up appealing to people of all ages.
