Was Honey I Shrunk the Kids great in its day?

[TheFlamingCoco]

Now it kinda feels like a Disney Original Movie, but with memorable setpieces.

Not being born yet kind of clouds my memory-so to you older Hypers, was it exceptional or just "cute?"

The shrunken adventures are fun, but the neighbors subplot feels a little "script-padding" to me. The climax is hilarious, so maybe I'm carping too much.

The PG feels a little desperate *oh no, it's gonna be G-quick-add in a "hell" here and a some scrapes there."

Minor tweaks could probably allow for a lighter rating, allowing for lower expectations. 101 Dalmations (96) was more violent, and is a G in the US (though Glenn Close got away with an infamous adlib from what I heard.)

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

It's a fine film with a great title sequence. But implicit in your question is the notion that all the other classic Disney original live action films were great and... They were always a very, very mixed bag.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

^ You have Mary Poppins..20,000,00 Leagues under the Sea, Treasure Island..and.. Herbie Goes Bananas. That point could close this whole thread :P

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

^ You have Mary Poppins..20,000,00 Leagues under the Sea, Treasure Island..and.. Herbie Goes Bananas. That point could close this whole thread :P

*Edit

Actually in deference to Coco I think I'm misinterpreting his first post and his response. Mea culpa.

 

[MadderMaximus]

It was a fun movie then. It was harmless family fun. Generally well made for the time, since a lot were animatronics I expect most of the FX to hold up (it's been a while since I've seen it). I remember not really liking the sequel though. The sequel definitely felt like something made for the Disney channel. Never saw the other direct-to-video sequels.

That opening title sequence is excellent, goes well with the James Horner music.

 

[Mysteryman]

Now it kinda feels like a Disney Original Movie, but with memorable setpieces.

Not being born yet kind of clouds my memory-so to you older Hypers, was it exceptional or just "cute?"

The shrunken adventures are fun, but the neighbors subplot feels a little "script-padding" to me. The climax is hilarious, so maybe I'm carping too much.

The PG feels a little desperate *oh no, it's gonna be G-quick-add in a "hell" here and a some scrapes there."

Minor tweaks could probably allow for a lighter rating, allowing for lower expectations. 101 Dalmations (96) was more violent, and is a G in the US (though Glenn Close got away with an infamous adlib from what I heard.)

I liked the film.
But, I LOVED the sequel.

 

[Aximili86]

"In its day"?

It's great now.

 

[Fincher]

I like it now. I don't worry about how good movies were in their time, but I guess I liked it more back then than I do now. I was a kid, though, so how much that has to do with the time period is unclear.

 

[GreenKToo]

it's still pretty good. I watched it again the other day.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I really liked the movie as a kid in the 1990s.

 

[LoganPool]

"In its day"?

It's great now.

This. It holds up very well. It's a classic.

 

[Aximili86]

B-b-but theres no huge CG spectacle, and it's all light-hearted and innocent and fun and stuff!

The horror.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Remember this, it opened the same weekend as Batman and became a big hit in its own right. It was the highest grossing live action Disney film at the time. I remember families packing the theatre and how many people were laughing.The classic “don’t eat me” when Rick Moranis’s son is in a Cheerios bowl was an iconic image at the time.

 

[sueb1863]

It was a big hit when it came out. It didn't change the face of cinema or anything but it was very popular.

 

[Silvermoth]

It was iconic when I was a kid. Maybe it hasn’t aged well but I do miss goofy fun farce movies

 

[Deck Rickard]

Haven't seen it in years but I loved it back in the day. Now the sequels... those were garbage.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I really liked the movie as a kid in the 1990s.

This. And then I've never seen it again after the 90s.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, it's one of those movies I kinda forgot about until Ant-Man came out and it made me want to revisit it (still haven't gotten around to it though).

 

[jmc]

It actually holds up pretty well IMO. In fact I'd argue we could use more kids films just like that these days. There's a good combination of fun, adventure, danger and practical effects. It was pretty big back when it came out too if I remember right.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

The SFX have aged though guys, Can we stop with the nostalgia goggles? The obvious puppetry and stop motion are just that, obvious, no less than "obvious" CGI.

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It's really good for it's day and yet it's still apparent that there is all sorts of SFX from the period being used. That's a wonderfully detailed puppet ant... But it's still a puppet and has the limitations of a puppet, especially one that large, thus the way it's framed and it's movements.

 

[Aximili86]

The SFX have aged though guys

Not. A. Bad. Thing.

There's just as much artistry & creative flair in stop-motion as in CG, probably more. Nothing "nostalgic" about it - it looked great then, it looks great now. Just a different way of doing things.

Yeah, you get more articulation & movement possibilities with CG. The trade-off is weightlessness and a general sense of intangibility. Each method has its strengths & weaknesses.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Not. A. Bad. Thing.

There's just as much artistry & creative flair in stop-motion as in CG, probably more. Nothing "nostalgic" about it - it looked great then, it looks great now. Just a different way of doing things.

Yeah, you get more articulation & movement possibilities with CG. The trade-off is weightlessness and a general sense of intangibility. Each method has its strengths & weaknesses.

Would that was the opinion one hears around here except that it's not. That's a nuances view. What we usually hear is that the old films SFX is superior. Full stop. And I would say that even when masters were executing them:

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are "weightless" in their own way with A LOT more limitations of use and execution. I love many of the films that use the old methods, and have to defend them often talking to people in real life who dismiss them because the SFX are indeed dated but I'm sorry online there seems far more rose tinted glasses, unadulterated, uncritical defense of those old methods and their outcomes than otherwise. And... I'm sorry it just comes off to me as a pose of authenticity than a real defensible position based on observation.

 

[Aximili86]

Different strokes for different folks, man.

I'd rather look at puppet Yoda or 1987 ED-209 than EpII/III Yoda and reboot mechs, any day. And that's not nostalgia - CG absolutely has its place. I just think in some cases stop-mo looks better, on balance. A preference for its strengths-over-weaknesses ratio over the same strengths-weaknesses metric with CG. Personally, I just don't like looking at CG, for all its technical wizardry. It feels cold.

You're limited in scope with the previous method, there's less you can do with it. Absolutely agreed. Both are just tools though, and you use tools sparingly where it's fitting to do so. You can CG something that doesn't need to be CG, and it'll look ****ty, same as anything.

Like, absolutely, you couldn't pull off the ant sequences in Ant-Man with stop-mo. That's the horizon-broadening of the new tech at play. That doesn't mean one's "better" or "worse" than the other though, and it sure as hell doesn't mean the stuff in Honey somehow doesn't look awesome today.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I'll bite. Stop Motion tends to have more individual artistry, and animatronics have the advantage of actually having a real-life scale.

For stopmo, maybe it could be used well in a throwback kind of film-like a lower budget Frasier Mummy. And is excellent when used in its own medium.

There are great clips with motion blurred stop-mo, but the effect is very similar to top notch CGI.

Animatronics don't have quite have the movement and definitely don't have the flexibility, but I can't see how using them for close-encounters would be a bad thing.

The scale models in HISTK look really good today..but the stopmo feels like it could have been done a decade earlier. Bees flying doesn't really work for stopmo that well.

Antie-eyes look fake now.

Real ant.

I think that it's the lack of cgi "hairs" or whatever that make Antman look like an effect. But HISTK has those painted eyes.

Maybe CGI eyes mapped on a practical body-but then again, that would be pretty extensive work for an effect that 99.9 percent of viewers won't notice.


For the record, I think the pacing (so many neighbors) and characterization (shallow) are the main flaws, and not the actual "shrink escape" itself.


Still..that could be the adult in me looking for something beyond a cheesy kid's movie..which is probably the point of the film. Good film to watch with a younger sibling.

 

[Aximili86]

Interesting on the pacing, I've never really heard that as a criticism of HISTK before. Joe tends to have a really solid grasp on the actual mechanics of storytelling, it seemed pretty even-handed to me.