Jacen is totally into movies. He can come up with movie references on the fly, and often compares real life events to something he saw happen in a movie. Even with his one-movie-per-day limit, I still have the opportunity to watch an awful lot of kids movies.
This week I've noticed an odd theme in the end of his movies. All kid shows end predictably the same, with the hero or main character finally resolving the conflict by making the right or moral choice, and therefore saving the day. A lot of newer movies are adding a second part to the resolution: the hero nearly always is offered a reward and then, for some noble reason, turns it down. I can't help but wonder, what's wrong with the reward? I know we don't want to teach our kids that we do the right thing to get "stuff", but I also believe there are times when God gives us blessings as a direct result of following his will, a.k.a. doing the right thing.
There are two movies that have really struck me. The first is 'Cars'. In the end of the movie, Lightning McQueen gives up winning the Piston Cup to help the veteran racer, The King, finish his last race. Obviously a noble choice, especially when compared to the foul play of Chick Hicks. Some things are more important than winning--what a great moral! But after the race, McQueen is offered sponsorship by the top racing sponsor, and turns it down, claiming loyalty to his previous sponsor. Maybe the part of this that bothers me, is that you look at the Rusteez team and it screams, "Bad career move!!!" all over it. I think more than that I wonder, would it have been wrong for McQueen to accept the sponsorship? Did they even need to include that scene? After all, the real moral of the story is already so clear it almost makes you roll your eyes. And would the moral have been hurt if McQueen had accepted the sponsorship? The other one I noticed this week, especially after watching 'Cars', was Veggie Tales' 'The Pirates who Don't Do Anything'. This one ends with the pirates saving the princess, and then saving the dinner theatre they work in as waiters (Cabin Boys), and sending Robert, the bad pirate, back to his own world. After which their boss offers them all jobs in the show, which they turn down, saying, "We don't need it, life has enough adventure on its own." Agian my first thought is, bad career move. The pirates are now stuck in their dead-end waitor jobs, and even though the Help Seaker returns at the very end to offer them another out-of-this-world adventure, they're totally ignoring their needs and the needs of their families in the real world. This one really bothers me, because there is no real moral benefit to the characters turning down their reward.
Maybe I'm over-analyzing this, but I just wonder what movie writers think they're teaching kids by adding this tag to the ending. There's more to life than money, true, and that's a good message for kids. But can't we just leave our heroes reaping the non-monetary rewards that came from their good deeds? Why must the right choice be to turn down the better option? I don't think the moral is clear enough to warrant including it in movie after movie.
I'm obviously not going to cut these movies out of Jacen's collection. The issue is not a life-or-death one, or even a serious moral conundrum. It's simply a trend that I don't fully understand.
I like my Cinderella stories; let the maid become the princess in the end.
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