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Abby, 5, has been begging me to let her watch the LOTR movies. She is rather mature for her age, but I am concerned about some of the scarier scenes, like the Nazgul in Bree. But she says, "Mom, I already know how it ends!" Which is true, since she saw the cartoon version. And I tested her out on Pirates of the Caribbean, which she thoroughly enjoyed. LOTR is an obsession I share with my sister, 16, and Abs picks up a lot from us.
What do you think? Is it too early to share my love of this film with my little girl?
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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Perhaps show her an edited version of Fellowship? I did this with my sister, who was ten at the time (but slightly delicate).
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I have mixed feelings about that. My mom lets my little siblings (5, 7 and 9) watch a lot more than I was ever allowed to watch. I used to get scared senseless over Unsolved Mysteries. My littlest sister and brother handle things very differently, though. Last time I was home, they were watching the creepy graphic parts in The Mummy and having no problems with it. My sister, though (the 7-year-old) has an extreme fear of the LOTR cartoons, and has nightmares about the "Frodo with the Nine Fingers" song, which is admittedly kind of creepy. Her little brother can chase her around the house singing "Frodo with the nine fingers! Frodo with the nine fingers!" and reduce her to tears. You never really know what will frighten children.
I think my children will be locked in a soundproof room in a protective compound if movies continue the way they have been...
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I think you should. Sit there with her and talk it over and watch to see if she gets overly scared. I'd watch it in broad daylight, with the sound not terribly loud on a small TV. When the pictures size is smaller it isn't as overwhelming.
You could read the books aloud to her first but that would take forever.
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Yeah, but have you ever watched the Lord of the Rings cartoons? She has every right to be scared.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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The things that AJ suggested are a good idea. Also, don't keep asking her if she's scared, or act like it should be a really scary part. She'll pick up on that.
My Bummy loved Hitchcock, so I could recite lines to Marnie, the Birds, and Rear Window before I was about four (I could also recite lines to Pretty Woman at that age, but my grandmother was a strange one). I never really realized that they were supposed to be "scary" or "thrilling" (except for the Birds! I lived in San Francisco! tinybitoffear) until I was about nine.
The Wizard of Oz, on the other hand ... they just pimp that ol' Wicked Witch of the West as the Old Hag in the Closet that One Shall be Afraid of Until Bummy and Grandad Come to CHECK IT OUT! That and Willow.
But LoTR has a lack of women-in-lots-of-make-up-to-be-frightening. The chicks are pretty. :-)
Posts: 45 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I watched Watership Down on network television every year, and it scared the behoozits out of me. I think THAT is far scarier than LOTR.
Jenny, my kid is kind of a scaredy-cat, and he's specific-scared (Courage the Cowardly Dog, for instance, and Scooby-Doo), so I know what his tolerance level is. I suspect you are very aware of what your punkin is specifically scared of, and can plan for that. You are a very good mom. You're also a 'talker' like me, so that will help. Your punkin may even roll her eyes at silly mom who explains things too much (like mine does, haha). But better that than not being explained to.
You have gotten good advice in this thread (watching during the day, smallish tv, lower volume), so you don't need me. Yay Hatrack!
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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When i was that age, Poltergiest freaked the HELL out of me, but westerns with lots of gunfire and people dying didn't. People can handle different things at different ages. I think you'll be aware if its too much for her.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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Gotta freak em out and warp em sometime, I guess. Might as well be one of the best motion pictures of all time.
I had watched Ghostbusters about a million times by the age of five or so, and there are some pretty scray (GET HER!) moments in that one, too, and I turned out fine, except for the bedwetting and the love of knives. And the kleptomania.
[ March 24, 2004, 12:16 AM: Message edited by: Book ]
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Emily watched Fellowship at five with no ill effects.
She did not take well to Two Towers though, because of Gollum. We had several sleepless nights because Gollum was outside her window. Natalie didn't help matters, I overheard her telling Emily that when she was outside she saw Gollum hiding in the woods behind the house.
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The things I was scared by as a kid usually had nothing to do with what adults would consider scary. It's just part of childhood. Nothing wrong with fostering a little irrationality now and then; I submit that the reason Annie's sibs can handle more material is that their prior watchings were learning experiences.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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I think Fellowship is fine for a five year old, but I can definitely imagine that young of a child being a little freaked out by Gollum.
Of course this comes from someone whose parents let her watch movies like Friday the 13th at age eight or so. None of even those movies ever bothered me much, though I didn't have much interest in them.
I think the only time I was ever really frightened by a movie was around age twelve or so when my parents had the bright idea to rent "Faces of Death" and not bother to kick me out of the room while they had it on. I had nightmares for months, and would likely have them to this day if I hadn't successfully blocked every image from that horribly disturbing film from my head.
Posts: 4292 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Nathan is 10 and I won't let him see them - but then, he just recently graduated (on a 13" TV, low volume) to Pirates of the Caribbean as long as I fast-forwarded through the skeletons.
When we saw Heidi, he was 6 and missing his grandpa. Consequently, he was heartbroken by the scene of Heidi frantically calling for her Grandpa. Steinbeck's The Red Pony got two thumbs down from Nathan for the vulture plucking at the pony scene and then attacking the little boy. He insisted we take that one back to the library immedieately.
However, we have read and watched Watership Down. His problem with the movie was that it did not follow the book storyline exactly. (Sigh)
As a reading bribe (and because I don't think he'd handle scenes with the Nazgul well or when Galadriel has her bout with the temptation of the ring or the Gollum scenes or the more bloody bits of battle or . . . ) I told him he'd have to read the books first. Of course, given his response to the bunny rabbit story, I'll pay for that as he critiques the freaking series beginning to end.
My mother would call that poetic justice . . . Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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If DVD, get out the scene list first and decide which scenes might be inappropriate or too scary, then watch with her and use the remote to skip past those scenes. Stop the movie and tell her what happened.
The DVD is also handy to dispel Gollum fears by showing her (before she sees the movie) some of the behind-the-scenes stuff where Gollum is acted and created with special effects. "See? It's just a nice man who was stiffed for an Oscar!" Showing her the man behind the curtain can help take away the fear.
When my oldest was 4 or 5 he was waking up with nightmares about cartoon characters coming after him. After a few nights of this I showed him a trcik I used to do -- drawing stick figure cartoons on the edges of paperbook pages so that when you flip the book they come alive and do horrible things to each other. He ended up getting fascinated by animation and lost the nightmares.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Abby would LOVE Gollum. I think the scariest bits for her would be the Nazgul in Bree, the Balrog, and Shelob. But those are also the thrilling kind of scary, and I think she might be ready for that. She told me that she can already see it in her head, so it doesn't bother her (and I get the roll eyes). And I did tell her the whole story of the movie while listening to the soundtrack together. I think that as long as I watched it with her, we'd be okay. She also knows that she can ask me to stop the movie at any time.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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We've also done a lot of shared fantasy play about fairies and such - not just the little flower fairies, but the dark Phookas and the spirits that drown people. I think LOTR might just give her more fodder for her wonderful fantasies. And I really really want her to see Eowyn's scene. She'd take it deeply to heart.
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You might want to break the movie into sections if you are going to show it to her. So she doesn't have to deal with all of it at the same time. Heck, you could make it like a reward at the end of the week or something to see the next 1/4th of the movie.
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One bit that hasn't been mentioned that, when I first saw it, made me uncomfortable, was the Gollum torturing scene. It's short but scary.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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The thing is with the Lord of the Rings, the section until they get to Rivendell is the scarriest IMO. So I'd break it up, and end on happy notes. First stop where Frodo and Sam meet Merry and Pippin. Second stop Rivendell. Third stop Lothlorien. And then I guess the movie ends where it ends, though stopping at the Argonath would be an option and then showing the Death of Boromir and Going straight into the TTT chase scene. In TTT never stop on anything that ends with Frodo and Sam, cause it is almost always depressing. Though the EE Faramir vingnettes might be good stopping points.
*I just realized needs to watch more TTT EE becasue I don't have the scenes memorized yet.
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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We are not going to let our 12 year old watch any of them until he is 13, this fall.
I personally feel he can handle it but his mother is not as sure.
There is also a big difference as to the screen size and the sound system used. Watching all three on the big screen with a theater level sound system puts the movies in a whole different category.
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My three year old daughter loves Lord of the Rings. She is scared of Gollum in the second movie, but as long as I am watching with her she is OK.
Actually, the witch in her Dora the Explorer cartoon scares her more than anything she sees in lord of the rings.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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I have never met your daughter, but it sounds like she'd do fine. I think I would have at that age.
HOWEVER, my oldes is a big ol' 'fraidy cat. He's okay with stuff that _I_ found creepy (like Willem Defoe in Spiderman *shudder*) but he doesn't handle grotesquerie very well. Like, say, that scene in Chamber of Secrets where the guy has a face on the back of his head? Had him screaming/crying, and supplied nightmare fodder for some weeks. Gah. I don't think he'd handle the orcs too well.
I did let him watch the Making of Gollum video, and he loved THAT. Spent the next day rasping around, moving and talking like Gollum. Heh. Still not gonna try it anytime soon, as he is not interested.
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quote: The DVD is also handy to dispel Gollum fears by showing her (before she sees the movie) some of the behind-the-scenes stuff where Gollum is acted and created with special effects. "See? It's just a nice man who was stiffed for an Oscar!" Showing her the man behind the curtain can help take away the fear.
This is what we did with out kiddos, (now 7, 5, and 20 months) when we first got FotR on DVD. They have never been scared and in fact, the younger two do a right creepy Gollum imitation.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ha ha - that reminds me of when I took the little siblings to see Chamber of Secrets. After we got home, they wanted to color and the two youngest drew monsters with swords shoved through the roof of the mouth. My mom got home and was a little disturbed prior to the explanation.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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My dh let our 9yos watch it and he loved it. But he acts out too many scenes so I've banned it until he is older. He does a very good imitation of Gollum also. He is a movie buff and is constantly reciting lines along with the movies, watching them over and over and memorizing and imitating the voices. I wonder how he'll use that talent some times. He does some downright good impressions. He and the 2yr old love Pirates of the Carribean, they are pretty good swordplayers now Anyway, go with your Mommy instincts, they are rarely wrong.
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Anyway, go with your Mommy instincts, they are rarely wrong.
