Movies I saw as a kid seem much shorter now...

Post Reply New Topic

I've noticed this, lol just not sure exactly why it is. Like I recently watched The Last Unicorn, because I remembered it from my childhood and wanted to see it again. But yeah it seemed like such a short movie, I remember it seeming a lot longer all the years ago I first saw it. But that has happened more than once when I've seen movies I remember seeing as a kid as an adult.

Does anyone else have this sort of experience?

In general, I think the first time we experience somethings, they always seem to take longer. I may be wrong. There is also the idea that as we get over, time seems to speed up.

There are movies that are like that for me as well. Though the first movie I ever saw in a theater was The Great Race with Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. It actually seems like a longer movie today. I did not realize it was so long. It's one of those moves that had an intermission. It's 160 minutes. I saw it for my 6th birthday, 1965. A family friend took me to see it. I thought it was great.

I think there are points in a movie that once I know they are there, that becomes the measurement, not the moment to moment measurement. The Aviator was like that. Anyway, point A to point B never changes, so it seems to go by faster.

I'm rambling. I would be interested in other's thoughts.

For me it's the length of time. Most disney movies from my childhood I have found are under 1 hour 30 minutes. When I was young that seemed like a much longer length of time.

Not really, not with movies. That might be down to me watching a lot of 1 hour 45 minutes movies or longer as an older kid (10-12, early teens), while the majority of movies I watch now are ca 1 hour 30 minutes or less.
I actually think I had an easier time watching longer movies back then than I do now. These days I feel like about an hour and a half is enough for one sitting.

But I have definitely noticed something similar with books. Books I loved as a kid now are short and very quick to reread, and the scenes that seemed so descriptive to me then, are less so now. I noticed this particularly with one book (Det kom et skip til Bjørgvin in 1349).

Yes, I know what you mean. Many kids' movies I grew up with are actually under 90 minutes. When I watched these movies as a kid, it felt like they took up a whole afternoon or evening.