I watched the original Planet of the Apes movie with Marshall recently. As a child, it was one of my favorite films, so it seemed like it would be a great movie to share with him. Watching it with an adult’s eye, the movie is awfully slow at times, bogged down with talk of theology, philosophy, and politics–things that a kid, even a teenager, probably wouldn’t much care about. (As an adult, I find them more interesting, but I know there was a time in my life when I would have found them extremely boring and/or over my head.)
And of course the special effects (largely, people in ape costumes) would not impress a modern viewer. Still, I knew there was that big payoff waiting at the end, but I began to wonder if he would even make it that far. That kid, he kept saying things like, “Is Taylor sure he’s not on Earth? How likely is it that apelike creatures would evolve somewhere else?” So, I don’t know if the movie had already been spoiled for him by the Internet, or if he was just too smart for the movie, but I doubt the ending came as any big surprise.
Oh, well. Shortly after, he and I and my husband watched Godzilla Minus One. The movie was new to all of us, but we all saw the ending coming a mile away. So maybe we’re just good that way.