Thunderbirds are Go!

Okay, I’m a huge Thunderbirds fan from waaay back. Why do I love a thirty five year old TV program made with puppets? Well, I’m just a freak.

So now there’s a new movie coming out today, and I’ve seem some reviews that say it is, well, less than awesome. But I don’t care! How can it be any less awesome than super Marionettes!? I’m gonna see it anyway.

Why I like Lilo and Stitch so much

I have had a few conversations, with friends and co-workers, about Lilo and Stitch.

Some of the conversations go like this:

“Oh, I thought that movie was terrible! They were trying to take her away, and the other kids picked on her, and she was always fighting with everyone, and their parents died…”

Here’s why I like it so much (I’ll do bullets, heh):

  • Nani has a big butt. And is voiced by Tia Carrere (rawr!)
  • Lilo isn’t skinny / popular / pretty / rich. We’re not talking your typical Disney Girl.
  • Nani and Lilo obviously care a great deal about each other, but circumstances don’t always work the way they want. In fact, they seem to have a string of bad luck going. I resemble that.
  • Elvis!
  • The other kids don’t understand Lilo because she’s “different.” She wants nothing more than to be understood, but gets standoffish when they reject her (defensive). She has an over-active imagination, perhaps, and knows a lot for a little girl.
  • Six legged super strong indestructable alien with a sense of humor.
  • Favorite quote: “This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.”
  • Set in Hawaii, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
  • There are more Elvis songs in “Lilo and Stitch” than any other movie, including Elvis movies. Yes, we have the soundtrack. Somewhere.
  • “Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.”
  • Later: “Ohana” means “family.” “Family” means “no one gets left behind.” But if you want to leave, you can. I’ll remember you though.
    [looking at her picture of her dead parents] I remember everyone that leaves.
  • Lilo: Your knuckles say “cobra”…”Cobra Bubbles”… you don’t… *look* like a social worker.
    Mr. Cobra Bubbles: I’m a special classification.
    Lilo: Did you ever kill anyone?
    Mr. Cobra Bubbles: We’re getting off the subject. Let’s talk about you. Are you… happy?
    Lilo: I’m adjusted.
  • We watched this movie in a mostly-empty theater with our two kids, and by the end we were both bawling (the kids, of course, just like the surfing scenes and the space ships)
  • Few people that I’ve talked with know this, but when they initially scripted the movie (and most of the animation was done) the big final chase scene between the good aliens and the bad aliens involved Stitch stealing a 747 from the airport and flying through downtown Honolulu; narrowly missing buildings and such. After 9/11 the producers thought this would be a bit much (even for aliens in an animated Hawaii) so they changed it to where they were over open water or rural/volcanos. Plenty of trivia, interviews, etc. here.
  • Grand Councilwoman: What is that monstrousity?
    Jumba: Monstrousity? What you see before you is the beginning of a new species. I call it Experiment 626. It is fire-proof, bullet-proof, and can think faster than super computer. It can see in the dark, and lift objects three thousand times its size. It’s only instinct… to destroy everything it touches! Ha ha ha ha!
    Grand Councilwoman: So it IS a monster.
    Jumba: Just a little one.

On family history

Do your kids like to hear stories about your parents, or your grand parents, or great-grand parents?

Do they love to sit and hear about their first birthday, or their first steps, or the time they put a bug in their ear and went to the ER?

Do you help them (older kids, that is) create elaborate family trees for school, or write about how their ancestors came to America during the Irish Potato famine or something like that?

Well, I can’t do that with my kids, not in the traditional way, since they don’t have much history. Let me explain:

My kids came to me, at first, as foster children. They were removed from their parents for some reason or other, and brought to stay with me, temporarily. Then as things sometimes go, they stayed longer and eventually were available for adoption. But now I’m left with a void to fill – a void about their past. They have questions, and I have few answers, and I don’t wish to lie to them. So we do the best we can. We talk about what we do know – what their parents looked like, where they lived, what kind of work they did. How old they were when all this happened. We speculate about where they might be now. In one case I read a six inch thick pile of legal documents (mostly complaints about mom). In another case my wife met the mom twice before she left town – I never had the chance to see her. We have a name, that’s it. And strange as it may seem, kids want to know these things.

All of this is a long prelude to one of my recent Dumbass Moments. I’m teaching a class for foster/adoptive parents, and we do a section about Life Books. A life books is a scrapbook you keep for your foster kids, and it goes with them wherever they go – back home, to another foster home, to adoption, whatever. And I was talking to these wonderful parents about making a life book, and trying to stress why it was important and how little history these kids actually have (imagine no family reunions, imagine not knowing if you have brothers or sisters).

So I say “How many of you know your grandparents?” (raise hands) “Your grandparents?” (raise hands) “How many of you know significant things about your ancestors, like whether they came to America on the Mayflower.”

Silence.

Then, the sea of black faces erupted into laughter as someone said “None of our people came here on the Mayflower!”

I got to wear a Stupid White Man pin the rest of the evening. (not really, but I should have)