What was the first film that had an impact on you?

Tinalera

Tinalera

This started in another thread, though I'd give a thread of it's own.

When I was five years old, I remember watching Star Wars for the first time-my first movie memory is watching the star destroyer fly overhead for what felt like forever. That image is ingrained in my brain from then on. Honorable mention-that mind blowing moment from "Scanners", which I as 8 year old said "I can handle the movie!" to my parents. After that moment I ran upstairs, grabbing my head:lol:

Just wondering what was the first movie image you remember as a child? This thread can open up to discussion about those movies, ect.

I was going to say about Star Wars-I think it resonates is because it was just so OUT THERE-for many I guess it was something they literally had not seen before. Anyone know what the original budget was, and how much it could be made for today (using same techniques). For comparison, I heard that TRON(one of my favs) could be made with today's technology for about 100,000(don't get me started on the sequel, I caught two trailers of it, and just about cried in shame what I saw-not so much the effects, but what seems to be a "sexing up/dumbing down" of the original story.
 
I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" on television circa 1982 or 1983. Was riveted from the monkeys on...I think that film works wonders on children. I was only 6 or 7. My dad had to explain the general gist but I was hooked. I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.

An astronaut.

What I wanted to be when I grew up eventually changed into a filmmaker, but still because of 2001.
 
The Princess Bride, RoboJox, and some movie I can't remember but was about a fighting tournament that had aliens from all over the galaxy and one human. Those movies impacted me first when I was younger. I remember back then, I thought the visuals were awesome. Maybe not so much now but I would have to watch them again.

Lord of the Rings is the movie series that inspired me to become a film maker. I am not sure which way you were looking for.
 
My earliest memories of movies was probably Star Wars ("Dad put the one with the ewoks on!!") and Mel Brooks movies. Robin Hood: Men in Tights. History of the World: Pt 1.

I could recite those movies by heart. Luckily my parents didn't care about the 'age-appropriateness' of those films, it really helped my sense of humor.
 
Brooksy said:
The Princess Bride, RoboJox, and some movie I can't remember but was about a fighting tournament that had aliens from all over the galaxy and one human. Those movies impacted me first when I was younger. I remember back then, I thought the visuals were awesome. Maybe not so much now but I would have to watch them again.

Lord of the Rings is the movie series that inspired me to become a film maker. I am not sure which way you were looking for.
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I'm not looking for one particular thing-it doesn't have to be the movie that inspired film-making, more just general talk about what was the first movie that had an impact, where you can still today imagine that time/moment in your head, many years later.

LOTR-one of the very very few movies that made me cry(ROTK). Very powerful,and for me, one of the few movies where the casting for all the cast was just so perfect for the roles.
 
Not really sure if it was the first film that had an impact on me per se, but when I first saw The Matrix it blew me away. Same goes for Saving Private Ryan.
 
Digital Root Films said:
Mine was ofcourse, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and those classics.
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I can't remember clearly which came first, Star Wars or those old Disney live-action films. I used to love those.

Whenever I stayed home from school I would watch either Swiss Family Robinson or Dr Doolittle(the Rex Harrison one), or Black Beards Ghost. Remember The Ugly Dachshund? Escape to Witch Mountain, there was another one I used to watch a lot, it was called something like The Richest Cat in the World or something.

I like to feel my taste was better than my younger sister's. For at least 6 months or a year, she wouldn't watch anything but Baby's Day Out.....
 
I remember seeing scores of movies as a very young child, thanks to having a film fanatic for a parent. I recall seeing things like A Clockwork Orange and the Shining when I was WAY too young to be watching them - mom was a massive Kubrick fan and perhaps a little lax on the "content for kids" judgement. :lol:

Lots of classic stuff too, The Wild Bunch and Bonnie and Clyde are two that I remember off the top of my head along with a blur of classic b/w era stuff that I have since revisited as an adult. Hard to remember those specifically though, but the Kubrick really stands out. Most of the other stuff probably saw as a child I have since re-watched so I remember it more from that than the initial viewings.

Of course Star Wars was a huge impact on my child hood, but it was really seeing Blade Runner when it was first released that flipped the switch in my mind and set me on this path.
 
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Let's see...

The first movie I remember seeing in the theatre was "Mary Poppins."

My grandparents made a yearly tradition of taking my sister and me to Radio City Music Hall for Christmas every year (back when you got the film AND the Xmas show AND the organist. I even got to play that organ once). We saw "A Boy Named Charlie Brown", "Bedknobs ands Broomsticks", "Scrooge", "The Happiest Millionaire" and a few others I can't remember at the moment.

I saw "Jaws" with my girl friend when it came out. She had long fingernails and I came out of the theatre with blood dripping down my arm because she grabbed onto me so tightly during the scary parts; I didn't even notice until we got into the parking lot.

The first film that really blew me out of the water was "Star Wars." It was just so completely different from anything that I had seen - or heard - before. "The Shining" (heeeeere's Johnny!) also impressed me, as did "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." Still a fave is "The Changeling" with George C Scott. I was also a fan of midnight screenings, so cult films like "Eraserhead" also had an influence.
 
All Fantasy films that i saw in the 80's stuck with me when I was young. It was my favorite genre back then.
Neverending Story
Labryinth
Conan the Barbarian
Red Sonja
Princess Bride
Krull
The Dark Crystal
 
When I was a child Star Wars is the first thing cinematically ingrained in my head. It is the only thing that I will get tattoos of because it will always be apart of me; but that didn't turn me to cinema.

The Adult Swim show "Home Movies" got me into filmmaking when I was in 7th grade, so I made Hi8 films with my friend's camera while simultaneously always asking for one of my own from that birthday and Christmas on. Clerks became my first love in film during this time and comedy was our forte. But still, my love was not yet film.

In my senior year of high school (3 years ago) I watched Planet Earth and that got me into the beauty of cinematography and I thought I wanted to be a camera man. This got me INTO filmmaking, but not into cinema.

About a month later during that spring semester I watched "Pulp Fiction" and that film blew me away. I knew about Tarantino (the name, heard it around) but I never looked at cinema as art before that, but from that viewing on I knew cinema was the greatest medium of art on this planet and it's what I wanted to spend my life doing.
 
Star Wars was the first that got me into storytelling mode (when I was eight). But then came Jurassic Park (made me want to be a paleontologist) and Raiders (wanted to be an archaeologist). After I learned how boring those two professions were I decided I wanted to be a film maker.

Though it wasn't until I saw Memento years later that I knew I could do this.
 
I loved that fact that in film you could create your own world that contained real people... bedknobs and broomsticks, Mary Poppins, pete's Dragon, Song of the South... but had real fantasy elements in it.
 
Some interesting movies, with some repeaters (2001, Star Wars, Disney). I just wish myself I had gotten into the movie making at a younger age....I wonder what would have been different.

I find it interesting with Star Wars in particular, no one has tried to imitate it (well, Maybe Battlestar Galactica, but that's another kettle of fish). But the idea of a "Space Opera" hasn't been done in that scale.

The mention of Lord Of The Rings is interesting, I've talked to a number of film students that cite that as an influence. It was very well done (I still think Gollum should have gotten best supporting)-that was its own epic scale for that generation (and I admit I anxious await The Hobbit in 2011 and 2012 :D)
 
But the "moment" that really got me thinking about it was the Yogi Bear episode where the film crew comes to Jellystone and the director calls action, then "Cue the birds, Cue the sunrise"... The power to call out the sun is what I lust for!
 
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