RootAnn Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 (edited) I'm interested in seeing Peter Jackson's movie, "They Shall Not Grow Old." I'm wondering if anyone in the Hive saw it & what they thought as far as age-appropriateness for kids? Tween interested in military/war? Teen? Upper high school? (Obviously not for sensitive kids or younger kids, I'm assuming.) I'd like to go with someone else so I can talk about it afterwards, but DH is working & it is only showing at 1 p.m. an hour & a half away on that one day (27th). I'm trying to decide if I take one of my kids or talk an adult female friend to come with me. Updated: I took a female friend and it was very powerful but also very disturbing. Thanks for helping! Edited December 28, 2018 by RootAnn Updating after I went. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornblower Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 (edited) The provinces all do their own ratings so there's a spread. It's 14A for violence in BC. Some other provinces list gory scenes, mature subject matter. I think it's 14A pretty much in all the provinces except Ontario which gave it a PG. For our family I remember that 14A was often too much for our young teens when it was related to violence. ds & dh are going to see it on the 27th but I decided I wanted happy things so dd & I went to see Miss Bennet - Christmas at Pemberley (a local live theater production) instead. I think it sounds super heavy. Edited December 22, 2018 by hornblower 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2scouts Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 I'm hoping to see it and I plan to take my ds16 with me since military history is an interest of his. After the first showing, reviews said it was excellent footage, but very heavy and graphic. I probably wouldn't take anyone under high school age. The MPAA rating is "R for disturbing war images". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFSinIL2.0 Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 Saw it. Definitely not for kids. Actual footage from the war, colorized and with sound effects...even dialog ( in the short "how we did this" bit after the film Jackson note how they used lip readers to figure out what men were saying, then hired actors to record the words, etc.) so it looks very immediate and real. I had to look away at times, rather than see another shot of a poor mangled body in the mud. A very well done documentary, but for older teens. Note, all the showings here last Monday were 3D only. I am almost 60, and was one of the youngest people there 😏 And had to tell many of the oldsters that they needed to get 3D glasses from the kiosk before the movie started. I was glad I went. But don't take younger kids. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 I probably would have taken ds at 14, but he had watched a lot of war footage by then. We went this week. It was moving and powerful. It was graphic visually, it was also startling in the audio a few times. If you go, stay for the Peter Jackson commentary after the movie itself, that is also powerful. The focus is the western trenches from the British perspective. All the narration is from oral histories. As a parent of a young man, it was a bit hard to watch some times. Many of the faces in the video were so young. If you have a sensitive child, I would not take them. IMO, at minimum, you need to be able to have a real conversation with your child afterward about the horrors of warfare, the difficulties of WWI as not only a world war but a new kind of warfare, and also convey the importance of this kind of history. Also, after reading Tolkien's biography and reading about his experience in WWI and how it inspired Middle Earth, you can see why Jackson was the perfect filmmaker to use. There are also some other things he talks about in the afterword that show he was an ideal candidate to take on this project. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 Also to add, we did not see the 3D version, so you do have an option to see in 2D. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted December 28, 2018 Author Share Posted December 28, 2018 Thanks to all who replied. I decided to go with a friend. We both agreed that while it wasn't what we normally would have picked, it was a worthwhile use of our time. It was amazing, but really tough in points. I enjoyed the after-section with Peter Jackson, too. I learned a few things (mostly post-war stuff) I didn't know. The images were definitely disturbing and the movie made the deaths feel very personal in the way they did the editing. Powerful. They also didn't demonize the regular rank and file German soldiers which I appreciated. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravelingChris Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 Yes, dh and I just saw it too. Very powerful movie. We stayed for the after-section too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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