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Cherished Children’s Movies

Nothing captures a child’s attention and sucks it in quite like the opening lines of these classic films. Usually lifting material from fairy tales and classic literature, Disney films in particular are famous for the “once upon a time,” story-book openings that grab your attention with the gentle turning of a page. Other times, as with Studio Ghibli, Pixar, and Dreamworks films, children are drawn into the story by beautiful visuals at first, and the first line seems to be an afterthought or a smoking gun to start the action. Sometimes the first line comes as an advertisement (like in Up), a conversation between two characters (as in Mulan), or just a side-character grabbing your attention (as in Aladdin). But often, the first lines of children’s films are interesting in that they happen to summarize the theme of the entire movie without us realizing it! For example, in WALL-E, the opening line comes from a billboard: “Too much garbage in your face?” The strong theme of that film is environmental protection, to the point where the MacGuffin is literally the last green thing on Earth. Occasionally, the opening line seems to be a throwaway (such as “Come on, Sven!” in Frozen), but see if you can spot the theme of so many of these classic kids’ films in the first line by using this infographic from PlaygroundEquipment.com!

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