Ruminations of an Old Goat

Back in November of 1996, a group of friends and I went to an opening day showing of Star Trek: First Contact. Even in a small city such as Greenville, SC, where I lived at the time, there were enough Star Trek and science fiction fans to sell out the showing. When the lights went out and the first preview trailer rolled, it was for some chick flick that not even most of the chicks in the audience, my wife included, had any interest in seeing. This was followed by the trailer for another chick flick, this one being the sequel to some other chick flick no one in the audience had seen. "Who picks these trailers?" I thought to myself, as the crowd grew more restless through the long, boring second trailer. I'm not trying to continue the stereotype of the Star Trek geek who never kisses a girl, but I thought someone, somewhere should have put just a tiny bit of thought into matching the previews with the actual movie. There was a third trailer of some kind, though I don't remember anything about it, and the crowd grew more restless. Then it all changed.

The fourth trailer began with a television set showing the original Star Wars, complete with the tinny music and sound effects you'd get from standard TV set speakers. The narrator said, "For an entire generation, people have experienced Star Wars the only way it's been possible; on a TV screen" as an X-Wing fighter flew toward the television screen. Then the X-Wing flew out of the television screen, growing until it filled the movie screen. At the same time, the theater's THX sound system kicked in with the famous Star Wars theme music and the famous sound effects of an X-Wing fighter flying past. I got goosebumps as I watched what I still consider the best constructed movie trailer ever made; the trailer for the special editions of the Star Wars trilogy.

It's the bit where the trailer gave me goosebumps that I want to talk about. Later, I reflected on the emotional power packed into that trailer. If I was someone else, maybe someone "normal," I might also have reflected on how silly it was for a grown man to get goosebumps watching the trailer for the Star Wars trilogy. Fortunately, I'm not "normal" and don't consider it odd to react that way to the trailer.

That all came back to me recently when one of the boys was watching another movie that had a goosebump moment for me. It got me thinking about what movie scenes really pack that kind of emotional punch for me. This is the short list of truly exceptional movies that hit me this way.

Outside of the amazing trailer I mentioned above, I get goosebumps during the medal ceremony at the end of the original Star Wars. Coming right on the heels of the climax of the movie, the music combines with the pomp, ceremony and a truly regal-looking Carrie Fisher to give me goosebumps. It doesn't matter how many times I watch the scene, it still has that effect on me.

Showing my comic book background, Superman:The Movie has a scene that never fails to give me goosebumps. It happens when Superman puts in his first appearance in Metropolis, catching Lois Lane as she plummets toward certain death with a casual, "Don't worry, I've got you miss." Holding Lois in his right arm, he catches the helicopter with his left hand, flying both back up to the roof of the Daily Planet building as the crowd below cheers and the soundtrack blares Superman's theme. It's just so damned heroic that it gets me every time.

How many of you have seen the animated movie The Iron Giant? If you haven't seen it, skip the rest of this paragraph until you have seen it. For any who are familiar with the book on which the movie is based, be aware that the movie is only loosely based on the book. In a rare twist for me, I prefer the movie version. The movie's climax, where the Iron Giant chooses to sacrifice himself to save everyone in Rockport, never fails to get me choked up. In this one scene, the theme of the movie -- that the Iron Giant is just as human as any of us -- comes to fruition. Then I choke up again when the film rushes across ice-covered Greenland to where the Iron Giant is slowly putting himself back together again. I still don't know how this movie failed to capture an audience.

By now, you'd probably expect some kind of reaction from me to one of the great geek movies of all time, The Lord of the Rings. You'd be right, too. Though there are plenty of emotional moments in those films, the single point that always gets to me is when Aragorn and all the lords and ladies gathered in Gondor bend a knee to four little hobbits. Perhaps we identify with the hobbits because it is the hobbits could most easily be us. They have no magical powers nor are mighty warriors. They simply keep on putting one foot in front of the other, moving slowly but surely toward their goal. It is right that the movers and shakers of Middle Earth bend their knees to the hobbits and, for me, it packs one of most powerful emotional punches of any movie I've ever seen.

To finish the geek trifecta, you know there has to be a Star Trek movie in here. Despite all the Star Trek movies that have been released, none of the first 10 of them had a goosebump moment. I enjoyed most of them and even have a couple that I watch every couple of years, but none of them really got me in the gut until the latest one. And the movie actually had two such moments. During the final battle, after the Romulan ship had warped away from earth with Kirk and Spock, I got goosebumps when the Enterprise warped into the system with all weapons blazing. The shot lasts for only a handful of seconds, but I expect I'll get goosebumps every time I see it in the future. But the really emotional moment came right at the end, as the Enterprise pulls away from the space dock, the original theme to Star Trek begins to play and Leonard Nimoy says, "Space, the final frontier..." In that moment, everything that Star Trek has ever meant to me -- and the original meant a lot to the young, socially outcast adolescent I once was -- came back in a rush of emotional that even had my eyes tearing up.

Now that I've laid my geeky soul bare, how about you? Are there any movies which "normal" people view as simple escapist entertainment that have this effect on you or am I just too geeky even for the geeks?