Small Soldiers: The Movie That Wasn’t
First off, Happy 2021 to everyone (even though I’m almost a month late). Just the numbers 2021 is weird to say. Like every other year, it’ll take a while to get used to saying the number, and then we’ll do it all over again with 2022 (the horror!).
I’ve been spending the beginning of the year reading a lot of great articles on Medium just learning from different perspectives through their writings. Even the ones where I disagree strongly with what they’re saying, there something to take out of the article.
A few minutes ago, I was just watching youtube clips like I do every day and somehow I ended up watching a Small Soldiers clip.
The nostalgia is very strong in that this was the first movie I remember wanted to see from when I saw trailers and the various advertisements. A burger place (Burger King maybe?) even had toys from the movie.
That was a fun time waiting to see this movie that was a kid’s dream at the time if you love action and playing with toy soldiers as I did as a 9-year old at the time. From my assumptions, I assumed that the Commandos were the good guys and that the Gorgonites were the bad creatures that needed to be stopped by the army toy men.
So during the Summer till the Winter of 98, that was what I thought at the time until my dad finally rented the movie from the movie store near where we lived in Leland, North Carolina. I was ecstatic when I saw one of the three tapes had the name Small Soldiers on it. My excitement was through the roof as I couldn’t wait to watch it.
The other two movies were must-see as well. The other two were Armageddon and Titanic. So the first movie my family ends up watching was Small Soldiers. The tape is put inside the VHS Machine (technology has changed A LOT over the years). We watched the movie, the main character is this kid named Alan.
The movie has you learn about him, his family, his girl crush Christy and her family. Soon enough, Alan and the leader of the Gorgonites Archer slowly begin to bond. I remember being confused wondering aren’t the Gorgonites the bad guys? But soon I realized that the leader Chip Hazard and the Commandos were the bad guys in how they went about achieving their mission in killing all the Gorgonites.
Things get intense as the movie reaches its climax with both families and the Gorgonites making their stand against the Commandos. They eventually defeat them, Alan and Christy share a great kiss and Alan put the Gorgonites in a toy boat to head to their home called Gorgon.
I forgot Tommy Lee Jones had a voice part in this movie. He’s done so many great films that it’s easy for this movie to get lost in the collection. The same can be saved for an actor like Samuel L. Jackson. He has a million movies on his resume, that I’ll see an older movie of his and be like ‘’Oh yeah! He was in that too!’’
This twist of learning that the Gorgonites are the toys we should root for was brilliant. I didn’t see that coming. I may watch the whole movie again soon. Let the Nostalgia continue.
