"super hearing with his hearing aids"? -___-;....I wish *rolls my eyes*. But it would still be nice to cast an actual deaf/HOH into movies, especially in high profile movies such as Spy Kids.
Spy Kids 4
- Thread starter fhjmom
- Start date
"super hearing with his hearing aids"? -___-;....I wish *rolls my eyes*. But it would still be nice to cast an actual deaf/HOH into movies, especially in high profile movies such as Spy Kids.
Well, I took the kids to see "Spy Kids" today (it opened today) and it was even worse than I had feared.
First, the movie was not released with captions. I realize that 3D movies usually do not have captions, but most are also released in normal projection with captions. We went to a regular (non-3D) showing and it was the ONLY movie, out of 14 non-3D movies showing at that theater, without captions! The theater has recently started using personal captioning devices that sit in the cup holders and receive a signal (different from RWC) and I was hoping to use them for the first time with Spy Kids. I spoke with the manager and she said that virtually all of their non-3D releases are now shown with captions. The lack of captions was confirmed by the trailer listing on Captionfish, also.
Second, no mention was made (that I could understand, admittedly I missed some dialog bc of my hearing loss) of how/why the boy had hearing loss. No explanation of his hearing aids - nothing really but a few cursory scenes and even those were handled very poorly IMHO. They are worn from the beginning of the movie and are not part of the spy gadgets they get later on; nothing is done to the aids to "spy-them-up".
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD:
In one scene, he turns off his hearing aids so he doesn't have to listen to his sister complaining.
In another scene, boy turns up his hearing aids and can differentiate the number of watches ticking on another characters arm from several feet away.
When the bad guys take his aids bc they think they are spy gadgets, the kids start signing to each other. Now they have never signed at all the entire movie, his speech has been totally clear, and he has never missed anything anyone else has spoken to him the entire time, including a mechanical dog with an English accent or other very difficult listening situations. The sister also explains to the bad guy, "My brother is hearing impaired and your goons took his hearing aids." This was after the bad guy asked, "What's with the jazz hands?" in reference to signing.
Boy is given back his hearing aids and he magically can hear perfect again.
I wasn't expecting much from the movie itself; let's face none of the Spy Kids movies have been great theatrical accomplishments. But I was hoping for a fun kids movie that was a decent example of a character with hearing loss. Too bad it struck out on both.
IMHO, it really seemed like the boys hearing loss was initially supposed to play a bigger role, then sometime during production, it shifted but there were already too many scenes shot with the hearing aids in to dump the idea all together. It ended up being an awkward vestige that left you kind of wondering why they even bothered. Part of this opinion comes from the fact that the boy's hearing loss was highlighted in the original press releases during filming, yet in all the promotional materials I have seen lately, it isn't even mentioned.
To answer a PP question, these kids are totally new spy kids. The kids from the movies before are grown-up and oversee the new spy kids program.
First, the movie was not released with captions. I realize that 3D movies usually do not have captions, but most are also released in normal projection with captions. We went to a regular (non-3D) showing and it was the ONLY movie, out of 14 non-3D movies showing at that theater, without captions! The theater has recently started using personal captioning devices that sit in the cup holders and receive a signal (different from RWC) and I was hoping to use them for the first time with Spy Kids. I spoke with the manager and she said that virtually all of their non-3D releases are now shown with captions. The lack of captions was confirmed by the trailer listing on Captionfish, also.
Second, no mention was made (that I could understand, admittedly I missed some dialog bc of my hearing loss) of how/why the boy had hearing loss. No explanation of his hearing aids - nothing really but a few cursory scenes and even those were handled very poorly IMHO. They are worn from the beginning of the movie and are not part of the spy gadgets they get later on; nothing is done to the aids to "spy-them-up".
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD:
In one scene, he turns off his hearing aids so he doesn't have to listen to his sister complaining.
In another scene, boy turns up his hearing aids and can differentiate the number of watches ticking on another characters arm from several feet away.
When the bad guys take his aids bc they think they are spy gadgets, the kids start signing to each other. Now they have never signed at all the entire movie, his speech has been totally clear, and he has never missed anything anyone else has spoken to him the entire time, including a mechanical dog with an English accent or other very difficult listening situations. The sister also explains to the bad guy, "My brother is hearing impaired and your goons took his hearing aids." This was after the bad guy asked, "What's with the jazz hands?" in reference to signing.
Boy is given back his hearing aids and he magically can hear perfect again.I wasn't expecting much from the movie itself; let's face none of the Spy Kids movies have been great theatrical accomplishments. But I was hoping for a fun kids movie that was a decent example of a character with hearing loss. Too bad it struck out on both.
IMHO, it really seemed like the boys hearing loss was initially supposed to play a bigger role, then sometime during production, it shifted but there were already too many scenes shot with the hearing aids in to dump the idea all together. It ended up being an awkward vestige that left you kind of wondering why they even bothered. Part of this opinion comes from the fact that the boy's hearing loss was highlighted in the original press releases during filming, yet in all the promotional materials I have seen lately, it isn't even mentioned.
To answer a PP question, these kids are totally new spy kids. The kids from the movies before are grown-up and oversee the new spy kids program.
Etoile
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2005
- Messages
- 1,185
- Reaction score
- 0
Thanks for the in - depth review fhjmom! This sounds like one I will skip in theaters, but add to the Netflix queue. (Assuming it has SDH, most discs do now.)
Sorry to hear the captions weren't there for you. What new system does your theater have? It's cool that they caption most movies. My local theaters usually all show one or two at a time, and most theaters are showing the same movies!
Sorry to hear the captions weren't there for you. What new system does your theater have? It's cool that they caption most movies. My local theaters usually all show one or two at a time, and most theaters are showing the same movies!
It is called "Captiview Closed Captioning"
. The link is to a page with a picture and description for the company. I can't give you much of a review of the system itself since I haven't yet had the opportunity to use it when the captions actually worked, but from just seeing the device and the text on set up screen I think I would like it better than rear-window captioning. The device was much easier to position and the words easier to read than RWC. Also, it is available for use in every theater in the complex, instead of just one or two which is usually the case with RWC. Before we would drive about 35 minutes to a theater that showed open captioned movies (only one show at a time) but this theater is less than five minutes from our house so I was pretty excited about the new captioning system!
Jazzberry
Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 761
- Reaction score
- 0
It is disappointing, and surprising, that they didn’t make the movie with captions. Really sends a mixed message. On one hand a movie company decided to create a main character that wears hearing aids but on the other hand they did nothing to help real D/d/HoH people be able to watch the movie. What’s up with that??? 
But I really like that they made a movie where one of the kids has BIG BLUE hearing aids.
Normally I would care a lot about accuracy, but in a movie with flying cars and lifelike robotic dogs, I'll give it a pass.
One of the things I hate about the HA industry is the big push to make them not noticeable. Cosmetic concerns usually trumps effective hearing aid design and performance.
Bring on the big blue hearing aids! With changes like that in movies, and TV shows like Switched at Birth -- maybe HA companies will be influenced to put more of their energies towards producing hearing aids that perform better and be less concerned about making them so tiny.
But I really like that they made a movie where one of the kids has BIG BLUE hearing aids.
Normally I would care a lot about accuracy, but in a movie with flying cars and lifelike robotic dogs, I'll give it a pass.
One of the things I hate about the HA industry is the big push to make them not noticeable. Cosmetic concerns usually trumps effective hearing aid design and performance.
Bring on the big blue hearing aids! With changes like that in movies, and TV shows like Switched at Birth -- maybe HA companies will be influenced to put more of their energies towards producing hearing aids that perform better and be less concerned about making them so tiny.