r/decadeology • u/Critical-Spirit-1598 • 3d ago

Discussion 💭🗯️ The "kid empowerment" films of the 90s.

After Home Alone a lot of studios decided to make kids films where the kids were either fending off criminals and/or put in positions of power. Films like this would include 3 Ninjas (and its 3 sequels), Blank Check, Rookie of the Year, Little Big League, and Camp Nowhere. As for what ended this subgenre, it was no one thing, CGI films just became more popular than live-action kids films.

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u/Papoosho 3d ago

This subgenre happened because Millennials are a large generation.

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u/medisamurai 3d ago

theyre were plenty in the 80s as well

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u/Critical-Spirit-1598 3d ago

True (Goonies, Cloak and Dagger, The Wizard, and for a more supernatural take on it, Monster Squad all come to mind), but it got real big in the 90s. Surprised they never tried a film where a kid ran for President (it would defy all logic and the Constitution, but it would also be a movie, which can get away with that).

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u/gquax 3d ago

First Kid

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u/CalumCranberryWrites 3d ago

I'd suggest North (1994) as a particularly ambitious take on this idea.

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u/Scoob79 3d ago

Little Big League was one of my favourites. Not even a baseball fan, but the premise was cool as hell to me as a young teenager.

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u/Even-Adhesiveness813 3d ago

I remember the Home alone ripoffs of the early 90s: Robocop 3: kid hacks a multimillion corporation security with a kid's laptop and baby's day out baby outruns 3 gangsters lmao

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u/MattWolf96 2d ago

They really milked Home Alone as well, they made like 6 of them. 3 and up didn't even have Kevin.

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u/Dangoiks 3d ago

I've always thought the success of Harry Potter was the main thing that killed off the Home Alone clones. After 2001, Harry Potter simply became the new model for live-action kids' films. And Chris Columbus was responsible for both trends!