The Two Karate Kids

     The difference in the remake of movies is an obvious thing. You can see the difference in the actors, the writing and especially the special effects. They quite often are so different that it is not necessary to remark how different they are. Take fir instance The Karate Kid, in its day it was a really good movie and the remake today is a most enjoyable movie experience. What is not the same however are the moviegoers themselves. Those old enough to remember the first movie were not the same people when the remake hit the theaters this past year; age, experience and physical locations all changed for most people in the twenty six years between the two movies and me especially.  

      The first glaring difference to me with these movies is the fact that a few months before the first movie I was pregnant with my first son. I have to say that pregnancy agreed with me totally and carried through the first few months after having my oldest son. My skin was clear, my hair was shiny, and I “glowed”. I really did. I had many compliments to that effect. I walked around feeling spiritually at one with the world around me, The Great Earth Mother.  With the remake of The Karate Kid, I am going through menopause and it does not agree with me at all. The son that I gave birth to, is now a grown man, married and in the service himself. The hot flashes are making me miserable; the night sweats are intolerable, leading to exhaustion and irritability. Instead of being told how wonderful I look, positively glowing blah, blah, blah, people are asking me if I just got over the flu and do I need to go home and lie down.  My children now actually ask me how I am feeling before the y talk to me. If I don’t answer them they leave… quickly.  Instead of The Great Earth Mother, I am now known as Grandma St. Helen, (watch out for those eruptions).

     The first movie actually was released the day before I married my first husband, the father by blood of my three children. I remember how excited I was to be starting my life as a new bride. I dreamed of happily ever after and that love could conquer all. I was naïve enough to think that marriage was forever and nothing bad was ever really going to happen to me. My husband was going to take care of me and I did not need to worry about taking care of myself ever again. As I watched the remake of the Karate Kid I thought how far I had come in learning to take care of myself. I can drive an eighteen wheeler if I have to, it took me three tries but I have my class “A” license. I can fix a stopped up sink, a screen door and bleed my own furnace, change a tire, and I actually understand what a mechanic is talking about when he is trying to tell me what is wrong with my car. I know how to get something out of a drain, a nose, and a kid who suddenly has amnesia. I have survived homelessness, divorce and the life of a wife with a husband in prison.  

     The final difference in the two movies for me is that when the first movie came out I was living there in Southern California where the movie was made. Southern California was nice and I think there were a few of those beaches in that movie that I actually sun burnt myself on. In the movie you can’t see how very dry the air is, or how the dust coats everything outside and that you can’t touch anything without getting it on yourself. The flowers are bright and colorful and in the morning there is a heavy tropical scent wherever a handful of them grew. I never knew what they all were but boy did they smell nice. In the remake of the movie I was not in Beijing but I was here in Maine in the fall. I will take fall in Maine any day over any day in sunny southern California. California never changes, always dry greens and dusty browns with various colored tropical flowers. But in Maine on any given fall day you have the vivid hues of red, orange and yellow set against a backdrop of the deep greens of the Maine forests and the startling blue of her skies. There is no scenery on the beaches that can compare with a cloudless autumn day in Maine.  At the top of every large hill in Maine you can see what the colors on God’s palette truly are.

     There are differences in the two movies; the actors, the writing, the budget, and like the two movies you can see the differences in their fans. We are all older and wiser and in different places than we all thought we would be, but just like in these movies we all had to face our bullies and come out stronger for having stood our ground and fought the battle no matter what.