Theo is sensitive and there are some movies I want to show him but I know he's not ready -- this includes BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND, which you might think would be perfect with the dinosaur plot. Yet there are some very violent moments -- the father Brontosaurus getting shot with blood dripping out of his neck and several other killings -- that I know he would be upset by. (That's also the central problem with that movie, which would be ideal family fare but veers into adult-territory too many times to make it suitable for little kids).
That said we like to keep it at home as much as possible since so many of these kid flicks are lame (I don't need to sit through ZOOTOPIA or SECRET LIFE OF PETS ever again). Thus, we've gone through STAR WARS the original trilogy (liked it, not sure he understood ALL of it), SUPERMAN 1, E.T., and a smattering of Disney flicks so far. He also managed to make it through all of JURASSIC PARK, albeit probably because we've shown him "clips" from the main sequences via Youtube here and there (he only got upset when Laura Dern discovered Sam Jackson's hand!). He also loves Pokemon so POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU is a favorite (and, surprise, it's actually not bad!).
He didn't care for JUMANJI (may have been too intense) and THE GOONIES, though like his dad, it's not a favorite movie of mine anyway. (I'd love to show him GREMLINS...but I think he needs to be a year or two into the grade school years to make that feasible. We're not there yet!).
I need to try CLASH OF THE TITANS...or probably some earlier Ray Harryhausen.
At any rate, much like Monterey Jack's "Movies with the Nephew" thread, I'd like to keep a running journal here of what we've watched when I get a chance.
The good news is, no matter what, he is definitely glued into these films -- he likes watching them on the big TV too, which I'm happy with because too many kids are inseparable from tablets and phones. We've consciously decided against that -- we've had people commend us on going out to eat without him needing an electronic device to keep him occupied -- and I can tell it's worked because he gets some 'screen time' but usually is good about giving it up or back. And he's happier watching a show on the TV instead of the tablet, which is better for eye sight anyway!
SPACECAMP
This one seemed to be a good one for kids and it was a wise choice that kept him engaged. Just a couple of typical "s---t" lines (typical of the time; witness SHORT CIRCUIT, which he liked a lot) on the "adult" end.
The movie isn't bad -- he liked it a lot and wanted to see the end (most of these we break up into "two parts"). It just doesn't have the magic of real Spielberg productions and had no chance after the Challenger disaster to become successful...in fact the scene where the robot runs the scenario about the shuttle crashing was probably unbearable back in 1986 to watch. Yet there was no way around it -- you couldn't just reshoot here and there without adjusting the entire plot. They were stuck.
Theo did get (quietly) upset when Kate Capshaw's character got knocked out. He actually teared up a little though he didn't say anything until we asked him -- which is the kind of thing where we need to monitor just "how PG" you go for someone about to hit 6. (Which is why I don't think we can do BABY yet)
But he was engaged by it, especially once it got rolling along. The effects weren't great but good enough...I also wonder if Kino Lorber's Blu-Ray gamma levels were (as they sometimes are) set too high because matte lines were more obvious than they should have been.
John Williams' score is good -- not one of his best, but it obviously has some nice moments and the End Credits is superb. Did Lionel Newman end up ghost writing/"adapting" some of this and/or conducting it because Williams had somewhere else to go? I wonder because he's given "Special Thanks" at the end of the credits, and we know the movie was a disaster to make (doubled its budget during filming and the production took months longer than expected), which is why I wonder if Williams had to leave at a certain point. Newman is credited with "producing" the music on the soundtrack too. (The liner notes in the Intrada CD don't really go into Newman's involvement at all except he was part of "Williams' team")
Anyway, a nice recommendation for kids with SPACECAMP. The movie's shortcomings aren't so great that it can't be enjoyed by little ones, and while adults may have wanted "more" (the film seems kind of "empty", especially in its second half, as if it had been pared down -- and then it just ends), it's sufficient for the family audience that it never really had a chance to get back in its era.
While my experiences with the nephew have obviously been different to yours with Theo (the 'phew was around 13-14 when I showed him his first Godzilla movie, and he's been well over 18 and capable of watching "the good stuff" for a while), this is always an exciting time in the life of an avid movie fan with children -- or, in my case, a gaggle of nieces and nephews -- when they get to show them the movies they grew up on and see how they play for "the kids these days". 
), but the acting is fine, you have the frizzy-haired 80's hotness troika of Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston and Kate Capshaw, and Williams' score is sublime. Interesting musing about if Lionel Newman may have done some uncredited ghostwriting, but maybe he just conducted it, like he did for a lot of Jerry Goldsmith efforts in the 70's and early 80's? The score sounds like any other Williams score from the era to me (the awful "drum machine" cue aside, which I always skip over), and in fact sounds like it was cut from the same cloth as his Amazing Stories score to "The Mission", which I listened to again last night. 
