Watching and writing

I took my four year old to watch Tangled yesterday evening. I enjoyed the film but for him it was a traumatic event. It reminded me that not all preschoolers want life and death conflict in their media. We both loved a beautiful scene where thousands of lanterns are launched into the night sky from a picturesque island based city with castle atop (of course.)(tangled image) It was a great bit of animation but another reminder, that young children can appreciate moments of emotion and beauty. Although for my son it might have just been a break from the stress of danger and scary characters. Although in the end everyone in the film turns out to be good hearted, bought out of them by Rapunzul's glowing nature, except of course her two faced 'mother' or at least the woman she believes to be her mother - Mmmmm. Very scary concept, discovering that the woman that says 'I love you' everyday is in fact using you.
Of course Tangled is a Disney Princess movie, so a love story, rags to riches (though reversed)a finding of self etc So not really preschool themes. Well maybe finding one's self, managing to do things by ones self, developing an understanding of the world - these are as true to preschoolers, and to bigger children as to adults.
I ponder all this today as I sit down to write a short film aimed at Preschoolers. This is about a little boy who finds a strange creature and sets about trying to look after it. So yes about finding oneself and the ability to think about how to do things for another person and from a Science point of view it is about the essentials for life; food, rest, shelter... and what all living things do; eat, grow, poo...