Who doesn’t love watching movies! Personally, it’s something that I enjoy a lot! My favorite part though is the people you watch it with, because you all can comment about the movie, laugh together or even cry.

When it comes to movies, I prefer action almost 100% of the time. So as my favorite genre, I did some research on six action movies from 1938-2009.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Let’s start with the third era, 1927-1938. For this era I picked The Adventures of Robin Hood, which was released May 14, 1938 and directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley.

Based on the well-known English legend, Robin of Locksley is a noble who is forced to become an outlaw when Prince John the usurper tries to take the throne from his absent brother. He flees to Sherwood forest where he gathers together his Merry Men and is called Robin Hood. He begins to rob the rich and give back to the poor, the townsfolk that are heavily-taxed by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Meanwhile he still has to defend the throne, and woo Maid Marian. (Summary written by Graeme Roy).

Originally, the actor that played Robin Hood, Errol Flynn, was not the first choice. That was James Cagney, but he had a major dispute with the studio and quit. So Flynn came as the second choice with no hesitation, since he already had big parts in the movies of Captain Blood (1935)and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). Flynn will be forever tied to Robin Hood. Keighley was replaced by “Warner golden boy” Michael Curtiz, future director of Casablanca, and the man who made Flynn a star in Captain Blood. Despite the fact that Flynn and Curtiz didn’t get along, they still made 12 pictures together. Which says a lot of their professionalism.

Robin Hood has been a consistent presence in the history of film. Though he is not as famous as some others characters, every generation has had a Robin Hood film, and nearly every film has been as successful and profitable. The character of Robin has also been able to portray changes as the audience changes too.

The Mark of Zorro

Next it’s The Mark of Zorro from the Fourth Era (1939-1947). Around 1820 the son of a California nobleman comes home from Spain to find his native land under a villainous dictatorship. On the one hand he plays the useless fop, while on the other he is the masked avenger Zorro.

The Mark of Zorro was released on November 8^th, 1940 and was directed by Rouben Mamoulian. There are so many action scenes in the film—the jail break, the men chasing Zorro, and the most remembered by the audience—the sword fight between Power and Rathbone. With its Oscar-nominated score, this movie raised the bar for the many subsequent incarnations of its masked hero.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur is absolutely one of my favorites. Being part of the Fifth Era (1948-1965), this movie was released on January 29^th, 1960 and directed by William Wyler. Its subtitle is A Tale of the Christ.

“Judah Ben-Hur lives as a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. Together with the new governor his old friend Messala arrives as commanding officer of the Roman legions. At first they are happy to meet after a long time but their different politic views separate them. During the welcome parade a roof tile falls down from Judah's house and injures the governor. Although Messala knows they are not guilty, he sends Judah to the galleys and throws his mother and sister into prison. But Judah swears to come back and take revenge.” Written by Matthias Scheler.

It was one of the most honored, award-winning films of all time. It was the first film to win eleven Oscars - it lost only in the Screenplay category due to a dispute over screenwriting credits.

Planet of the Apes

For the sixth era (1966-1976), we have Planet of the Apes, released on April 3, 1968. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, the movie focuses on Taylor and two astronauts who “come out of deep hibernation to find that their ship has crashed. Escaping with little more than clothes they find that they have landed on a planet where men are pre-lingual and uncivilized while apes have learned speech and technology. Taylor is captured and taken to the city of the apes after damaging his throat so that he is silent and cannot communicate with the apes.” Summary written by John Vogel.

There were four sequels to this film from 1970 to 1973, two TV series, one live-action and one animated. The 1968 version is considered the original movie, which mixes satire, social commentary, action and suspense, capped by a first-rate twist at the end.

Star Wars

And for the seventh era (1977-1994)—Star Wars! Which was a huge move then, and it is still today. Not mentioning that they are still doing the sequels and the audience is pretty broad in the sense that not only teenagers and kids love these movies, but also the adults that started watching these movies back in 1977, when the first Star Wars movie was released. Directed by George Lucas, the movie is based on the famous Imperial Forces, which are “under orders from cruel Darth Vader, hold Princess Leia hostage in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon, work together with the companionable droid duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess, help the Rebel Alliance and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy.”

The film has no opening credits. Instead they are at the end of the film. Being a movie from 1977 it was kind of unusual for a major film to not have opening credits. The film’s hero, Luke Skywalker or Luke S (pronounced as Lucas) was a way for the director to put his name there, subliminally.

This film jumped into a new phase of effects and technology, and when the second sequel started to come out, they improved everything. Now that Star Wars is something trending this years, they did change and improve again in effects, technology, etc.

Taken

And for this present era (1995-present), one of my favorites—Taken! Released in January 30^th, 2009 and directed by Pierre Morel, this action movie will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time! Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Central Intelligence Agency to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart. Kim manages to convince her reluctant father to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When the girls arrive in Paris they share a cab with a stranger named Peter, and Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in Paris. Using this information an Albanian gang of human traffickers kidnaps the girls. Kim barely has time to call her father and give him information. Her father gets to speak briefly to one of the kidnappers and he promises to kill the kidnappers if they do not let his daughter go free. The kidnapper wishes him "good luck," so Bryan Mills travels to Paris to search for his daughter and her friend.”—written by Claudio Carvalho

It’s a movie that touches your deepest feelings. And the thought that the drug abuse and violence that occurs in the movie, is something that still happens today in the world—definitely leaves you consumed in this thoughts.

Action movies are my favorite because it consumes you from the beginning. It has your heart pounding and you can’t wait for it to end, but at the same time you don’t want it to end. It’s like an addiction where you suffer but at the same time enjoy.

Throughout the eras, we can see that the idea of the genre—action, hasn’t changed much, but technology, effects, and money have made the movies better; more realistic. One of the things I like of this is that, it’s still going to change. In the future we’re going to look back and think that this movies of 2016 are old. An industry that is constantly creating crazy and new things to impress and keep the audience captured.

Citations:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029843/plotsummary

http://thefilmspectrum.com/?p=18844

http://www.library.rochester.edu/robbins/robin-hoo...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032762/

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/24074|0/Th...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052618/?ref_=nv_sr_2

http://www.filmsite.org/benh.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/?ref_=fn_al_tt...

http://www.filmsite.org/series-planetofapes.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/human-see-...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/?ref_=fn_al_tt...

http://www.filmsite.org/starw.html

https://www.wired.com/2013/02/star-wars-fx/