Unlike “Stand By Me” which must be during the holidays because although the children mention school, we never see them in school, there lifestyle is completely different to the youths in “10 Thing’s….”, for example Chris, Verne, Gordie and Teddy usually lounge around the tree house and the boys didn’t have much to do, there was no such thing as television so the boys had to amuse themselves.
The music to “10 Thing’s….” is more of a U.S.A high school type of music, a sort of upbeat rap mixed with some light rock, which is completely different to the music in “Stand By Me”. The theme in “Stand By Me” is actually a slower version of the song “Stand By Me”, which is all about friends who stick together no matter what (just like the film) the theme also gives us a feeling of when the story is set and also it could tell us that the film is going to be sad and distressing.
In “10 Thing’s….” Cat’s father is a single parent, but he is very protective, (maybe a little bit overprotective) has a lot of money and also has a very good job in being a doctor who delivers babies, but he tries his best to be the best he can.
However, in “stand by me” none of the parents really care about their children. Teddy’s dad tried to burn his ear off, so he was put in a mental hospital, Verne’s big brother bullies him and his parents don’t stop him, Gordie’s parents ignore him since his bigger brother died, and Chris’s parents don’t give a damn. This shows us that all the boys have had a really bad upbringing and that the parents don’t care for them.
In “10 Thing’s….” Cat’s ambition is to get a really good education and move as far away as possible to a University on the other side of U.S.A., I think she wants to get away become she feels her dad see’ her as the mother figure and she doesn’t like it.
But in “stand by me” all the boys ambitions at first is to become famous by finding “The Body”, because if they find the missing body they will have they names read out loads of times on the radio and also they would be plastered over all the local newspapers, and to them that would be fame. However Gordie also has an ambition to become a writer and we know this because of the “Lardass” story, but he also wants his parent’s to recognise ham and stop ignoring him, he wants to get close to his parents again, which is completely different to Cat in “10 Thing’s….” who wants to get away from it all.
The theme in “10 Thing’s….” is basically trying to get the girl you love and also get drunk and go to school and parties, the good guy needs to get the pretty girl from the “bad” guy.
However in “stand by me” the theme is all about friends sticking together through thick and thin, to find the dead body and become famous. To get to “The body” first it is a race against time and all the friends have to support each other by standing by one another.
The friendships in “10 Thing’s….” are all set up in stereotypes, like all the coffee drinking kids hang around the coffee machine, all nerds hang around together, the football team hang around the lockers, the cheerleaders hang out with the footballers, etc.
The friendships in “stand by me” are somewhat completely different from the friendships in “10 Thing’s….”, for example the 4 friends are completely different, Gordie is clever, Chris is rough, Verne is a softie and Teddy is a mental, but it is still a very strong friendship which I believe is thanks to Chris, I believe Chris is the backbone of the group, when they are all sad Chris listens, when they need to laugh Chris makes them laugh, Chris is the ultimate friend to the group.
The Ending in “10 Thing’s….” is a lot less realistic then that of “stand by me”, for example in “10 Thing’s….” the good guy gets everything he wants (Cameron gets the girl) and it all ends happy apart from the fact that the “bad” guy Joey ends up with nothing.
However in “stand by me” it is more realistic because the boys try to get on with their lives the way they left them, so instead of becoming famous they gave the police an anonymous phone call telling them where the body is, and then they try to fight their own battles from then on.
The meaning in “10 Thing’s….” is good will always get what they want in the end and the bad wont.
However “stand by me” has a more meaningful meaning which is “ You’ll never have friends like you did when you was 12.
From watching both these films although you could say that both films fall into the “Teen” genre, you could say that “10 Thing’s….” is more of a funny teen movie when “stand by me” is more of a powerful teen movie which actually makes you think about your friends and how close are you to your friends?