Family-Friendly Movie ‘Free Willy’ Inspires Your Kids to Change the World

Villain vs. Friend

"Blackfish" came out 20 years after "Free Willy", critically acclaimed documentary, devastating footage, and yes, it eventually pressured SeaWorld to stop using orcas in shows. But it took years of slow movement. No bags of mail, no kids calling a hotline at midnight. No kids sending their allowance or lemonade stand money to the cause. It's the same cause, but nowhere near the emotional movement that "Free Willy" created. Because "Blackfish" gave people a villain, "Free Willy" gave them a friend.

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Jesse & Willy: Alone Together

This is the episode I've been waiting to record. "Free Willy" at its core is about a boy named Jesse, played by Jason James Richter. And Willy portrayed by Keiko the whale, who are both alone because Jesse was abandoned by his mother, and he's homeless at the beginning of the movie, but goes into a foster home pretty early in the movie, Willy was taken from his pod at a very young age and placed in a pool at an amusement park to become a spectacle. So they kind of mirror each other. Both of them are without family.

Consequences & Compassion

Jesse and his friend are running from the cops after vandalizing Willie's tank, but Jesse gets caught; his retribution is that he has to go work at the amusement park clean up all the graffiti that he and his friend left behind. It's pretty good that you see a consequence from a bad decision being shown to children in this movie, because that's something I don't think children see very often in media today.

How Willy Changed Jesse's Heart

Willy doesn't trust anybody and over the first 30 minutes you see that Willy starts developing trust with Jesse. That leads to a wonderful bond being formed between the two of them and you start seeing Willy changing Jesse's heart. Jesse becomes a little less angry and he starts coming out of his shell more and showing who he is. He even rejects his friends inviting him to move to California because he knows Willy needs him. He chooses to stay in order to be there for Willy, because Willy has no one else, and he knows what that feels like. It's really neat to see how an animal can bring out the best in a human being.

It's very similar to "The Black Stallion". Another wonderful family film that highlights the human animal bond. The Black and Alec are stranded on an island as strangers, but they leave as best friends.

It is worth noting that Jason James Richter mentioned in an interview that Warner Brothers didn't have a family film division, yet. This movie launched their entire family film division. It was Jason's first film and the first for the studio in this category of films.

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The Dream Team Behind the Film

What made this movie so memorable is the core team behind it. This movie was directed by Simon Wincer, the same guy who did Operation "Dumbo Drop". Richard Donner was an executive producer on this film. You know, the director of "Superman". Another great family film.

Music That Made History

Additionally, the music. What movie is memorable without the music? We have Basil Poledouris, composed the beautiful score in this movie that just pulls you in. So touching and honestly, when I watch this movie, I cry. He was the composer behind "White Fang", and the 1990 movie "Lassie", which I will talk about later on this year. The best part is the way he composed the piece for the opening of the movie with Willy and all the other whales breaching and just living life in the ocean. Michael Jackson wrote and recorded the song, "Will You Be There" specifically for this film? He did a phenomenal job with this song. There's no other song like this. You can't replicate this stuff.

Hans Zimmer & the Power of Score

Nothing shows this more than the Hans Zimmer concert experience I got to attend last year with my daughter and my husband. An arena, packed of people that are there to hear the music of Hans Zimmer, who is a staple in the movie industry. Hans Zimmer composed score for movies like: "The Rock" and "Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron." You just see the joy on people's faces that this music evokes in their heart, and that's what great music does. It just elevates films in a way that just can't be replicated. And I tell you this because, when we walked into the arena, we were sitting in the second row of the floor, seeing all the instruments on the stage, the strings, the bass, the percussion. When the show starts, the lights dim and the screen pops with Hans Zimmer's name on it. Everyone cheers and claps and everyone's got their cell phones recording and I will tell you, when you watch these kinds of clips on YouTube, it doesn't even come close to what it's like sitting there feeling the music throughout your body. And I share this because these kinds of experiences shows you how certain movies become a timeless classic just like "Free Willy".

"Free Willy"'s Streaming Legacy

Steven Baldwin said on the PBD Podcast last year, that the era of storytellers who prioritized art is gone. Streaming just ruined everything. It's just filler that doesn't get a Basil Poledouris score. So much content nowadays won't even be remembered in 20, 30 years like "Free Willy" is remembered.

Matt Walsh at The Daily Wire, recently talked about streaming fatigue. Where there's just so much content out there, it's so overwhelming, which is why I do this show. The main point that Matt Walsh was making is the lost art of filmmaking, which I said in my bonus episode called "Inside the Fall of Wholesome TV Shows and What You Lost." I go into great depth about this topic.

Another thing that's been lost is the community. Families could go and experience this movie together on the big screen and then took away so much from it. This is a movie that created community. We've lost that and that's something I so wish we could get back, don't you? You'll see why movies like "Free Willy" have such a lasting impact on adults like me that remember as kids watching this movie and being a part of something bigger than ourselves.

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Keiko Was Never Free

Here's the irony with "Free Willy". The whale who played Willy, Keiko, was not free. Not even close. It's pretty interesting how the fictional story about liberating Willy from the small tank in Mexico was actually real. You can see in the film that he had a skin rash. He had a flopped over dorsal fin. The tank was too small for him. That's what's believed is what made his dorsal fin flopped over and it's even talked about in the movie. The movie filmed his real suffering and it touched the hearts of the crew and the cast that worked with Willy, and they felt so bad for leaving him.

The Number That Launched a Movement

Fast forward to the original ending of the film, the streaming version does not show, is that there was a little message that popped up on the screen at the end of the film that said, "To help protect whales, call 1-800-4-WHALES." Out of curiosity, I called that number to see if it was still active, and it is! It's still a live number and actively being monitored. The movie is one thing, but what happened next is something else entirely. That phone number is what launched one of the largest movements ever in film history.

Kids with Pens Changed the World

Kids like myself called that number 1-800-4-WHALES and began writing letters. And drawing pictures, saving allowances, and sent them to the movie studio. Warner Brothers received bags and bags of mail that took so long to go through, and the executive producer, Lauren Schuler Donner spoke about it in many interviews and she described it as being so overwhelming and the studio had no idea this was going to happen.

This was active participation. Children like myself, choosing to sit down, pick up a pen, write our thoughts, address an envelope, seal the envelope, and it's nothing like tapping a like button. I think liking and sharing videos on Instagram by tapping and all that stuff isn't the same thing as what happened in this movement. And kids understood it was something worth doing. It was something they believed in and they wanted to free Willy. The deeper lesson here is that we can actually teach kids that they can change things by showing them this example of a story of when it mattered most.

Moving Keiko Across 3 Countries

Now, the logistics of moving Keiko across three countries was no small feat. Warner Brothers actually donated money to the cause. There were other donors and then of course, what children sent in, and it actually ended up adding into the millions to help Keiko. There was nothing, anything like it before.

When moving day finally came they decided to move him around three to 4:00 AM in order to avoid crowds. Yeah, that didn't work. Word got around and the streets of Mexico were flooded with people of all ages lining the streets to say goodbye to Keiko.

UPS actually donated a cargo plane to fly Keiko from Mexico to his temporary new home in Oregon. The same thing that happened in Mexico happened in Oregon. You had a ton of people flooding the streets and lined up along to welcome Keiko. This new home was state of the art. It was built specifically for Keiko.

Oregon: A New Beginning

Additionally, he wasn't fed the best diet in Mexico. When he moved to Oregon, he had state-of-the-art, everything. He had an improved diet of the best fish that they could buy. He had salt water, which over time you can see that the rash really improved that was under his fins went away.

I don't know how many thousands of gallons it was, but it was so big that Willy finally had room to deep dive and a month or so after being moved, I mean, it was pretty fast. He started breaching and started doing all kinds of behaviors that the amusement park never saw him do.

Keiko Finds His Voice

Another important behavior that he began that he never did in Mexico was he started vocalizing. He was vocalizing trying to find his family. Then a scientist came along and was studying and recording his vocalizations to try to find his pod. In hopes of reuniting him with his family.

Do We Have the Right?

The free Keiko movement was completely powered by children. There has never been another movement in 30 years of film history that created such a lasting impact. Eventually, Keiko was released into the open ocean near his home in Iceland in 2002 and he died of pneumonia in 2003.

The real story is he did live free towards his latter years, and he got to swim with wild Orca pods. It begs you to ask the question, do we have the right to keep these animals at all? SeaWorld Aquariums, adventure parks, Keiko's story didn't answer that question, but it made it impossible to ignore it.

Streaming Killed the Craft

Streaming has replaced the artistic craft of quality, family friendly films. We may never see Keiko again, not because the cause isn't there, but because the storytelling isn't. We will never experience storytelling like this ever again. Unless something changes.

In the end, Keiko wasn't really freed until children everywhere started the movement that ultimately led to his freedom. If you're curious, call 1-800-4-WHALES to learn more about the organization and watch the documentary "Keiko: the Journey Home Special" with your kids after watching "Free Willy". It's about an hour long, but it's worth every minute, and you'll never watch "Free Willy" again the same way after knowing the history of Keiko. I'll leave a link in the show notes.

Keiko's Legacy & What to Watch Next

This is just a wonderful, heartwarming film that you will absolutely love watching with your children. This movie works for all ages. The only thing is if you're particular about scenes that show vandalism or smoking. There's a little bit of that mischievous things going on in the beginning of the movie. I still love watching this movie by myself, so that tells you something.

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Next week, a different kind of courage. One man against the agricultural industry. When one deadly mistake made in the feed industry led to a disaster that is still affecting generations today.

Thanks for listening. Remember your values matter and your TV should too. I'll catch you next week. Take care.