Thursday Movie Picks: Adopted/Foster Families

Happy Thursday, everyone! And a happy Autumn to you too, or Fall. Yesterday marked the 2015 Autumnal Equinox, and so now is the time I can officially put cinnamon in everything I eat and drink. I have a nice supply of autumnal fragranced Yankee Candle Tarts ready to burn until it’s socially acceptable for me to feel Christmassy.

Anyway, Thursday Movie Picks is a fantastic series hosted by Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves, where each week she picks a theme and we all choose 3 movies that we feel fit. This week we’re looking at Adopted/Foster Families, and it’s a weird one for me, as all 3 of my choices are animated, family movies. I’m not sure if that means a lot of family movies contain adopted/foster families, or that I just watch far too many animated movies. Hey ho, here we go!

Perhaps not the most functional adopted family in the world, Despicable Me (2010) features Gru, a super-villain decides to adopt the 3 orphaned girls who tried to sell cookies to use them as part of his master plan to steal a shrink ray from his nemesis. Gru tries to abandon the girls at an amusement park, but is forced to ride the rollercoaster with them, and slowly, he grows to love these girls as his own. It all ends happily ever after for their little family with a ballet dance recital the girls perform for Gru, his Mother and all the Minions. 

My favourite ever Disney movie, Lilo & Stitch (2002) has a slightly unconventional adopted family. I mean ohana. Lilo lives with her sister who struggles to look after them both after their parents died. Lilo’s sister lets her adopt a dog from the local shelter and of course, Lilo picks the weirdest looking one out of them all, Stitch, who just happens to be an extraterrestrial experiment gone wrong. Stitch’s behaviour almost winds Lilo up in care, but he eventually learns the meaning of ohana, which means family, and family means that no one gets left behind, or forgotten.

Perhaps it’s odd to choose the sequel, but  thought Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) has some really endearing moments in regards to Po the panda and his adoptive father Mr Ping, a goose. In the sequel, Po struggles with his past as memories come to the surface about his mother. After learning that she died protecting him from Lord Shen of the peacock clan, and eventually defeating Lord Shen himself, he returns home to Mr Ping and declares him to be his father.