Somehow it seems like we’re not having fun unless the fun is all rapid-fire stimulation, leaving little to the imagination. High-speed film plots, mind engulfing video games; none of it leaves a lot to the imagination, and there’s little thrill of anticipation.

It was a Sunday afternoon and the air was chill outside when I came to this conclusion. It was a good afternoon, I thought, to watch a movie.

On our television I flipped through a series of movies until the boys identified the title of a film they believed they were familiar with. It was Jules Verne’s classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

This is the story of two scientists who discover a passage into the center of the earth. They set out to Iceland where they enter into the underworld for an adventure that was wild with imagination.

There are two versions I’m familiar with, one in 1959 starring James Mason and Pat Boone, and another in 2008 starring Brendan Fraser.

And here lies the problem. The film we had chosen was the 1959 version. The film the boys had hoped for was the 2008 version.

So what’s the big deal? They are both in color — black and white films are immediately suspect. And they both suggest a fantastical adventure.

The 2008 version was familiar to them so one, they were disappointed in the selection. But moreover, perhaps, the 1959 version began at a slow pace, building to the suspense filled expedition beneath the earth that was even a bit slow to rise to the level of their expectations throughout most of the film.

The older version was not an instant thrill ride, sending the viewer into a frenzied, high-speed adventure almost as quickly as the title credits began to roll. Nope, it was a story built upon anticipation and you had to wait for the exciting stuff to happen while the story unfolded.

“This is boring, Dad,” one boy said to me.

“Just watch and wait,” I said to him.

And to his credit he did. It took a while to capture his imagination, but once the journey beneath the earth began to unfold, so did his imagination.

I grew up on a steady diet of old Hollywood films. I’m not a film aficionado, per se, but I’ve seen more than my share of the old stuff.

I get the idea of visual storytelling. I even get the appeal of rapid-fire films and the strange adrenalin high that goes with passively watching these.

But good storytelling and the patience to appreciate it just seem hard to come by these days. It seems that kids just want to get the passive thrill and, well, us old geezers just want to bemoan the good old days.

And yet somewhere in the middle seemed to come the answer. It seems that with a little patience on my part, I may have made a convert or two.

Of course that doesn’t come without relegating an afternoon or two to adrenalin-filled escapes, either. You know, a little give and take.