Children and Star Wars

The Vader Project

2009-12-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

I just found out about The Vader Project. Here's a link to a set of flickr photos.

Hat tip to JFo.

More Star Wars in day care

2009-04-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

So last month, my son's day care actually did a unit on Star Wars. The children were clearly obsessed with it, and the child-led curriculum means that the children's obsessions should guide the teachers' choice of themes, so there you go.

I was surprised to hear of this decision, but I have so much faith in his teachers that I knew they would make a great unit out of it, and they did. They paid the most attention to the idea of Jedi life and training. The children did Jedi meditation. (I'm not sure exactly what that looked like, but anything that introduces the idea that sitting still and quietly is an activity unto itself, and not just something you do so that you can see/hear someone else doing something, is a great thing in my book.) They went through a "Jedi training camp" that the teachers set up on the playground--running from here to there, climbing over this and that, pushups, jumping jacks, and my favorite part: running with a backpack full of blocks, as Luke ran with Yoda on his back. They made "Wookiee cookies." They talked about doing kind and helpful and useful things, like Jedi.

It was pretty cool.

good guys and bad guys

2009-04-01T13:11:00.001-07:00

As we all know, good guys have blue light sabers and bad guys have red light sabers. Except for Mace Windu, who has a purple light saber, apparently for no other reason than that Samuel L. Jackson thought it would be cool. (Allegedly, Windu's saber handle says BMF on it, echoing the letters on the wallet of Jules, his character in Pulp Fiction.

So every time my son starts blathering about good guys and bad guys, I blather back about how in real life no one is all good or all bad. People just make good or bad choices. Am I the only parent who does this? Is it doing any good? Am I taking all the fun out of it? Am I just flapping my jaws to no effect at all, either way? I tend to think the last, but I retain a faint hope that my blathering will make it less likely that my son will grow up to not bloviate about "evildoers" or say things like, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

order of information

2009-01-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

My son is getting all this backwards. As I mentioned before, he already knows that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. Now, thanks to this great video he knows what wookiees sound like, and he knows the phrase "Someone move this walking carpet," but he still has not seen Episode IV and says he doesn't want to until he's ten. Years old. He is now four and a half. Sigh.

Added almost three months later: I don't think Leia actually ever says "Someone move this walking carpet." "Someone get this walking carpet out of my way!" is closer, I think.

Star Wars at the day care

2008-12-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

Star Wars is becoming a popular play theme and kid-conversation topic at son's day care. From what I've heard, it's mostly the boys (all four years old) who are engaging in this. They have seen various parts of various episodes, and been freaked out by various things, to wit:

Episode II: Senator Amidala's ship exploding, killing her decoy
Episode VI: Han Solo encased in carbonite

there's more but I'll have to add it later

yes, it's sad.

2008-10-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the radio was on and Son heard the phrase "Senator Obama." He turned to me and asked, "Is Senator O-ba-ma from Star Wars?" Until then, I guess, he hadn't heard the word "senator" except in 1 and 2.

When you think about it, "Obama" would be a perfectly good Star Wars name. Fits right in with Amidala, Windu, Kenobi, Yoda, Organa.

childREN!

2008-10-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

In another attempt to bring children other than my own son into this blog, I offer the article that Kate mentioned in comments: Confronting the Dark Lord

does anyone get killed?

2008-10-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

That's what Son asked me this morning when I offered to play episode 4 for him.

"Yes, some people get killed."

"Bad people?"

"Not just bad guys; some good people get killed, too. So I guess you don't want to watch it."

"No."

"OK, I'll take it back to the library then."

He wanted to see a picture of Obi-wan, and when I pointed out Alec Guinness's face on the cover, it didn't register right away. Then he wanted me to read all the chapter titles from the container insert. I got about halfway through before he couldn't hold the paper still any longer, which he had to do because I was putting on his socks and sneakers at the same time because we were going to be late.

already over

2008-09-28T15:33:00.001-07:00

I was all worried about Episode 3 (which I put my foot down he will *not* watch before he is nine), but he didn't even make it halfway through Episode 2.

Moving on to the earlier movies, Episodes 4-6, I'm more worried about the sad roles that women have than about scariness. Quick, name a female character in 4-6 who is not Princess Leia. Hmm, yeah. I can't think of any either. Uncle Owen's wife, who is killed with her husband in the first half hour. Don't some of the Ewoks (the ones taking care of the baby Ewoks, unless I'm mistaken) wear sort of female-signifying clothing?

I think the part of Episode 4 that made the biggest impression on me as a 5 1/2-year-old was the garbage compactor, although Luke & Leia swinging across that abyss on a fishing line was a close second. I was older when I realized that it was really Luke swinging across, and he just sort of took Leia with him. At the time it didn't occur to me why there was only one woman character, and she was young and beautiful. I don't remember if I was disappointed in how she held her blaster as though she were scared of it, how she gritted her teeth and cringed while pulling the trigger. You could chalk it up to inexperience, but as I recall she was a pretty good shot, and wasn't Luke just as inexperienced? I don't remember him cringing.

Here's one that didn't occur to me until a few days ago: Han Solo calls Luke a kid all the time, but he makes no comments about Leia's youth. Of course, she is more worldly and sophisticated and seems older, but I don't think that's why. More likely it's because she is, in the immortal words of Alfie Doolittle, "old enough to be interesting to you gentlemen," and once a woman has reached that age, a man like Han Solo doesn't ask himself how old she is exactly.

not what you expect

2008-09-23T17:50:00.001-07:00

So the parts I thought would scare him, didn't. Quai-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Jar-Jar almost eaten by a huge fish? No big deal. "They should have gotten their swords out!" But the mere sight of Watto or Sebulba*, even when they were doing nothing in particular, was scary.

Since this is meant to be about children and Star Wars, not just my son and Star Wars, I'll mention that my colleague reports that her daughter, who I think is about seven, is scared silly by Star Wars. Also that I don't remember being scared by any of Episode 4, ever, even though I was not yet six and easily scared by movies. That includes when Luke comes back home from...wherever he went and all that was left of his parent-substitutes were two smoking skeletons who had clearly been slaughtered while trying to run away.

*In Mayan mythology, Xibalba (with "x" pronounced like "sh") is the name of the underworld.

It's done

2008-09-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

I was five and a half when Episode 4 came out in 1977.
Episode 5--eight and a half.
Episode 6--eleven and a half.
I watched them on video a few times, after VCRs became common, and eventually understood why Han kept calling Luke a kid, and also why some people didn't like any of these movies that I enjoyed so much.
Some time in college, in the early 1990s, a friend informed me that the three existing movies were actually the middle three of nine. That George Lucas had started with the middle three because they required the least special effects, and that he would make the rest when the technology was available for him to realize his vision. We probably debated what order they should be watched in, by future generations who hadn't seen the first movies before the last ones were made.
I didn't think much more about it until probably fall of 1998, when my husband and I were waiting for some other movie to start and a huge green field appeared on the screen. Lumpy things rose over the top of the hill. They moved slowly over the top and down. They opened up and disgorged row upon endless row of what I now know are battle droids. I could hardly remain seated when I realized what was going on.
Some time between the releases of Episode 2 (2002) and Episode 3 (2005), my husband and I had a son. Now the question of what order the next generation should watch the movies in became more important. Still, I had time to think. [parental naivete]He wouldn't be ready for such scariness and violence until he was at least seven.[/parental naivete].

Well, now it has begun. Someone in my son's day care class has been humming John Williams's soul-stirring Imperial March, and it caught his fancy. Before I knew it, my baby (now four and a half), was playing a computer game that put him in the pilot's seat of an X-wing fighter. He already knew that Darth Vader used to be Anakin Skywalker. (Why did I think that any sentient, English-speaking person might be able to reach the age of seven without finding that out?) He was eager to watch the movies, and I would rather he see them before he gets the idea that it's all just about shooting at bad guys from a space ship. Yeah, I know I'm mostly kidding myself that it's about more than shooting bad guys from a space ship. But still. I figured that maybe he was ready, and I was sure tired of waiting. As luck would have it, we have dvds of Episodes 1 and 2, so tonight, a half hour before his bedtime, we let him watch the first 40 minutes of Episode 1.