I am really glad that the Man Cub likes the Star Wars movies. In fact, I am thrilled. It really gives me an excuse to watch them over again too. I wasn’t sure he would like them, but one night for family movie night I told him we were going to watch a movie that I saw when I was his age. He was kind of like “o-kayyyy”. Now, that was a bit of a lie. I did see Star Wars: A New Hope when I was younger than him and my Dad (who will be referred to henceforth as Papa Bear) took me to see The Empire Strikes Back when it was released in 1980. I was young, but still remember seeing people dressed and Darth Vader. A couple of my uncles were there too and I remember them laughing about it. But I digress.
Fast forward about 30 years and I tell my Man Cub we are going to watch Star Wars. “What’s that?” is his reply. OMG I can’t believe you are 7.5 years old and haven’t seen it yet. But now that George Lucas has messed with our universe and created the prequels, where should I start? With the “Holy Trilogy”, where it all began, with the Vaseline on the camera lens to hide the “Special” effects? Or do I start from the new digital world where Yoda actually kicks some butt and Samuel L. Jackson has a purple Light Saber like the future version of Shaft?
I decided to start at the beginning, The Phantom Menace, just so that I can avoid having to explain a lot, like “Where did Darth Vader come from” or “How does he move the X-Wing?” and “What’s an X-Wing?” As much as I was disappointed in the prequels, they do a good job of explaining some stuff, especially for the kids. So we started at the beginning, with Young Anakin, Obi Wan Kenobi, Qui Gon Jinn, Jar Jar Binks, and that girl from The Professional (yeah I know, her name is Natalie Portman) as Queen Amidala, the leader of the Naboo, future love interest of 6 year old Anakin and eventual mother to the savior of the galaxy, and his sister. Man Cub really got into the movie. More than I expected, in fact the next day we decided to watch Episode II, The Clone Wars. Then we watched the next one, and the next one, and had a Star Wars Marathon and eventually watched them all.
It was a blast, even the daughter ‘Songbird’ watched a lot of it with us. I think it was the buckets of popcorn that kept her attention. By the end of I did answer a lot of questions, but it was really a lot of fun sharing my limited knowledge of the force with the Man Cub. Since that day he has been an almost Star Wars fanatic freak. He got a Light Saber from Santa, has watched the movie so much I think he knows them by heart. He is more into Star Wars than I ever was.
I said all that to say this.
An old Jedi friend of mine Billy, who was the youth pastor at our church, handed down a Darth Vader piggy bank when I bought his house. I thought it was pretty cool. When you press a button it plays the Imperial March and says “Impressive,….. most impressive…..but you are not a Jedi yet!!” with all the breathing sounds. Since the Man Cub is so into Star Wars now I passed it to him. He hits the button just about every time he goes into his room. Last night he walked into his room and hit the button and I could hear him singing along with the Imperial March, “Bum bum bum, bum ba-bum bum ba-buuuum” I had to laugh out loud. And it inspired me to write this post. So remember, as passé as something may seem to us, they are most often new and exciting to our kids, and give us a chance to re-live our younger days and maybe connect with our kids a little more. so…
May the Force be with you.
