The Force is With Them

Recently Justin’s friend, Christian, unexpectedly gave him a rather generous gift, his entire collection of Star Wars action figures, spaceships and other accessories. Justin was fascinated by them, but had no idea what they were. The Star Wars Trilogy was my most beloved story as a kid, so I unsuccessfully tried explaining it and was met with looks of complete confusion. One afternoon I decided to show them the first original movie “Episode IV: A New Hope”. Knowing they were a bit young for it, I strategically used the fast forward button to avoid a couple of the more stressful scenes, but was unprepared to answer an unending barrage of questions. Kids: Are they speaking Spanish?
Daddy: No, I don’t know what that is, maybe it’s Bocce (smirk).
Kids: Why are they running from the bad guys?
Daddy: They don’t want to get shot.
Kids: Why?
Daddy: They would die.
Kids: Why are the bad guys shooting at them?
Daddy: They are trying to steal back the plans from the "Death Star" so they don’t blow it up.
Kids: Why?
Daddy: They don’t want to die.
Kids: Why are they shooting bad guys?
Daddy: So they don’t get shot by the bad guys.
Kids: Why?
Daddy: They don’t want to die.
Kids: Why would they blow up the space station?
Daddy: Are you sure you don’t want to watch Dora the Explorer?

We've now viewed all of the original Trilogy and understandably, there was some major confusion over relationships in the story as different elements were revealed. Neither kid could believe Luke lived with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Veru (even the names elicited giggles). Norah: Where are his parents?
Daddy: They’re dead, well, sort of. Norah: Is Leia his girlfriend?
Daddy: No, that’s his sister, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Vader: "I am your father!"
Justin: "DARF VADER IS HIS FAWDER! NO WAY!"
Norah: BUT HE’S DA BAD GUY! HE CAN'T BE A DADDY! Daddy: Well he used to be a good guy, but he went by a different name after he became bad, and Obi Wan told Luke he was dead, but he really wasn’t and Leia doesn’t know yet and……. Are you sure you don’t want to watch Go Diego Go?

Norah watched with some interest, but was mostly concerned about the Princess’s wardrobe changes. Justin was mesmerized. He was quick to express a strong dislike for the primary villain Darth Vader, whose name he pronounces “Dar-fader.” Ironically both kids were mostly indifferent to the primary protagonist Luke, and we shared the opinion that he was much too whiny. Both kids immediately fell in love with the droids R2D2 and C3PO (aka: “the Golden robot”)

The scene that steals their imagination is when the protagonists escape the Imperial forces by jumping into a trash compactor, whereupon Luke is temporarily captured by what they refer to as “the Trash Monster.” The trash monster is only shown in glimpses that combine for about 5 seconds of screen time; only showing an eye and couple tentacles, but he is their undisputed favorite. Their interest in the movie as a whole pales comparatively to their interest in the “Trash Monster.” Amazingly in all 3 movies they keyed on the most briefly shown characters as their favorites lovingly referred to as : the trash monster, the snow monster, the swamp monster, and the sand monster. All combine for approximately 30 seconds of screen time over 6 hours of story, which must say something about the appeal of scarcity or a fascination with the unknown.

Norah is a "Princess Leia" girl all the way. Despite Justin’s decided dislike of Darth Vader and Boba Fett, they remain the primary characters he assumes in role playing, although he is always Luke when he uses his green light saber. I tried to tell him he was holding it upside down and that he needed to hold it by the handle or it would burn his hands. He dropped it like it was hot and turned both his palms upward to inspect them. For once I'm the one saying "It's just pretend!" On that note, last Christmas Grandma gave all the kids light sabers. Norah and Justin's were confiscated within about 90 seconds because they kept trying to behead each other with them, and we weren’t paid up on our insurance deductible yet. Now that they are older, the deductible has been met, and their interest in Star Wars is extremely high, I’ve presented them again with echoes of the appropriate Obi Wan Kenobi line, “You’re father wanted you to have this, when you were old enough.” They still smilingly try to beat the bejeebers out of each other every now and then, but both have sufficient hand-eye coordination to block each other's strikes so far.