Last
month we decided he was finally capable of handling the movies – he knew every plot
point of them already – and thus we all settled onto the couch for a family
trip through the Lucasverse. The films didn’t disappoint, but they did inspire
a lot of questions and commentary
from the boy. I’ve trimmed down his more or less nonstop verbal barrage to a
few pertinent points that I think capture the Star Wars experience through my son’s 4-year-old eyes.
"When will Governor Tarkin
be in this?"
Having
read up on the Star Wars universe
extensively, the boy was excited to finally meet all the classic characters
he'd grown to love from a distance – Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, R2D2, and every
kid’s favorite, Grand Moff Tarkin. I don't know why Peter Cushing's evil
bureaucrat made such a pre-screening impression, but the boy spent much of the
film's first 20 minutes wondering about his whereabouts. But hey, if he digs
Peter Cushing, he and I have a whole lot of low-grade monster movies ahead of
us.
"It's weird that Jabba the
Hutt is in this."
Jabba
the Hutt was, oddly enough, the boy's gateway to Star Wars. His preschool
library contains a Clone Wars tie-in book called Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt. Minus the context of Jabba's
villainy, the boy deemed him "cute and cuddly." By the time we
watched Star Wars, he knew enough of
the series' continuity to understand that Jabba was not supposed to make an
appearance until Return of the Jedi.
Of course, George Lucas changed all that when he slapped a digitized Jabba on
top of the actor who played the cruel crime boss and inserted a long-deleted
scene back into the 1997 special edition. It's a wholly extraneous scene that functions
mainly as fan service – it’s patently obvious that Harrison Ford is meant to be
talking to a human being. I was happy that its incongruity stood out even to a
first-time, pre-adolescent viewer.
"Is that a Light-Sider or a
Dark-Sider?"
The
Force splits the universe into a pretty clear-cut dichotomy of good and evil.
That seems to be a comforting concept for a four-year-old just starting to
appreciate that life traffics mostly in scary shades of grey. Hence, he
required near-constant confirmation of every minor character's allegiance.
"Biggs will be OK, because
he will become Lando."
A while
back at an antique shop we picked up a Star
Wars picture novelization that included a story thread that got deleted
from the movie, in which Luke has a philosophical conversation with his
childhood friend Biggs, who is leaving Tatooine to join the Rebellion. Biggs
eventually dies while flanking Luke in the attack on the Death Star, but the
boy was unconcerned by his passing. See, in his first appearance in the book,
Biggs wears a cape and has a dark moustache. When we meet Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back, he also wears a
cape and has a dark moustache. That's enough of a resemblance for the boy to
chalk it up to what I assume is some manner of Force-related reincarnation. I
choose to think that's a refreshingly colorblind point of view.
"What did Yoda say?"
The boy
came into the series with a pre-abiding love for all of the iconic Star Wars characters, but one of the
biggies didn't live up to his expectations. My son is not a Yoda fan, largely
because he usually has no idea what the heck the diminutive Jedi Master is
saying. Turns out "guttural Grover with inverted syntax" is not a
universal language, at least not for 4-year-olds.
"Yes! That will teach
you!"
This was
the boy's exuberant response as Boba Fett went flailing to his ignoble demise
in the Sarlac pit. He did not take
kindly to Mr. Fett facilitating Han Solo being frozen in carbonite. I was
actually a little unnerved by how upset he got with the Dark Side, sometimes
openly rooting for their deaths. The kid just hates evil, I reckon.
"That Ewok is having
fun!"
Y'know,
grown-up nerds can bag on the Ewoks all they like, but so long as kids' eyes
light up at the sight of a furry little warrior whooping his way through the
forest while barely clinging to a hijacked speeder bike, they're OK in my book.
While I'm at it, the conventional wisdom that Return of the Jedi is a lackluster final chapter to the series is
hogwash. That movie is fantastic.
"Why do so many people get
their hands cut off?"
Obviously
I was aware of the parallels between Luke and Anakin Skywalker each losing a
hand, but until I watched all of these movies in a compressed time frame I
never noticed just how many hands get chopped off over the run of the series.
Luke, Anakin, Count Dooku, the Hoth Wampa, General Grievous, that dude in the
cantina – it has to be an average of at least two hands per movie. George
Lucas's severed-hand fetish is even more pronounced – and more unsettling –
than Quentin Tarantino's foot thing.
"Jar-Jar Binks is always so
silly."
This is
one point of divergence for us. The boy had generally positive reactions to
Jar-Jar Binks, adolescent Anakin Skywalker and The Phantom Menace as a whole. I suspected going in that I –along
with most of the movie-going public – might have been too harsh on Episode I
when it came out, but I quickly learned that if anything, I'd been too easy on
it. That movie is garbage and there is no good thing about it. Still, the Star Wars marketing folks have done a
good job of cementing it in the canon. For younger viewers, characters like
Qui-Gon Jinn and Jar-Jar Binks are every bit as much a part of the saga as are,
say, Lando Calrissian and Boba Fett.
"Anakin has really nice
hair!"
That's
the nicest thing anyone has ever said about Hayden Christiansen's performance.
OK,
that's the easy joke, but I'll admit I was actually rather impressed with
Christiansen's Anakin Skywalker on this viewing. Sure, he's over the top a lot
of the time, but no more so than the role demands. On the whole, it's a nicely
old-fashioned performance filled with the kind of outsized intensity and emoting
that would be right at home in the serialized space operas that inspired Star Wars in the first place. I'd chalk
up Christiansen's truly egregious moments – and there are a number of them –
mainly to George Lucas's writing and directing.
"I wonder what Obi-Wan is up
to."
This was
probably my favorite comment of the series, delivered in the middle of yet
another interminable exchange of purple passion between Anakin and Padme. I
really liked Attack of the Clones and
Revenge of the Sith this time around,
the former especially, but the general contempt for George Lucas's attempts at
romantic dialogue is well deserved. The boy was right – no matter what Obi-Wan
was engaged with at that moment, it had to be more interesting than that.
“Oh no.”
A quiet,
pained whimper at the moment when Anakin officially switches allegiance from
the Jedi to the Dark Side. A cool thing about watching movies with a kid is
bearing witness to pure, visceral reactions that we old folks have been trained
to suppress. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking to see a melodramatic movie
moment warm and/or break someone’s heart.
"I'm happy that Darth Vader
turned good again because he didn't want to fight his son."
On
second thought, this was probably my favorite comment of the series. The boy is
young enough to get excited about stories where good wins out in the end, and
the added sheen of a restored parent-son relationship seemed to make him
particularly happy. Granted, that puts a lot of pressure on me not to become a
universally recognized embodiment of evil, but I knew going in that parenthood
would involve some sacrifices.
