How to Introduce Your Child to Star Wars
If you live in cap pop culture, your child will be introduced to Star Wars. George Lucas’ space opera has so thoroughly and effectively infiltrated the entertainment industry that indoctrination of Star Wars is as inevitable as exposure to cold germs in kindergarten. You can let fate, cultural osmosis, and Disney marketing managers control when and how your child learns about Luke and Leia, or you can guide them as a Jedi guides the Padawan by making sure that Star Wars kids are something magical that you can share.
Start with toys
Toys and other merchandise will almost certainly be your child’s first exposure to the Star Wars universe. Branded clothing, bed sheets, picture books, video games and more are all over the place, and if you love movies, you can upload them to your home as well. The newborn in the ‘Storm Pooper’ romper is adorable, and the kids love the iconic, friendly faces of characters like Chewbacca and C3PO.
Just be aware of the risk of choking and age restrictions. For safety reasons, it’s probably best to stick with officially licensed Star Wars toys. You don’t want your newborn to suck on a lead plated Goba Fett from an unlicensed factory.
Video games are great too. My child’s introduction to Star Wars came from the LEGO: Star Wars games. Dex and I worked together to get through these fun and well-designed games, and it’s a great memory of the summer between kindergarten and first grade.
Take or leave cartoons
When it comes to narrative Star Wars , many parents start with two canon animated series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels . Both are high-quality entertainment that children like, but I’m generally indifferent to cartoons. They have their moments, but they are not as special as the films. (To avoid humiliating the creators of these shows, maintaining the quality and impact of Empire Strikes Back across six seasons of the cartoon is probably impossible.)
In our house, we park our child in front of cartoons when we need a few minutes to pay bills or take a shower, but Star Wars is what we do together, whether it’s playing with figures in the sandbox, our co-op LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game start, or watching movies. Your mileage may vary.
What is the right age?
While toys and games have their place, films are pure, uncut Star Wars. But how do you know your Padawan is old enough to perform this sweet, sweet space opera? Like much of parenting, it depends on the child.
All Star Wars films are aimed at children, so in terms of brutality and understandability, they are rated PG with rushes up to PG-13, but the appropriateness of any film really depends on your perceptions of acceptable entertainment and sensibility. and your child’s personality. My son was more psychologically damaged – spoiler alert – with a balloon in Red Balloon than anything in any of the Star Wars movies. (Sorry four year old Dexter!)
Still, eight is a good base age for Star Wars . He’s old enough to follow the basics of the stories and not be too traumatized by semi-gruesome moments like the discovery of Vader’s crippled face or the smoking skeletons of Aunt Baru and Uncle Owen Luke. But you should probably preview each movie with your child’s sensitivity in mind.
Most important viewing order
Since they weren’t released in chronological order, which Star Wars movie to watch is a topic of deep controversy among science fiction fans. George Lucas proposes a direct chronological order. The leading Internet theory, the Order of the Machete by Rod Hilton, claims that the best clock order in Star Wars is IV, V, II, III, VI. Some say they should be watched in production order. However, in my opinion, none of these options are suitable for children.
After careful consideration and re-viewing of all nine films, I have come to the conclusion that the optimal viewing order for children is IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, I, II, III, Rogue One (followed by The Star Wars Festive Special , but only if your kid is a budding hipster ironic.)
This order prioritizes Star Wars’ most shameless films and follows them with new films that respect tradition. Films of the 1990s faded into the background. They’re a little tedious to get through, and Rogue One is surprisingly cruel, harsh, and dark. Save these notes for kids who simply miss Star Wars or are wondering why the Death Star has such an obvious design flaw.
Create the optimal viewing experience
For adults and older children, a trip to the revival home is the best way to watch any Star Wars movie — those movies were meant for the big screen. But for smaller sizes, home viewing is the right choice. Young children just don’t have enough attention to watch a two-hour movie, and you don’t want to be the parent of a screaming child in the theater.
Fortunately, the 1930s TV series influenced the Star Wars films a lot, so they are episodic and you can easily split them into 20-minute after-dinner episodes. This gives you the opportunity to explain any confusing plot elements in the middle of the film, or explain how Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis influenced George Lucas’s visual choices.
Plus, watching at home means you might miss out on boring moments! Fast-forward dramatically improves some Star Wars movies. When I showed my child The Phantom Menace, I reduced it to a dense 90-minute chase movie, skipping the chapters on midichlorians and the rules of intergalactic commerce that make up much of Act II. He will thank me when he gets older.
Whatever you do, be sure to watch Star Wars movies together. Hearing your child’s laughter when Obi Wan tricks the stormtroopers, or seeing their amazement and relief when Han returns to help the Rebellion, is as magical as a portal to your own childhood when you felt the same rush.
Relax! These are just films
As a fanatical parent, I know what it’s like to share with your kids something that means a lot to you, but nothing distracts from the room more than parenting expectations. So remember, there is no right way to enjoy Star Wars .
Don’t worry if your kid is into Jar Jar Binks and thinks Han Solo sucks. Don’t worry if they don’t consider The Empire Strikes Back as the best movie in the original trilogy. Some kids don’t care about Star Wars at all (I’ve heard), and you have to accept the possibility. They’re great, but at the end of the day, they’re just movies, and you don’t want your child to tell the therapist, “It all started when my parents got mad at me for calling the villain in A New Hope.” “Darf Vader “. “