Watching Star Wars With Nicolas

• 11 Mar 2014
• Posted by Christy
•   Uncategorized

The force has been strong with young Nicolas Lemire for a while now.

He’s not quite 4 1/2 years old, but he’s mastered “Angry Birds Star Wars,” understanding and manipulating the game in ways neither of his parents ever could. Now, we try to limit his screen time — we really do — but if we’re on a long flight, as we were recently when we took Nic to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, the iPad definitely helps keep him content. And one of his favorite bedtime books is Jeffrey Brown’s “Darth Vader and Son,” which imagines what life would have been like if Darth Vader actually had to raise Luke Skywalker from the time he was a little boy. (It’s very cute.)

Nicolas knew all the characters already — knew their names and what they looked like, knew who was a good guy and who was a bad guy — so we thought, why not? Let’s show him the actual “Star Wars” so he knows what it’s all about. He’s old enough. He’s watched enough movies by now. If it gets scary, we can always fast-forward or turn it off entirely.

Chris went out and bought the whole collection of six films, and last night we began at the natural starting point: the original “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.” When I mentioned this on Twitter, some folks wondered whether I’d begin in chronological order with Episode I. I felt like he should experience the movies in the same order we did when we were kids. There’s plenty of time for the terrible prequels.

We popped it into the DVD player and Nic was transfixed from the very beginning. And I have to admit, even though I’ve seen “Star Wars” a million times, the first blasts of that John Williams fanfare and the crawl into the horizon always give me chills. But I realized it’d been a while — decades, maybe — since I’d sat down and watched the whole movie at one time.

Being an inquisitive lad, Nic naturally had lots of questions, such as:

_ “Where’s Darth Maul?” He doesn’t come in for a few more movies, I told him.

_ “Why are they not birds?” This cracked me up. It’s not a game, I explained, but rather the movie that inspired the game.

_ “Where’s the slingshot?” See above.

_ “When is Darth Vader going to start talking?” Very soon, I promise. And he has a lot to say.

_ “Look, Mommy, the Death Star!” Yay!

_ “Mommy, I’m not scared!” Yay again!

He did get a little bit scared when the Sand People show up and zap Luke — he wanted to know why they “made him dead.” I said he’s not dead, he just got knocked out for a bit. But for the most part, Nic was totally into it. And as he was drifting off to sleep last night, he kept talking and talking about his favorite parts.

“Mommy, why do Luke and his friends destroy the Death Star, but the Death Star can destroy other planets?”

“Mommy, when the Stormtroopers chase Han Solo and Luke and Leia down the hall into the trash, the walls come in on them closer and closer and then they stop them with their foot!”

“I liked when they were in space!” he said, and then he started singing the theme song.

All the cliches are true, you know. Reliving what you loved growing up through the eyes of your own child is a powerful source of nostalgia and even pride. Seeing how excited he got just from hearing the opening music alone made “Star Wars” exciting for us all over again. Not the most novel observation on my part, I realize, but it’s one that I assume is universally relatable.

The first thing Nic said when he woke up this morning: He wants to watch the next one. “Who’s in it?” he asked. So I told him: Lando Calrissian, and Han Solo and Chewbacca, and Luke and Leia, and C-3PO and R2-D2. “And Yoda?” Yes, Yoda’s a very important part of the second film.

But then as I was writing this, Nic asked me: “Can I be `Star Wars’ for Halloween? I want to be Darth Vader!” So we’ll see which side of the force he lands on after all.