One Saturday afternoon just recently, I sat down with Will and we watched Star Wars together for the first time. No doubt it’s a bit grown up for him right now (in story, not in “content”), but he enjoyed it anyway, and took it in in his own way.
I mean, what’s not to like, even when you’re six? Spaceships, aliens, monsters, light sabres, good vs evil and all that — he enjoyed it immensely, even if he didn’t pay attention to the finer points of the story right now. No problem with that.
What’s interesting is the way he compared it to other things he already knows well. He immediately saw Emperor Zurg from Toy Story 2 in Darth Vader, and got that reference in the reverse to how most of us originally saw it. And he really enjoyed the robots and the aliens and the monsters — three things he has really been enjoying recently.
But it’s just a real buzz to watch your son enjoy something you’ve enjoyed since you were a kid. While I think aspects of Star Wars might be dated, Lucas keeps obliging by updating the visual effects every few years, and the core of the story itself is quite timeless, in as much as good vs evil stories always are.
So that was a first I’d always been waiting for. And I’m sure we’ll watch it again and again, because as he gets older, Will will no doubt get more out of Star Wars than he has now. And it’s all good 🙂