Star Wars

Last fall, we got a Lego Encyclopedia of Star Wars characters in the store. It immediately became Gabe's favorite book. Prior to that, every time he came to the store, he had to look at the Harry Potter Lego book, but that was quickly forgotten when the Star Wars book arrived. For two months or so, he looked over that book for several hours--combined, of course.

Then, just before Christmas, he bought it. With his own money.

Last summer, we decided to start giving Gabe a little bit of money--mostly loose change we had lying around--every time he did his "morning chores." These chores consisted of emptying the office and bathroom trash into the big can in the kitchen and feeding and watering the cats. Simple things, but we figured they started him down the road of earning his own money, saving his own money, and respecting how much work and effort it takes to buy the things he wants. Plus, empty waste bins and fed cats. Win-win.

Over several months, where we only let him occasionally pull out a quarter to use in gumball machines, he managed to accumulate about $50 of his own money. Throughout that saving period, we kept talking up the purchase of some big Lego set or other. But, then as Christmas approached, we shifted that to talk of him buying presents to give to people. And a couple days before Christmas we went to the bookstore and he picked out gifts to give to his uncle James, uncle Pete, Libby, and Norah. He picked out nice, thoughtful gifts (especially for Libby--a little stuffed cat holding a heart because, as he said, "I love her so much"), but REALLY wanted to buy that Star Wars book, too. Technically, he used up all of his money on the presents, so I bought the book for him, but that's not really important.

To up the anticipation, I made him wrap the Star Wars book and put it under our tree, to open on Christmas Day with the rest of his presents. And, like the trooper he is, he did just that. Several times he pulled the book out (he wrapped it himself, sort of, so he knew which present it was) and held it and asked if he could open it early, but he always accepted the reality of it when I told him he had to wait. As I said, trooper.

Since Christmas, this book has proven to be the best money that has ever been spent on him. He has carried the book everywhere. He takes it to bed with him at night and at naptime. At night, he has a little flashlight in bed--which he "hides" under the covers in a special place so he knows where to find it--so he can sit and look at the book, page by page, sometimes for hours. HOURS. Gabe. The kid who still can't really sit still for a show that lasts more than thirty minutes. HOURS. We can hear him on the monitor (which we still have hooked up to their room, mostly because it's awfully cute listening to them as they talk in bed for the first half hour or so before they go to sleep, but still a little bit because sometimes Norah falls out of bed or needs help with one thing or another), quietly flipping pages.

And it truly is remarkable how well he remembers some of the things that he's learned about those characters. During one of our Christmas stops, Pete and Jason (Libby's cousin), sat down with Gabe and his book and talked him through many of the characters. Since he found that book last fall, I have categorically ignored all of the characters from the prequels and the Clone Wars stuff that they've been running an animated series of for several years now. I've heard the Clone Wars stuff isn't that bad, but I still refuse to acknowledge it because Anakin is one of the main characters, and who wants to root for a character that you KNOW is going to turn into one of the most evil beings in the universe? Just seems stupid to me. To this day, I can't understand why they've never built on the post-Return of the Jedi universe like they did the FAR less interesting prequel universe. But there you have it. I'm an old, bitter, purist Star Wars fan.

Nonetheless, Gabe can recognize characters from the prequels and even knows that there are "good guy" stormtroopers. And I have to admit that I feel a LITTLE bad that he knows the prequels as "the bad movies." Because that is what I call them. All the time. I feel bad not because they are actually good movies. They are not. They are terrible. Absolutely, unabashedly terrible. The characters are awful, the story telling is preposterous (where it exists at all), and, again, you're supposed to somehow root for or care about this Anakin character that is not only unlikeable throughout but you know is going to turn evil. They are "the bad movies."

Want to know why they are bad, exactly? I recommend watching this. The reviews are long, and pretty weird (about half as long as the movies themselves, and at least twice as weird), but spot on. They will carefully explain why, exactly, people hate these movies so much. Time well spent for every Star Wars fan who can't quite put a finger on why the movies seemed so disappointing.

Anyway, I feel bad because I don't want to be the kind of parent who makes these kinds of decisions for his kids. I want them to develop their own opinions and have their own ideas. I don't want them to grow up to be newer versions of me. I mean, I'm great and all, but I've got enough problems dealing with one of me, I don't need more around the house.

On the other hand, the movies are BAD, and not only do I not want Gabe to lose the good Star Wars movies in the onslaught of new garbage that's out there, I don't want him to live under the impression that bad things, if shoved down your throat long and hard enough by George Lucas, can suddenly become acceptable and awesome simply because they exist. And I think he's too young to appreciate what a truly reprehensible character Jar Jar is and how he came to symbolize everything that went wrong with the series. How it went from simple storytelling to a machine designed specifically to market products to people, and how special effects came to replace honest storytelling. All he'll see are the awesome fight scenes and see how Jar Jar pratfalls his way through life and death situations like the least likeable Jerry Lewis character ever conceived, and he'll fall in love with something unworthy of his love. And that, I think, is a greater tragedy than me unfairly influencing his opinion, right?

Did I mention that he only refers to the prequels as "the bad movies" now? "But I want to see the bad movies!" he pleads on a nearly daily basis thanks, primarily to my own bad timing, but I'll get into that in a minute.

So, while Libby's family was here over Christmas, I had the notion that Gabe should watch his first Star Wars movie with Pete, who also has a warm place in his heart for the movies, and who is Gabe's godfather. I thought it would be a special little memory for both of them.

And it was. He still talks about it. And within the next week I let him watch Empire (which, again probably unfairly, I told him was the best of the movies) and then Jedi (which, definitely unfairly, Libby told him was the best of the movies--and which, after seeing it, Gabe agreed because he liked the "little bears" in it. Stupid little bears. I should have recognized early on the path that Lucas was choosing to take when he introduced a preposterously cute race of furry mini-wookies to destroy the entire Empire for the sake of selling more toys). He loved all the movies and watched each several times.

And then I found out that Phantom Menace was being re-released in 3D, but I didn't find it out until AFTER Gabe had seen the commercials for it a couple times. And then the merchandising blitz started and Gabe was bombarded with commercials for dozens of Episode 1 toys (that's the sucky thing about him moving away from the pre-K shows to "big kid" shows. There's no getting away from commercials anymore). And now they are playing the commercial for the 3d version every ten minutes on every channel Gabe might watch. Thankfully, the re-release is today, so maybe the commercials will go away (and I can only hope that it's a miserable flop this time around and Lucas is taught a valuable lesson--but I doubt that will happen).

And because he sees the commercials most days, I get the question as to whether or not he can watch "the bad movies." I know we'll have to cave in eventually, and maybe I'll even let him see Phantom Menace before too long, but I kind of think the second and third movies are a little too dark, depressing and grown up for him still. And stupid. Painfully, painfully stupid.

So that's where we are right now in our personal little Star Wars legacy.