The Saga Begins

This week I started a new babysitting jobs for one of the families that I teach at tae kwon do. The whole family, mother, father and two kids all take classes at the school, and I've worked with the kids since they started. A little while back they informed me that they would be needing a babysitter for the mornings to get the two kids up and ready and drive them to school in the mornings. I'm only there for 7am to 9am when I drop the two kids off at their school which is fortunately quite close to their home.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to share my excitement about one of this week's occurrences. The kids are 10 and 6, and neither have seen Star Wars. The older one, the boy, showed me his Star Wars pop up book and then said that he'd never seen any of the movies. Needless to say, I smelled a mission. The little girl didn't show his interest (what a surprise, she prefers, like most 6 year old girls, to play with her barbies) but that's ok. For babysitting purposes, I can sit and watch iCarly and play barbies if necessary.

I told him to ask his parents if it was ok for me to lend him my Star Wars dvds so he could watch them. The next day he said they thought it was alright, so I brought over my dvds this morning, and gave them a disclaimer about the two scenes in Revenge of the Sith that I thought they should be aware of. Now, anyone who has seen the movie knows which two scenes I'm taking about. Specifically, Anakin cutting off Dooku's head, and Obi-Wan leaving Anakin to burn on Mustafar after cutting off his legs and an arm. I personally would not let a 10 year old watch that movie, I'd let him wait another year or two, but his parents approved it so I guess they think he'll be ok.

I also made a decision that I know George Lucas would sorely disapprove of. I told the little boy to watch them starting from A New Hope and then move on to the prequels after having completed the original trilogy. I don't care if The Phantom Menace is meant to be a fun kid's movie, I still firmly believe they should be watched in that order, and if (a big if) I ever have my own kids that is how the saga will be presented to them.

I'm looking forward to hearing what the little boy thinks about the movies probably more than is necessary, but mostly it's because I can't wait to see and hear what he has to say about the whole thing. When we were going through his pop up book he kept asking me questions like which animals were in which movies and which scenes from the book were in which movies and I told him basics but I was sure not to reveal anything big like the fact that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader and Luke and Leia's father, or even that Luke and Leia are siblings. I told him that Yoda is a wise Jedi Master who speaks backwards but that was it. I also told him that the Emperor was Darth Vader's boss, but not that he orchestrates the deaths of hundreds of Jedi and a whole Clone War. When he asked me what the Clone War was (it got mentioned through something else), I simply told him it was a war that happens in the movies that he will get to see.

When I left this morning he was so excited to watch them, and I'm excited to babysit on Monday to see what he thought of whatever movies he got to watch. It's going to be so interesting to see it from the view of a child who really knows very little. When I got into Star Wars I was his age as well, but I had seen them many times growing up so there was very little mystery in it for me. The little boy, on the other hand, has a whole new galaxy to discover and I think it's kind of cool that I get to introduce him to this huge wonderful (and when it comes to the Expanded Universe, frustrating) universe that George Lucas created 33 years ago. For him, the saga is just beginning, and I think it's going to be one hell of a ride.