Poor Obi-Wan

Tonight was movie night in our household. We set up a blanket on the floor in our living room, plunked ourselves down with our plates of dinner, and watched a movie all together as a family. This was only our second family movie night ever, but we figured it was fun the first time so we might as well make a regular event out of it.

For reasons not entirely known to us, we felt it was a good idea to show the kidlets the original Star Wars movie. I'm talking about the original theatrical release from the 1977 Star Wars movie. You know, the one that was numbered IV despite the fact that it was the first one being produced? Yep, that one. We figured the kidlets ought to know why Pig and I sometimes look at each other and say, "These are not the [insert noun here] you're looking for."

Anyway, the kidlets were excited to finally watch the movie. We did get asked approximately three jillion times whether there were any Lego people involved. To be fair, this was probably because they have seen our Wii Lego Star Wars game and just assume that Star Wars was a movie about those tiny building bricks. The kidlets were excited to hear that not only were real people in the movie, there were robots, aliens, and all sorts of spaceships.

I found it hysterical to watch the kidlets watch the movie. Rooster could never figure out who Obi-Wan was, and wound up just referring to him as "the old guy" throughout the course of the movie. Even that was better than how she called Darth Vader "the black guy" and his minions were "the white guys." (Nah, can't see that as ever being repeated out of context and causing issues...) I really have to work on convincing her to call Vader by name and refer to his Stormtroopers instead. Then again, she kept calling Luke Skywalker "Lick." I think I could have been entertained just listening to Rooster throughout the whole movie. Horse was old enough to get a number of the jokes, and would burst out laughing sporadically. Pig Jr. was only somewhat interested until the spaceships appeared. Then he suddenly became animated, jumping up and down, and yelling at the guys on the television set to, "Go faster! Faster!"

There were a number of times when we felt it was necessary to forewarn the kidlets of impending doom. We also blatantly lied when necessary. "Yes, those guys are going to fall down. No, they're not dead. They're just, um, stunned and need to lie down for a bit." Thankfully, blood was not visible, so as far as the kidlets were concerned, that might have been the truth. Horse seemed to understand that a war such as the one portrayed in the movie was going to involve death and destruction. In fact, her only real comment on the movie was that there were too many deaths in it. Given that the vast majority of the movies we watch are Disney-based and the only deaths seem to be when the powers that be bump off the mother or the father, I suppose Star Wars must have seemed a bit like a bloodless bloodbath. Rooster did not seem to grasp most of what was going on, although she was acutely aware of the threat of the characters being squashed like bugs in the trash compactor. Good thing we don't have one of those in real life. Truth be told, the kidlets seemed more afraid of the various aliens that were involved in the plot than they were about the casualties of war.

I wonder how much of the movie the kidlets were even able to hear. Rooster kept up an almost constant stream of questions, generally the same one repeated over and over for a stretch of time, and we spent a huge chunk of time just trying to answer her. Horse at least could read the closed captioning that we always have running at the bottom of the screen, but Pig Jr. was probably completely lost. There were several times when Rooster would ask a question that the characters were in the process of answering, but she would not stop talking long enough to actually listen to the onscreen conversations. Thank goodness we were merely watching a DVD at home instead of trying to sit through a theater screening of a movie, because we would probably have gotten kicked out for all of the chatter.

All in all, the kidlets really seemed to enjoy themselves. Of course, that might have been because they were allowed to stay up an hour past their normal bedtimes to watch a movie, but I think they all took something positive away from the experience. Pig Jr. adored the spaceships and flying sequences. Rooster kept rooting for the princess. Pig and I kept cracking jokes about how "the princess is in another castle." And Horse finally got to watch a movie that was more adult than the normal fare we watch to keep it safe for the younger two. The fact that Luke Skywalker had the same haircut as Justin Bieber probably had something to do with her enjoyment, too.

Now we'll have to see if we will show the kidlets the next movie in the series next movie night. I'm just not sure Rooster will understand why "the old guy" will reappear as a ghost-type character talking to "Lick" when she clearly saw him disappear when fighting with "the black guy". Maybe we should wait until we can get those names corrected before attempting to delve further into those movies.