2008
stay on target
maura @ 8:45 pm
Tonight was movie night, and we watched Star Wars. Yes, my kid’s meanie parents FINALLY let him watch Star Wars! Can you believe we made him wait so long?
To attempt to make amends for our obvious parental deficiencies we spontaneously showered him with gifts: a teeny x-wing fighter from some long-gone playset (from Jonathan), and old school R2D2 and Chewbacca figures (from me). Because aren’t they better played with than collecting dust on a shelf in our bedroom? Then of course Gus kept asking throughout the whole movie if we had any other toys for him.
I’d forgotten about all of the new scenes. I know it’s not the only thing that makes me an old fart, but I don’t like ’em. They’re just discombobulating and distracting, all of that CGI amidst the spaceship models + prosthetic aliens. Down with computers!
Continuous questioning is the gold standard for movie watching around here, and tonight was no different. He was a little stressed out by the garbage masher. And he was confused about many characters names: lots of “Dark” Vader (predictable), and also Obi-Wan became “Toby,” which always got a giggle out of us old folks.
Indeed Gus was so into it that we’re breaking our kid-imposed movie night pattern of watching one cartoon (last week: Castle in the Sky), then one live-action film, etc. (they talk about patterns a lot in math these days so we are always hearing about them here). Next week it’ll be all Hoth, all the time, baby. Saddle up yr tauntaun!
7 comments on “stay on target”
We were so careful about what Max got to watch. All that is now shot to hell with the little ones. (But they go to bed earlier than he does, and have very few pictures taken of them, so it’s even.)
A. has already watched (well, as much as he watches anything — it was babysitter night & Max had this as his movie) Attack of the Clones. He loves/hates Boba Fett’s dad Jengo. He also loves the game Jenga. They’re all related, I know not how.
Well, okay, I will admit to a teeny bit of exaggeration for humorous effect. It’s actually not so much that we were not letting him see it as that we kept forgetting to show it to him!
We had the videotapes a long time ago but I think we got rid of them because they were the new versions. Then we had Netflix but we cancelled it when I went to library school to save $ and time. Then Gus got really into video games and didn’t seem to want to watch TV/videos…
It was only when I finished school + we reupped w/Netflix + we started doing movie night that we realized that he’d never seen it. And it’s totally fine — we are not worried about him seeing them all. Except for exposing him to the crap that is Jar-jar, of course, who knows what that could do to a tender young mind! :)
Now Raiders, OTOH, no way! J floated it a little while ago and I was like “are you crazy?!” The melting faces? “Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip!” That shit freaked me out when I was 12!
True, true, but still…maybe when he’s 8. Has Max seen it? I’m not unconvinced that Spiderwick isn’t giving him some bad dreams (not that he’s mentioned anything, but some nights he’s come into our room awfully early).
Not yet — 8 is the date tho! A week away!!!
He can’t see Sequel of Doom ever, as long as we have something to say about it. #3 maybe.
All this is, of course, leading up to the May premiere! They always release these for Ben’s b-day!
Let me know how it goes!
Funny you should mention sequel of doom…J and I were just thinking of rewatching that ourselves (we have the boxed set) to see if it’s REALLY as bad as we remember it.
Wow, you are a little late on this. And I am surprised. Perhaps it is still the bitter disappointment that Lucas screwed our generation.
Once a year or so Karl tries to make Mathilda watch Star Wars. She is not into it and why should she be – no one wears pink or sparkles. Dexter, on the other hand, is getting into it and I see Karl’s anticipation growing for the future action figure collection and the ever prized Star Wars themed birthday party. He is practicing his gaming skills on a plug and play game shaped like the Millennium Falcon though he still prefers the computer games on NickJr.