I love my kids. Even more than I love Star Wars. But I now know how all the dads feel when they try to toss a football with their boy and all he wants to do is dance or sew.
My kids, for whatever reason, just don’t seem to really like Star Wars that much.
Yes, I’ve tried to watch the movies with them. Yes, including all the kiddie stuff in the prequels. Yes, we’ve watched Clone Wars together. But usually they just get sort of distracted and wander off. I try to tell them to sit down and watch because this is the cool part where they’re going to blow up the Death Star, or Han Solo is going to get frozen in carbonite, or Luke is going to fight the rancor.
They just don’t care.
And it’s not like my kids aren’t into a lot of really geeky stuff. Today is May the 4th– both Star Wars day and Free Comic Book Day. All week long my kids have been asking me about FCBD and planning which costumes they want to wear (I think they’ve settled on Wonder Woman and Iron Man, but it might turn out to be Princess Peach and Thor or Spider-woman and Spider-man.) But when I ask them about watching a Star Wars marathon for May the 4th, my 7 year old daughter’s reply to me was, “Well that sounds like something maybe you can do by yourself.” And then she asks if we can watch the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Picard, Guinan, and Ro all get turned into children, or the Enterprise episode where they teach the alien girl how to read. (Enterprise?!?!? ENTERPRISE?!?!? I offer you Empire Strikes Back and you want Enterprise? When I offer you ice cream, are you going to ask me for brussel sprouts?)
Heart. Breaking. Like an Imperial officer’s windpipe after admitting failure to Darth Vader, I am crushed.
And my darling 5 year old son, my geeky pride and joy. He didn’t want to go to bed Thursday night because he knew I was out seeing Iron Man 3. He’s as geeky and obsessive and creative about things as I was when I was his age. Except that I nearly wore out our VHS copy of Star Wars, and knew every line by heart. He has watched the first 6 episodes of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, quite possibly, 100 times. No exaggeration. (I’d love to get the records from Netflix if they’d let me.) He says the lines along with the episode “Iron Man is Born” and runs around on the playground playing Iron Man, accusing other people of stealing “my tech.”
He’ll sit through Avengers, laughing every time when The Hulk sucker punches Thor. But I try to get him to watch Return of the Jedi with me and. . . not so interested. He’d rather go play Mario or Pokemon.
So, don’t get me wrong– it’s not that my kids have bad taste or like terrible things. (I do, however, question the value of My Little Pony: Frienship is Magic and actively try to dissuade them from watching the old Super Mario Brothers Super Show) They just don’t like Star Wars.
And Star Wars was everything to me as a kid. Entertainment, a friend, and even a protector. When I was my son’s age, I’d set up my Millenium Falcon and bunch of my action figures facing my bedroom door at night to take down any zombies or monsters who might be coming to get me. (This was, after all, the summer of Thriller.) And growing up, Star Wars became a philosophy. It literally molded how I live my life.
And while my son knows all of the Pokemon and all of the Skylanders and all of the Avengers and all of the members of the Justice League and all of the aliens Ben 10 turns into. . . he gets confused about Star Wars. Yes, when he plays Star Wars and draws pictures of action scenes, he’s always talking about how “Anakin and Luke Skywalker are going to fight Darth Maul. . . ” and I try to explain to him how Anakin became Vader and Vader was Luke’s father. . .and nothing. But if I accidentally misidentify that Pansear as a Pansage then I am royally corrected: “NO, DAD! Pansear is a fire type and Pansage is a grass-type!”
I’ve gone through the stages of grief with this.
Denial: They don’t like Star Wars because they just haven’t been exposed enough. Maybe if we sit down and watch more, they’ll get it.
Anger: You kids sit down and watch this movie, right now!!! Vader is about to tell Luke something important and you’re going to miss it!!!!
Bargaining: Ok, we’ll go see Wreck-It Ralph again. But first, let’s watch Return of the Jedi with Dad. It’s got cute Ewoks in it– you’ll love it!!!!
Depression: My last several months, every time I try to explain to them how there won’t be any more Clone Wars cartoons. . .and they just don’t care.
Acceptance: Me writing this article for May the 4th, 2013. Ultimately I should be super-happy. My kids are awesome. Smart, creative, and very, very geeky. We will have years of fun with Marvel comics movies, video games, and Star Trek.
And maybe somewhere down the line they’ll start liking Star Wars. (I pray to the ghost of Walt Disney that Disney’s marketing geniuses will get their hooks into my children the same way they have with the Disney Princesses or Marvel) I also open the floor to all of you. If you have any ideas, I am willing to listen. And until then, it’s going to be ok that my kids just don’t really like Star Wars.