Ok, the "When was the first time you saw SW" thread got me thinking off on this tangent, so I figured I'd start a separate discussion for it.

When and how did you introduce SW to a younger generation - your kids or other children in your family or circle of friends?

I got to do it right from the start. My older nephew was born in 1995. As soon as he was old enough to play with toys on purpose (as opposed to sticking them in his mouth), I gave him some spare Vintage SW figures I had that were missing weapons and such. I sat him down and showed him some of the action scenes from the various films, as I knew he was too young (3 or 4 years old) to get into the story just yet, but it was enough that he could relate the figures to what he saw on screen. I tried to give him the basic plot points, too.

A year or two later, we were watching Toy Story 2. Near the end, there's the scene where Zurg and Buzz do their take on the end of TESB. I wanted to see if he got the reference so I turned to him and said "Where have you heard that before?" He said threw his hands up in disgust and said "Toy Story!"...as if to say "Right here, idiot! Weren't you paying attention?" Then I explained it to him. "No, what OTHER movie did you see where the bad guy was the good guy's father?" Then he smiled as the lightbulb turned on over his head. "Star Wars."

Fast forward another couple of years. He's taking karate lessons and has occasionally used his little brother as target practice. It was my dad's birthday and one of my dad's friends who was there has a black belt. We were talking about him taking lessons and I made another SW reference. I told my nephew "Karate is like The Force. Remember what Yoda told Luke? 'A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.'" Dad's friend said "That's absolutely right." Baby brother was safe from target practice after that.