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Adventures in Raising the Next Generation of Original Star Wars Fans — Page 3

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Xhonzi, your kids will find out about the prequels someday and there's nothing you can do about it.

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But that's the point, he is doing something about it.  He's getting his kids a good foundation so they can judge for themselves which movies are good and which ones are less.

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I saw a lot of shitty movies and TV shows as a child. Didn't stop me from appreciating good ones later in life.

Besides, sounds to me like his kids already have plenty an appreciation for the original films.

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Quackula said:

I saw a lot of shitty movies and TV shows as a child. Didn't stop me from appreciating good ones later in life.

We'll be the judge of that.

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Shh I have great taste!

My favorite films are Highlander 2 and Superhero Movie!

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Quackula said:

Highlander 2

MUST

CONTROL

RAGE

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I agree with Quackula. Xhonzi, you are acting a bit ridiculous and obsessive. Your kids will see the prequels one day. The prequels are not so heinous that they will destroy your children's view of Star Wars. In fact, your kids could grow a bit older and realize the only reason they liked the OT was because it was forced on them and they didn't have as much choice. Big deal, right? Whatever makes them happy. I agree that, as a parent, you should decide what influences your kids get, and personally I wouldn't volunteer the prequels because I think there are other, better movies they could spend their finite amount of time watching. But if they actually wanted to watch them, why in the world would I withhold it? I would wait on ROTS because of its violence, but the honest truth is that they will probably like Phantom Menace, and they will fast forward through 50% of AOTC and really like the other 50%. They will probably love the Clone Wars too. If its something your kids like, why deny them? They don't have to like the same things you like. And, as has been said before by CO, they will likely grow up and realise, "well, TPM makes me nostalgic for my childhood, but it's not that great...but damn, how the hell did I find ESB boring??" Because the truth is that when we were young, all the kids thought ESB was dull and ROTJ was the shit. It was the shit because it had less talking and more fighting and better graphics and mothafuckin muppets and awesome dancing and cute Ewoks. They're kids--they like dumb stuff and it gives them pleasure, just like every cartoon and most other movies they watch, and they don't care if it changes the way they see ANH, probably they will never care. They will probably never care because that is something important to you, not to them. You gotta face it man, if we were all kids right now most of us would love The Clone Wars and not have much interest in ESB. It's just generational divide, and kids don't appreciate classic films as much, which is what the OT is. I say, let them be kids and have films to enjoy.

This topic is particularly relevant because just this morning Wired Magazine wrote to me about this very thing. I'll post my entire reply here because maybe people will find it interesting, or disagree with it.

 

> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 13:53:12 -0500
> Subject: Wired Magazine Inquiry
>

> To: webmaster@secrethistoryofstarwars.com
>
> Mr. Kaminski,
>
> My name is Brendan I. Koerner and I am a contributing editor at Wired
> magazine (http://www.wired.com/magazine/). I write a monthly column in which
> I answer readers' questions regarding the legal, moral, and ethical
> complexities of life in the Digital Age.
>
> For an upcoming issue, I'm addressing a reader's inquiry regarding a topic I
> believe near and dear to your heart--not philosophy, but "Star Wars." He
> asks the following (reprinted nearly verbatim): "I have two boys, ages 4 and
> 6, who I obviously love very dearly. But when I recently showed them the
> original Star Wars, they said it was dull and asked to turn it off before
> the Millennium Falcon reached the Death Star. How do I make them recognize
> this movie¹s genius?"
>
> I was wondering whether you might be willing to share a few thoughts with my
> reader, to help him through his quandary. I guess the larger issue here is
> whether we can change how people perceive art by supplying them with new
> information. But on a more practical level, is there anything that this
> father can do to enhance his sons' enjoyment of the movie? And if not, how
> might he be able to accept that his sons' rejection of the film isn't a
> character flaw?
>
> Any wisdom you could provide would be greatly appreciated. And I would, of
> course, be happy to credit you and mention "The Secret History of Star Wars"
> (as well as its website) in the column.
>
> Thank you in advance for your gracious assistance. All of my contact
> information is listed below. My deadline is this coming Monday, February
> 7th, at 5 p.m. Eastern time.
>
> All best,
> Brendan I. Koerner
>
> --
> Brendan I. Koerner
> Contributing Editor
> WIRED

Hi Brendan,
 
I would be pleased to impart some advice to your readers for this issue. My take on it is for the guy to basically accept that they don't like the films and move on, if that's what the case is. At 4 and 6 they might be TOO young actually, because to a 4-year old in 1977 Star Wars was the cinematic equivalent to pinball, but in 2011 it's been left in the dust and won't grab them immediately so it might require more patience. I would recommend trying again a couple times, maybe in a few more years, but in truth they might not warm up. But it's interesting how generational divide like this makes parents feel like they are in crisis.
 
Of course, the honest truth is that one's kids might not like the original Star Wars films and that is not abnormal if you think about it. Even more painful: if they are like the other hundred million kids in the country, they will probably dig the prequel stuff. Oh god! Right? Well, the simple truth is that kids don't like some things their parents like and parents don't like thing some things their kids like. And kids sure don't like a lot of stuff that was meaningful to their parents when they were young, because they live in a different era. If you play Deep Purple or The Doors for your kids, they aren't likely to think it's very cool music; but they probably will like the stuff that's on the radio now. Star Wars impressed us when we were young because it was contemporary to us, if not in literal years then at least in style: even in the 1990s, the style of sci-fi and fantasy movies hadn't changed very much, so the cinematography, the overall stylization and the visual effects still impressed people, and there still really wasn't anything comparable to Star Wars anyway so it's not like you had a whole lot of choice if you were into those genres. Let's face it, movies are superficial, and one of the main reasons any of us paid attention to the original Star Wars is because it was spectacular. Movies have changed a lot since the 1990s, and the original Star Wars films have become dated. Like anything else you liked when you were young. The fact that there are a ton of really good sci-fi/fantasy films in the last 15 years will only make this generational divide more apparent. Star Wars doesn't look, sound or feel the same as stuff like Iron Man or Lord of the Rings or the new Star Trek, it looks, sounds and feels like a movie made decades ago. It will not impress kids who have seen Spiderman and Harry Potter. Star Wars endured as a relevant film for so long because that style of movie didn't change much, but some time in the early 2000s we reached a point where the films no longer looked or felt very contemporary. The Special Editions tried to spruce up a few special effects and managed to get by in 1997, but the films' aging is deeper than that, it's apparent in everything from haircuts to editorial pace to shot design, which is why it no longer works. Even though some things are "classics", some children will be able to enjoy them and good for them for having wider tastes, but some won't, a lot won't. Many kids still watch Wizard of Oz, but I can also imagine that a lot would be put off by the black and white intro, old-fashioned acting, dated visual effects and the 1930s dance numbers. Just because you liked Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia doesn't mean you will find Wizard of Oz very meaningful or interesting the way kids of generations past did. And so it is with Star Wars.
 
The silver lining is that eventually kids mature, and they learn to appreciate material that was made before they were born. They also develop better tastes in things--think of all the crap you thought was cool when you were a kid. When you re-watch stuff when you get older you realise that most of the movies and shows you thought were so entertaining really weren't very well done at all. And you also realise that a lot of stuff that bored you as a kid is pretty awesome. When I was yonger, all my friends thought that Rocky III was way better; the original was so talky, had no fights, looked really rough around the edges, very 70s. Flash forward fifteen years and holy crap, Rocky III is mildly entertaining but that original film is a real classic with a lot of heart and soul. How could I have been so dumb? Well, that's what being a kid is about. You like dumb stuff, because you're just a kid. You especially like flashy, shiny, explody stuff that looks like a video game, and Star Wars doesn't cut it any more. If you're a kid now, you will probably find The Clone Wars entertaining but Empire Strikes Back not so much. But probably most when they grow up will discover Empire Strikes Back is a rich and entertaining film and The Clone Wars mildly amusing and nostalgic but not a real classic of cinema.
 
But the obvious bottom line is that you can't make kids like the original Star Wars, and just because you think it's the greatest thing in the world doesn't mean everyone else will. And honestly: even when the kids grow up, they might still think the films aren't very good. A lot of people just aren't into Star Wars. You shouldn't be like one of the parents trying to convince their kid that they must love sports just because you do. You might, but you might not. I think "Star Wars Parents" nowadays have misled themselves of their expectations because the films were watched as contemporary cinema even into the 1997 re-release, which was and I believe still is the biggest January opener of all time, quite astounding. But the films are becoming like everything else from eras past, which is to say they had a specific context and their relevance is not the same anymore. Just because you are a Beatle Maniac I don't think you would expect your kids to be, and if you thought Clint Eastwood was the coolest man alive in 1975 I wouldn't expect your ten year old son to think so either. If you think about it, this is really a confrontation parents have to face with themselves: they've become old! Really, baby boomers discovering that their ten-year-old son isn't blown away by Sgt. Pepper and instead wants to listen to Nirvana must have been a seminal moment for parents of the 1990s, who finally realised that they weren't so young any more. Parents can still enjoy the original Star Wars and Kids today will have their own Star Wars equivalent, just like my dad kept listening to the Beatles and I cranked up Nirvana. When I was ten I remember complaining to my dad to turn down Aqualung because it sucked so much. But my dad got vindicated in the end--a few years ago I inherited his very own vinyl LP of Aqualung and it gets pretty heavy rotation on my turntable, it's a great rock album. So you never know.
 
Star Wars is a classic film, just like Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, Rocky or Back to the Future. Kids today might not be into them, but they have a place in history and maybe in adulthood people will discover and appreciate them. I think you should try to expose your kids to the classics, in all mediums of art, because you never know, sometimes kids will latch on to them, and timing is important too, because older films aren't as spectacular or faced pace, so I think the kids have to be in a more patient mood. But I also think if a kid isn't in to something then let him or her be and hope that maybe one day they will learn to like it. Star Wars was ours, but kids today have their own things.
 
Sorry this was so terribly long winded, haha, it's a very interesting subject actually because it's something so personal to people. I didn't expect to write four paragraphs. Hope this helps add some perspective though!

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Yikes, forget the kids, I was just reading how fewer and fewer adults even bother with anything slightly "old", even though access to that stuff is easier than ever. The Godfather/Citizen Kane/etc. aren't just boring and overrated to kids and teenagers now, apparently most 30 year olds can't sit still for that stuff and never will. (edit-on the plus side, our kids will have a pretty badass president!)

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^Comments like the above make me fear for the future. Have I just been lucky with my circle of friends? Although I will admit, I was unable to sit through Metropolis...

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Awesome post there - however, I clearly remember seeing the original Star Wars (oot) around 97 when I was 9 or something, or maybe it was earlier, on a TV broadcast, having no idea what it was, and I can pretty much say ESB left the strongest impression on me.

And being a Russian immigrant in Germany, I didn't understand the language at that time, so everything that was said was basically a lot of gibberish to me.

So how come I liked it most (remember the shocked feeling towards the end, like "wth happenin, the main heroes all get frozen to death wahaat?"?"

Maybe because it wasn't just a lot of "clever dialogue", but was CONVEYED in such a convincing, connecting matter through the acting, tone, settings and music, that actually.. even a child would understand it?

 

Anyway, I'd have a much shorter reply to that parent (and I'm glad it's not going to be published) - wow shut your festering hole you nerdy pathetic manbaby.

Jesus H. Christ, this guy's like "omg SW is so GENIUSS, THE BEST MOVIE IN HISTORY!!!", and then "my kid should like it too, oh show me how to make him like this!!!". Just fucking pathetic. What an idiot.

 

And yes - look at ANY of those cheesy cartoons the Nostalgia Critic rips apart... there is so much more unbearable awfulness in one single scene of "Care Bears" or "Ferngully" than in the entirety of the PT, it's not even funny.

Or how about them cheesy, hammy, stupid game-card animes like Pokemon? Or Digimon?

Also see the Cinema Snob for a different brand of utter awfulness that the prequels don't even begin to touch.

 

So yea, nerd parents, whoever you may be - if you're gonna let your kids watch that horrible pig slop on TV, you have a duty, yes, a DUTY, to go personally buy a DVD box set with the entire prequel trilogy as a birthday present. :D

So it "ruined Star Wars"... who cares??

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bkev said:

^Comments like the above make me fear for the future. Have I just been lucky with my circle of friends? Although I will admit, I was unable to sit through Metropolis...

 

Neither classical music, nor old movies, are dying off any time soon.

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I think the moral of the story of the anguished father is this:  Never have kids.  They never disappoint when it comes to disappointing.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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twooffour said:

So it "ruined Star Wars"... who cares??

 

TV's Frink said:

Luke says:

http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/2002/05/10/movies/10STAR.3L.jpg

I care.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

twooffour said:

So it "ruined Star Wars"... who cares??

 

TV's Frink said:

Luke says:

http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/2002/05/10/movies/10STAR.3L.jpg

I care.

 

That's not even the right picture, you smart alec.

I don't know if you get it, but do you realize that "who cares" NEVER *actually* means "who cares", but ALWAYS rather "it makes no sense to care about it (that much), so no one should"?

I just laid out my reasons, and I think they're pretty legitimate: there are so, so many movies, especially children's movies, that are on a whole other level of obnoxious and stupid, and badly written, and if your goal is to shield your kid from bad movies, you should take those in consideration more than anything else, and THEN include the Phantom Menace because it kinda falls in that same line.

If any, THAT is the approach to go with that includes "not showing the star wars prequels", NOT the "I want him to love the OT and never have heard the prequels existed, as it would've been in an ideal world". I mean, you know, good luck with that - your son has great chances of growing up to be a religious nutcase seducing millions of people all over the globe to severe their attachment to films, in promise of a final state of being where no movies exist and no movies are shown.

 

Responding to that with a lame still completely detached from its caption, after having decided to respond at all (and it's your own thread, for all it matters) doesn't do anything to support your position, all it does is... making you look like a carebear!

"We caaaaare! We're called Care Bears... because we're bears... and we CAAAARE!!!! Do you caaaaare?

Let's hold our hands and make everyone in the world...caaaaare! Because weeee caaaaare! Please, caaaaaare!"

...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

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PS:

Thora Birch in Dungeons & Dragons is 10 times more wooden than Padmé, and her lines are 10 times more cliché.

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1. My kids love the OT.  They dress-up, they role play.  They have a good time being Star Wars fans.  Of course, this is partly due to my encouragement.  But as the letter to the Wired editor points out (and zombie's response), it's not something you can force on your kids.  I don't just mean that you shouldn't, but that you couldn't if you tried.  My kids already enjoy Star Wars. 

1a. While I understand the argument that there is a generation between my kids and me... And that beyond that, they have their own personal interests and tastes because they are, in fact, separate people... I don't assume that the younger generation, as a rule, will have such a sharp disinterest in Star Wars (or Deep Purple) simply due to the passing of time.  From a lot of the young kids I know through my own children, it's not even really that true.  I happen to know a lot of Beatles fans who are under 5.  And plenty more who are between 5 and 10, and so on.  My kids love Weezer, and they love the Beatles.  We play a variety of music in the car and at home, and for some reason they know the words to the songs by those bands better than the rest.  Well... not better than Glee Soundtrack Vol. 1, but better than the rest of the rest.  Certain things are timeless.  I think we can agree that the Beatles have proven timeless.  Other bands of their era have been forgotten for the reasons that zombie describes... but the timeless ones live on.  I think, for the most part, that the OT is also timeless.

2. They're young kids.  There's time for the PT later, if they want.  (Your father Uncle George wanted you to have this, but your uncle father wouldn't allow it until you were old enough.)  It is my personal opinion that the awesomeness that is Star Wars is diluted through association with the PT.  Some of you younger kids that liked the PT once, and either still do or grew out of it, have no frame of reference for what I'm talking about since you don't know a Star Wars without that taint.  As Boost said over in the "missing out" thread, the biggest changes to Star Wars (and I'm paraphrasing here) aren't the changes to the individual frames and audio waves, but to the context of them.  Sure, it's not 1977 anymore, and that's part of it.  But I think the inmovie context of the Prequels is far more damaging to the experience than the extramovie context of 30+ years.

3. My oldest son knows the Prequels exist.  He could watch them at a friend's house if he chose to.  Or frankly anytime at home, unless he directly asked me first.  But he trusts me (apparently) for the moment that it's ultimately not in his best interest to sully his imagination with the smut.

4. I know a lot of you don't have your own kids, but think you already know how you would parent my kids.  Let me just say that it's a lot different than I thought it would before having the little brats.  More wonderful, and more disappointing than I could imagine.

5. RE: The Wired letter.  I find the 2004 DVDs almost unwatchable upon two fronts: 1. The changes really bug me and pull me out of the fantasy.  2. There's something, I think, subconciously different as well.  Part of what has always made Star Wars so appealing was the verisimilitude.  While George thought that packing the frame with floating camera droids and fighting robots and cutesy mice enhanced one's sense of reality, I think that we respond negatively to those things on an emotional level.  It wouldn't surprise me that kids would be bored of the new "kiddie friendly" first hour of Star Wars.  Put the kids down in front of the 1977 version, or even Adywan's Revisited, and it wouldn't surprise me if they had a totally different reaction.

5. Did twooffour call me a nerd and zombie call me obsessive?  Ouch!  That really hurts when other obsessive nerds call you that!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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twooffour said:

 

That's not even the right picture, you smart alec.

If any, THAT is the approach to go with that includes "not showing the star wars prequels", NOT the "I want him to love the OT and never have heard the prequels existed, as it would've been in an ideal world". I mean, you know, good luck with that - your son has great chances of growing up to be a religious nutcase seducing millions of people all over the globe to severe their attachment to films, in promise of a final state of being where no movies exist and no movies are shown.

 Responding to that with a lame still completely detached from its caption, after having decided to respond at all (and it's your own thread, for all it matters) doesn't do anything to support your position, all it does is... making you look like a carebear!

 You're a thoroughly unlikable person, do you know that?

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As someone who went through this process, I'll keep this short, young kids will like the prequels more than the originals. But once they get older, they'll mature and see how the originals are the superior films. Kids don't pay attention to the story or dialogue, they just like explosions and CGI acid trips!

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twooffour said:

xhonzi said:

TV's Frink said:

Luke says:

http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/2002/05/10/movies/10STAR.3L.jpg

I care.

That's not even the right picture, you smart alec.

Alec is not in that picture.

And for the record, I couldn't find the right picture during the 30 second GIS.  Meh.

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And for the record, I just copied him.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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twooffour said:

I don't know if you get it, but do you realize that "who cares" NEVER *actually* means "who cares", but ALWAYS rather "it makes no sense to care about it (that much), so no one should"?

Thanks Ric.  And thanks for insulting xhonzi's intelligence.

twooffour said:

PS:

Thora Birch in Dungeons & Dragons is 10 times more wooden than Padmé, and her lines are 10 times more cliché.

What does this have to do with anything?  Are we on originalD&D.com?  Do people care about the D&D movie (I assume this is a movie) like they do about Star Wars?  Do you?  'Cause I'm pretty sure xhonzi doesn't.

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TV's Frink said:

twooffour said:

PS:

Thora Birch in Dungeons & Dragons is 10 times more wooden than Padmé, and her lines are 10 times more cliché.

What does this have to do with anything?  Are we on originalD&D.com?  Do people care about the D&D movie (I assume this is a movie) like they do about Star Wars?

I'm pretty sure he just watched a new "Nostalgia Critic" video where he reviews that movie...

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Frink said:

Do people care about the D&D movie (I assume this is a movie) like they do about Star Wars?  Do you?  'Cause I'm pretty sure xhonzi doesn't.

 

TV's Frink said:

Luke says:

I care.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!