Author Topic: How to Introduce Children to Star Wars  (Read 26385 times)

Leon Kensington

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Reply #25 on: April 02, 2008, 01:47:16 PM
I know that Ken Newquist talked about this in one of his episodes of Nuketown Radioactive.



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Reply #26 on: April 02, 2008, 04:12:56 PM

... most of the damage could be corrected by a good editor and a voice actor to replace Hayden "made of wood that whines" Christensen.


Oh come on. I'll see your Hayden Christensen and raise a you a Mark Hamill. I mean, Mark Hamill!

You don't have any of those meds left, do you?


But Hamill at least had Harrison Ford as a counter-balance... otherwise, touché!

Christensen had Ewan MacGregor.

Hamill had Lucas for one movie at the beginning of Lucas' career (arguably when he was still hungry and giving it all he had, although American Graffiti had been a success).  Christensen had Lucas for two movies toward the end of Lucas' career.  I'd say Christensen had the bigger handicap, but YMMV. 


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Reply #27 on: April 02, 2008, 04:20:37 PM
Another way my kids got in to Star Wars was from playing the video games.   We have every Star Wars game for XBox and XBox 360.  When it came time to pick a movie to watch they always wanted something Star Wars. 

If it's not Rouge Squadron or X-Wing it doesn't count.

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Reply #28 on: April 02, 2008, 04:29:32 PM
If it's not Rouge Squadron or X-Wing it doesn't count.
I thought TIE Fighter was the best of that series.

I'm ashamed to admit I tried Star Wars: Galaxies for a while.  Talk about a time sink.  I finally broke that addiction by playing WoW, then broke that addiction by getting married.

edited to correct my crappy quoting
« Last Edit: April 02, 2008, 11:17:37 PM by Chodon »

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Reply #29 on: April 02, 2008, 10:44:40 PM

... most of the damage could be corrected by a good editor and a voice actor to replace Hayden "made of wood that whines" Christensen.


Oh come on. I'll see your Hayden Christensen and raise a you a Mark Hamill. I mean, Mark Hamill!

You don't have any of those meds left, do you?


But Hamill at least had Harrison Ford as a counter-balance... otherwise, touché!

Christensen had Ewan MacGregor.

Hamill had Lucas for one movie at the beginning of Lucas' career (arguably when he was still hungry and giving it all he had, although American Graffiti had been a success).  Christensen had Lucas for two movies toward the end of Lucas' career.  I'd say Christensen had the bigger handicap, but YMMV. 

I'd say MacGregor had the biggest handicap... Ford had "fresh Lucas" and Hamill, while MacGregor had "sucky Lucas" and Christensen.  :P

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Reply #30 on: April 03, 2008, 02:18:39 PM
Rouge Squadron
That sounds like something that comes on Cinemax after-hours.

Loved X-Wing, btw, and I loved that old Star Wars arcade game where it was all basically wireframe. That game rocked.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2008, 02:23:00 PM by birdless »



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Reply #31 on: April 03, 2008, 02:32:27 PM
Rouge Squadron
That sounds like something that comes on Cinemax after-hours.

Loved X-Wing, btw, and I loved that old Star Wars arcade game where it was all basically wireframe. That game rocked.

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Reply #32 on: April 03, 2008, 02:52:12 PM
Rouge Squadron
That sounds like something that comes on Cinemax after-hours.

Loved X-Wing, btw, and I loved that old Star Wars arcade game where it was all basically wireframe. That game rocked.

The one where you blew up the Death Star over and over?  Yeah, that was a cool game - and the graphics were awesome for that time.

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Reply #33 on: April 03, 2008, 04:19:52 PM
Rouge Squadron
That sounds like something that comes on Cinemax after-hours.

Loved X-Wing, btw, and I loved that old Star Wars arcade game where it was all basically wireframe. That game rocked.

The one where you blew up the Death Star over and over?  Yeah, that was a cool game - and the graphics were awesome for that time.
Yeah! That's the one... good times, good times <sigh>.



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Reply #34 on: April 03, 2008, 04:34:38 PM
They just don't do them like that anymore (I had a shop teacher that rebuilt old arcade machines on the side, there were about 5 machines in there mostly working on a good week). Not to tangent, but part of the problem with the gaming industry (which the Wii partially solves) is that it creates such a high barrier to entry. I loved WoW, but I had nowhere near the amount of time to sink into it that it needed, so I'd constantly be hovering about 10 levels behind people I was playing with a few weeks back.

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Reply #35 on: April 03, 2008, 04:44:42 PM
Not to tangent, but part of the problem with the gaming industry (which the Wii partially solves) is that it creates such a high barrier to entry. I loved WoW, but I had nowhere near the amount of time to sink into it that it needed, so I'd constantly be hovering about 10 levels behind people I was playing with a few weeks back.

That's just MMOs.  What about the rest of the gaming industry?

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Reply #36 on: April 03, 2008, 04:49:51 PM
Not to come back to the topic, but I have a question.  What is the proper age to first show a kid Star Wars?



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Reply #37 on: April 03, 2008, 04:52:16 PM
Not to come back to the topic, but I have a question.  What is the proper age to first show a kid Star Wars?

Birth?

To be fair, the first movie my daughter watched was Die Hard, when she was 9 days old, so I might not be the best person to ask ;)

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Reply #38 on: April 03, 2008, 04:57:52 PM
That's just MMOs.  What about the rest of the gaming industry?

Well, the FPS pretty basic, but if you go to online play after the game's been out for 2 months you need to invest a fair bit of time in figuring out the maps/weapons/bugs. RTSs can be easy to get into if they're done right at first, but after a while it can get to a point where it's a formula of X infantry with Y siege and Z cavalry. I loved Starcraft and Warcraft, but when I went online I was usually playing the tower defenses/RPGs because it takes too much time to figure out/learn/innovate the various strategies that they apparently teach in South Korean elementary schools.

I'm not saying there isn't a market that wants that depth and wants to make it a full time hobby, but as a recovering hard gamer(Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft) that sticks to casual these days because he doesn't have the time, I play Tetris. Sometimes I'll go back to the games I used to play (Baulder's Gate mostly, which finally got fixed for Intel Macs), but for the most part I haven't taken up any games from the last few years. One of the things I like about the Wii is that it encourages that casual kind of gaming.

Not to come back to the topic, but I have a question.  What is the proper age to first show a kid Star Wars?

I'd say 6-8. I certainly remember having seen it enough in first/second grade that I got into the trading card game at about that age.

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stePH

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Reply #39 on: April 03, 2008, 05:04:58 PM
To be fair, the first movie my daughter watched was Die Hard, when she was 9 days old, so I might not be the best person to ask ;)
Hey, it's in my top 5 list of Christmas movies :)

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Reply #40 on: April 03, 2008, 05:09:04 PM
Not to come back to the topic, but I have a question.  What is the proper age to first show a kid Star Wars?

Depends on the kid.  I don't know that my daughter will be able to watch them before she's like 5, because she's a bit of a sensitive soul.  I was three. 

I'm trying to think of other parents I know and how old their kids were when they let them watch it, but I'm drawing a blank.


Chey

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Reply #41 on: April 07, 2008, 04:01:07 PM
I have a seven and a five year old, who have watched all of the Star Wars movies except III.  Personally I would have rated that one at as R instead of PG 13, perhaps because I could just see my kid's face when he realized the heroic Anakin just murdered all those cute little Jedi kids.  Not to mention the crispy near corpse who crawled out of the lava flow.  Ick.

My seven year old has been obsessed (truly a pale word for his emotion) since about age four.  He started off watching the original IV-VI movies, he loves Lego Star Wars (really…who doesn’t?) and the whole family thought Gendy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars was the best Star Wars we’ve ever seen.  Really, I’d like to see Gendy be put in charge of the forth coming animated series and movies.

As far as the series themselves, I’ve always thought the second trilogy suffered from the lack of a Han Solo character.  Han Solo really kept the original trilogy grounded.  I love Patrick McLean’s essay The Seanachai » The Han Solo Theory.  He says it much better than I ever could have.

I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2008, 01:30:34 AM by Chey »



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Reply #42 on: April 07, 2008, 04:23:00 PM
I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.

The prequel trilogy hasn't done that already? :p

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Reply #43 on: April 07, 2008, 05:13:28 PM
I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.

The prequel trilogy hasn't done that already? :p

My opinion of the originals really got hurt by episode I.  Then he went ahead and started changing things in the originals.  Han Solo goes from the guy that will blow a guy away at a table in a seedy bar to a guy who's scared of a bounty hunter who can't shoot the guy on the other side of a table.



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Reply #44 on: April 07, 2008, 06:04:53 PM
I have to say, though, that knowing more fully the relationship between Anakin and Obi-wan does make their encounter in A New Hope much more dramatic. Episode III was just on TV last night (probably the first time I had seen it since it was on at the theater), and though the movies don't do a great job of showing the closeness of the relationship, it is stated quite plainly by Obi-wan (I believe the words he uses in reference to Anakin are "He's like a brother to me"). Made me want to watch Episode IV, again.



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Reply #45 on: April 14, 2008, 06:05:04 PM
I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.

The prequel trilogy hasn't done that already? :p

My opinion of the originals really got hurt by episode I.  Then he went ahead and started changing things in the originals.  Han Solo goes from the guy that will blow a guy away at a table in a seedy bar to a guy who's scared of a bounty hunter who can't shoot the guy on the other side of a table.

To be fair, he made the changes to the originals and then released Episode I.  Possibly screwing with the originals helped make the prequels (at least Episode I and II) poorer movies.


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Reply #46 on: April 14, 2008, 06:08:06 PM

As far as the series themselves, I’ve always thought the second trilogy suffered from the lack of a Han Solo character.  Han Solo really kept the original trilogy grounded.  I love Patrick McLean’s essay The Seanachai » The Han Solo Theory.  He says it much better than I ever could have.


Before the prequels ever came out, I always thought Obi-Wan was going to be the young and reckless one (because that's how Yoda described him in front of Luke), and that his recklessness was going to lead to Anakin's downfall.  (I also thought Bail Organa might fill the Han Solo role to a degree -- sadly, he did really very little.) 

Ewan MacGregor did well with what he had, but I would've have loved to see him unleashed -- like a Jedi Han Solo.  He was a hell of a swordsman, but he never seemed reckless to me.


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Reply #47 on: April 14, 2008, 06:28:32 PM
I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.

The prequel trilogy hasn't done that already? :p

My opinion of the originals really got hurt by episode I.  Then he went ahead and started changing things in the originals.  Han Solo goes from the guy that will blow a guy away at a table in a seedy bar to a guy who's scared of a bounty hunter who can't shoot the guy on the other side of a table.

To be fair, he made the changes to the originals and then released Episode I.  Possibly screwing with the originals helped make the prequels (at least Episode I and II) poorer movies.

I was referring to the order in which I saw them.  I was given the final version of the originals after I had already seen Ep. I+II.

Now that I think about it.  I think you're wrong.  My version of Jedi has the tall kid, who can't act, in place of the old Anakin when Luke sees the visions of Yoda, Ben, and Anakin.

Anyway it goes, I don't see how you can make comments about being fair.  He fucked up The Classic.  He did it twice.  Once by making content changes to the originals and once (or three times) by making shitty prequels.



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Reply #48 on: April 14, 2008, 07:03:47 PM
I’m not sure where the obsession came from; we never planned to indoctrinate our kids into the Star Wars universe.  If we were into indoctrination, there are many other beloved movies I would have chosen long before Star Wars.  But at least it is Star Wars and not something I really felt attachment to.  Three years of constant obsession and trivia has really killed most of the enjoyment I get out of Lucas’s work.

The prequel trilogy hasn't done that already? :p

My opinion of the originals really got hurt by episode I.  Then he went ahead and started changing things in the originals.  Han Solo goes from the guy that will blow a guy away at a table in a seedy bar to a guy who's scared of a bounty hunter who can't shoot the guy on the other side of a table.

To be fair, he made the changes to the originals and then released Episode I.  Possibly screwing with the originals helped make the prequels (at least Episode I and II) poorer movies.

I was referring to the order in which I saw them.  I was given the final version of the originals after I had already seen Ep. I+II.

Now that I think about it.  I think you're wrong.  My version of Jedi has the tall kid, who can't act, in place of the old Anakin when Luke sees the visions of Yoda, Ben, and Anakin.

Anyway it goes, I don't see how you can make comments about being fair.  He fucked up The Classic.  He did it twice.  Once by making content changes to the originals and once (or three times) by making shitty prequels.

Ah, that's right.  He changed things twice, didn't he?  He put out the special editions in 1997, then redid them again after the prequels were done.

Final version?  Heh.  Yeah, right.  Wait 'til his kids get access to the legacy... :o


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Reply #49 on: April 14, 2008, 07:27:04 PM
He fucked up The Classic.  He did it twice.  Once by making content changes to the originals...

Actually, I disagree with this. Lucas owns Star Wars, in every way that is relevant. If he wants to release a new version in which every single character is a Gungan, or Han Solo wears a gingham dress, then fine. It's his art, and he can do what he wants with it.

What he did that was seriously dickish, however, was to say "No! You cannot buy the version of the movies that you grew up with and that you love! You may only have this new version! And if anyone argues, I shall crush you with my totalitarian might!"

Once he released the laughably titled "Special Edition" DVDs, with the original movies as "bonus features", I stopped caring about anything Lucas might do to to the movies, because I finally had the version that I wanted. In fact, I've come to think of Lucas as an Emo kid, cutting himself for attention. Though, in this case, it's not his wrists, but the one good artwork he created that he continually destroys as he screams "Look at meeeeeeeee! I'm still relevant! People still care about me, right?"

Contrast this with Ridley Scott's recent Final Cut of Blade Runner, sold as a 5-disc set, with every single previous version. In the introduction to one of them (Original theatrical release?), he says something along the lines of "This isn't my favourite. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. But if you like it, then great. Hope you enjoy watching it." And I thought, yes. This is exactly the attitude to take.

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