Warning – contains Star Wars spoilers but
if you haven’t seen it yet the you’re probably not enough of a geek (or cool
enough) to be reading my blog anyway.
If you haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie
The Force Awakens yet you’re probably in the minority now so I’m going to tell
you how this movie has affected my life. Believe me when I say it’s affected my
life I mean the first thing I told my class at school was we would be counting
down the days until the movie was released. I started planning going to the
movie with a friend as soon as the release date was announced.
To put it in a simple phrase - I LOVE STAR
WARS!
Family history (or legend) says that my
parents took my older brother and I to the drive in movies sometime in 1977
when we were just 1 and 3 respectively to see a double feature. The first was
some family movie that no one recalls. The second was Star Wars and we kids
were expected to be asleep by the time it started. I’ve been told that every
time Mum and Dad looked around we were both bug eyed staring at the screen with
smiles on our faces. The second time I
saw The Force Awakens I took my Dad as a thank you.
Needless to say Star Wars is in my blood.
Naturally it was the first movie I showed to H when he was about 6 months old.
I may have done the same to G but I don’t think BWM knows that yet – sorry. Both
boys got up to where Han shot first before becoming irritated and needing to
sleep, feed or have their nappy changed.
In the lead up to The Force Awakens I may
have shown H the trailers as they were released on the internet. I may also
have shown him Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back as well. I can add this to the
fact that H has an original Star Wars poster up in his room and before his 2nd
birthday I had given him his first light saber – albeit made from pool noodles.
When we have light saber battles he always has to have the red one because he
says he’s Darth Vader.
As you can see he has, quite naturally,
started to become a little obsessed about Star Wars too. However, one day when
BWM picked him from his day care centre they pulled her aside and spoke about
how he runs up to other children, points his fingers (or stick / toy) at them
and makes his best laser gun sound “Pshooow, Pshooow” usually followed by
“Stormtrooper fall down!”
It was obviously time to have a few words
to him. We’ve never used the word gun around him but he said he was “spraying”.
Which is of course a term we use all the time with the hose or with the spray
bottle he often plays with outside. There have been many conversations about
not using his ‘spray’ because many people don’t like it and also some of the
other kids are copying him.
Of course it hasn’t stopped him from
running around and yelling “Pshooow, Pshooow” on a regular basis often with
stick in hand. Mind you the amount of Star Wars toys and clothing he got for
Christmas was great to see, although we did try to hide as many of the guns from
the action figures as possible.
So how has the new movie affected me as a
parent? I think all Star Wars fans think we have a little bit of the Han Solo
scoundrel in us. This meant that when, in my opinion, the greatest rogue in
cinema history was impaled with a light saber by his own son my first reaction
was to scream “NOOOOOOOO!” even though you could see it coming.
My second reaction was “Geez, I’m going to
have to be nice to my sons or I could end up that way!”
What happens now if I keep pushing (sorry)
sharing Star Wars on my sons? I think they’re more likely to end up as scruffy
looking Nerf herders but if I end up on a Star Killer Base with one or both
then it hasn’t worked out so well.
No comments:
Post a Comment