The Man Who Corrupted His Daughter

The Young Lady has been somewhat indifferent to science fiction and fantasy. There's the amusing time when my wife was flipping through channels, came across Forbidden Planet, and dismissed it as "Oh, that's a Daddy movie" to our daughter's inquiry. On the other hand, some of the things she has read on her own can be termed science fiction or that much-abused term "science fantasy".

Star Wars? Hasn't interested her a bit. Not a bit. Until now.

Two things were the catalyst. First, was the Pixar movie Wall-E. She enjoyed it (more the character of Wall-E and EVE, rather than the humans). Then there was Indiana Jones. She gave me the Nintendo DS Indiana Jones game (Legos, don'cha know) for Father's Day (and hasn't let me play it once).

So...I set my evil plan into action. I occasionally mentioned that the man who did the voice for Wall-E worked on other films. I let it be known that we had the Indiana Jones trilogy. Would she be interested in trying one? She watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade (no Temple of Doom yet!). I loaded the soundtrack onto my iPod and played it in the car when we drove out to visit my folks, or to bring her to summer camp.

Then came (without my intending to use it for the plan) the hype over the Clone Wars movie and the Clone Wars series. I haven't seen it (no time, no time), but the clips, especially the extended clips for the series have interested her to the point of asking some questions. So...

The problem was, which way to view the films. The way they were made or the "chronological order". If you watch the three prequel films, you pretty much know all the surprises in the three original films (I'll leave the discussion of the quality of the three original films vs. the three prequel films for another time). So even though showing A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi is "wrong" from the timeline, it is "right" in terms of suspense (and quality).

I asked her a couple of times. No interest. Then this weekend, a slight sign. I proposed showing her 15 minutes or so from A New Hope, if she liked it she could watch the rest, if she did not, I'd shut up. She agreed, so I showed the part where R2-D2 gets captured by the Jawas to the point where he meets up with C3PO in the sand crawler.

Hook. Line. Sinker.

She wanted to see the rest. So we went to the beginning. The next day we watched The Empire Strikes Back. No Return of the Jedi yet (school today), but who knows what the weekend will bring? Down the road? Maybe a little E.E. "Doc" Smith?

Posted by Fred Kiesche at September 8, 2008 08:23 AM