Lennie turns out to be a Star Wars fan. A couple of months ago, we somehow got on the topic of Star Wars, and she had many questions. We answered what we could and then deflected to various aunts and uncles once we were over it. She’s persisted in wanting to watch the movies. This is the girl who had previously not been able to watch Ratatouille because it was too scary. Yes, the animated children’s movie by Disney or Pixar or whoever.

We had told her, after much pestering, that she could watch Star Wars after she turned five. Two or three weeks ago, we were at the movie store, and she brought the movie up again. So we got the first one (technically the fourth one, but the first one that was made), and she loved it. She wasn’t outwardly afraid of Darth Vader or even the shooting, though she was curious about all the shooting. She had plenty of questions (less irritating to field when you’re not answering for a person with no context whatsoever) but seems to have mostly gotten it.

She’s been wanting ever since to see the next movie, and we got it this weekend. She’s having trouble getting what the Empire is, I think (“a group of people, sort of like a state or country, and the Emperor is like the king of these people”), and today she called the movie The Death Star Strikes Back at one point. I didn’t get to watch the movie with her today (decided to paint a room on the spur of the moment and had to finish the job), but she mostly stuck with it and I think wasn’t too afraid. She told me at one point today that she was a lot like Obi Wan because she was very brave and so probably wouldn’t be afraid of it. I told her that I thought she’d change her tune once the Emperor came out and started throwing lightning at people (thougy maybe that happens in the next movie?). She came to join me in the room I was painting once when Darth Vader and Luke were fighting. She wasn’t too keen on watching that. I think it had less to do with the actual physical violence than with Luke’s dilemma, since she told me that what bugged her was that Darth Vader was trying to make Luke be naughty. My daughter the moral philosopher!