A friend of mine named Trish and her husband Glen, both of whom I used to work with during the Dark Times at iiNet, got in touch with my wife the other day. They’ve got young kids who are just fascinated with Star Wars, and they’re driving their parents mad with questions. Not being Star Wars fans themselves, they don’t know the answers but they told their kids they know someone who may have the answers they seek by the name of Mr Hoover. They’ve been bugging Trish if they can go and see this mysterious Mr Hoover and ask him questions. So Trish asked Suzanne if I’d be up for a Skype call so the kids could meet Mr Hoover face to face.
So last Saturday Trish and her two kids Skyped Suzanne and asked me to join. The kids were very well behaved, very courteous and had very good questions. I told them “dispense with the pleasantries”, and instead of Mr Hoover they could simply call me Brian. It turns out they haven’t actually seen all the movies yet, just the first half of Episode 4. Trish’s reasoning is that Empire Strikes Back is a bit “darker” and more violent, too much for six and four year olds. That’s her call, and fair enough. But what they have seen has pretty much captured and focussed their little minds to the point where they, and perhaps their parents, would respond to counselling if what Trish tells me is true. I’ve seen a couple facebook updates from her and wondered what they were about.
We had a couple quick fire questions about who their favourite characters are. They haven’t made that judgement yet, because they haven’t seen all the characters. I found this to be a very mature position to take for a six year old. They asked me who my favourite was. I explained that Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader, and that every other character exists only to tell his story. They thought this was pretty cool. They’d heard rumours that I had mountains of toys, and asked to see some. I told them that we are in the middle of moving and they are in storage, but they could see some of them at my web site, DarthVaderFigures.com. They got Trish to bring it up in a browser, and I could see them marveling at what they saw. I said that I’d been collecting Star Wars toys since I was about their age, so I had quite a few. They liked this idea and I could see their minds ticking over.
The kids told me that they were too young to see the rest of the movies, and that they’d have to wait another 3-4 years before they could see Empire and Jedi and the others. I conceded that their mum probably knows what is best for them and said that they would have great fun in finding more characters and seeing the story unfold when they did get to see the movies. They already knew enough to watch them in the right order, 4-5-6 and then 1-2-3. I could see them coveting my toys, so they know what to ask for this Christmas. I told them that it was also a good day to talk because Empire Strikes Back was released 30 years ago almost to the day that we were speaking. Wow!
One parting shot I took was to explain that we used to call Trish “Darth Vader” at work because we’d all scurry away in fear when we heard her stomping down the corridors, the same way the Stormtroopers and Imperial Officers would quake with fear when they heard Vader coming towards them. Trish said that she already told them about the name, but I’m sure she didn’t fully explain the reasons haha.
It was a pretty entertaining interview, in all, and reminded me about why I like Star Wars and collecting. It “lets the kid out”. It’s fun, imaginative and also enriching to discover the stories behind the characters.