Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Star Wars
It's fascinating watching my kid get into Star Wars. While he's been exposed to sci-fi films for years, something just clicked. Making sure to never bias him, I was eager to get his perspective. His favorite character is the young Anakin and his favorite of all the movies is The Phantom Menace. Adults obviously have a different view. When we were growing up, we all gravitated to whichever character spoke to us the best or most intriguing, be it Luke, Han, or Vader. And if there was an even younger character than Luke that starred in those old movies, I'd bet that we'd be going for that character instead. Hence, the fascination with young Anakin.
Anyway, so I was reading about the kid actor, Jake Lloyd. While obviously he didn't deliver a "Sixth Sense" kind of performance, it's also that he didn't have much of a script to work with. But, the adults were not fond of him, and he was bullied as a kid, enough that he decided to stop acting. Which is a terrible thing to do to a kid.
He was born in 1989, so I looked at other kids born in 1989. There's Nicholas Hoult, who played The Beast in X-Men. His acting career started early enough that he could have been Anakin. There's Anton Yelchin, Chekov in Star Trek, and Kyle Reese in Terminator (as well as the kid in Alpha Dog and The Beaver). A brilliant actor, but who started too late to have been in Phantom Menace. And Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), who started a bit later than Lloyd, but who could have also been put in the same position. But, Radcliffe was at the start of the Potter series, with a devoted fan base hungry for the movie. Lloyd came in the middle, of kids-turned-adults who wanted something different. Who knows how life would have turned for Hoult, Yelchin, and Radcliffe, had they been Anakin instead.
Watching Star Wars with my kid, through his eyes, and I get a better appreciation of the new trilogy. No longer does Jar Jar bother me, because it doesn't bother my kid. He enjoys Jar Jar, because my kid is a kid, and some things are meant to be enjoyed with the heart of a kid. Like the original Star Wars.
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