We had a rather momentous event here the other day. I finally watched Star Wars with Captain Jelly Belly.

Star Wars is my favourite movie. It was the first movie I ever saw in the theatre. I was six years old and the theatre was an old-style, giant room with plush red velvet seats. Hundreds of people sharing the same experience, laughing and gasping and cheering at the movie — it was a magical event for me. It started a life-long love of film, and I still get a chill when I walk into a movie theatre. Since then I’ve seen Star Wars dozens of times and I can practically quote the entire movie verbatim. When I was in university I’d watch it whenever I felt sad or lonely or sick. One time I ran into a girl who had never seen it (CapnPlanet’s sister), and over dinner I described the whole movie to her, scene by scene. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her since then. I’m sure she misses me.

(On this past Monday’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, by the way, we learned that Ted and Marshall are similar fans, thus confirming that HIMYM is the awesomest show on TV right now, and that I am Ted’s dream girl. Casting agents, call me!)

Over the years I’ve accumulated a few action figures and three or four small sets of Star Wars Lego. All of my Star Wars toys live in a shoe box that I keep on the highest shelf in the playroom. For the past several weeks, Captain Jelly Belly has asked for the box and I let him play with the stuff if he sits at the table and keeps it all out of reach of Little Miss Sunshine. The Captain is really excited about the Lego aspect and has built all manner of cars, space ships, and racing vehicles for the little action figures. He likes to play with his toys in some sort of context so he’s been asking a lot of questions about who the people are — their names, what their powers are, what the little light-sword things are for, that sort of thing.

One day last week the Captain was home sick with a bad cold. Gal Smiley was at school and the Little Miss was napping. CJB was playing with the Star Wars toys, as usual, so I thought, what the hell, it’s time. Let’s get out the DVD.

I had a few moments debate — should I start him on Episode IV, A New Hope, or Episode 1, The Phanom Menace? Like all true fans, it’s A New Hope that I worship, but there’s no denying that The Phantom Menace has real appeal to very young children, who can identify with the young Anakin and who love to play PodRacer. In the end though, I had to go with IV, since it’s the classic and besides, who can get enough of Han, Luke, and Leia? NOT ME, that’s who.

It was kind of important to me that the Captain like the movie. I mean, it’s not like I would send him back to the baby store or anything, but if he really didn’t like it at all, I would have to question his genetic background.

And the viewing itself went pretty well. I’ve seen it so many times that every scene is a great scene, a CLASSIC, as far as I’m concerned, but seeing it through his eyes reminded me how slow-moving and political it is at the beginning. Things don’t really pick up until Han, Luke, and Leia wind up in the trash compactor, and up until that point, I basically had to bribe the Captain to remain on the couch with chips and a juice box.

He really did like that trash compactor scene, though. Later, he cried a little bit when Obiwan vanished, but then he really liked the idea that he lived on as some sort of ghost-dad to Luke. (An idea that will probably screw him up for life, but for now, we can both live with it.)

He was very excited when Han returned to help Luke out.

Now he likes to pretend to be Luke, while Gal Smiley gets to be Leia (so fitting!). He likes my Star Wars Lego even more than before.

He’s already asking if we can watch it again.

That’s my boy.