My son is 5. He and I have been watching Star Wars together. I have been choosing the movies and the order in which we watch them and my wife unintentionally sabotaged my efforts and it caused a quarrel.

Before I begin, I have been waiting for a son to watch Star Wars with for a long long time. I had the order picked out way before he was even born.

So,
We have been watching Star Wars in this order:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Rogue One
Episode 4 - we got halfway when the story got broken up.
We had to postpone Episode 4 due to bed time. I wake up the next morning (Saturday) to find my son watching some Star Wars cartoon that I have never heard of before. Yoda is training a bunch of young jedi and they fly off on adventures.

I asked my son to stop watching and I explained why. My wife interrupted with "It's just a cartoon and you just hate Disney." True, I do hate Disney but now the story is all out of whack.

My son says: I thought Yoda and Obi-Wan were in hiding from Darth Vader. I said they are. My son then asks why is Yoda training these kids and how come they are not in the movies.

My wife just doesn't get it. She thinks I am upset because of the Disney cartoon and doesn't believe me that I have been looking forward to this experience and I had it all planned.

Finally, I think we are going to continue with the movies and then afterwards if he wants, he can go to the cartoon.

I should have told my wife of my plans beforehand, but still.

You wanna make God laugh?

Tell him your plans.

I'm hoping this isn't a serious question.

Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Forget anything else.

My Son and I watched these many times.

I'm impressed you got to sleep in.. take the win

He's 5 and he's just glad to be watching Star Wars with his Dad, don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. You aren't splitting the atom here.

We've started to allow our boys to watch Star Wars too and we have gotten through ROTJ I think but I'm not going to get all worked up if stuff starts getting watched out of order and yes they have seen the cartoons too which messes with the canon of the movies.

Hi, Star Wars fan here.

You're worked up about nothing. Seriously. He's five, you're going to re-watch this stuff with him in five years and it's going to all be brand new to him. How do I know? I'm watching through Bad Batch with my son, and he didn't remember anything of the movies until we started with Ep 1, Ep 2, then did all of Clone Wars, then Ep 3.

Chill.

Much ado about nothing. Seriously, don’t discuss with your son how Mommy messed up your Star Wars sequencing philosophy or you may start him down the road to becoming a lifelong male Karen!

If the discussion occurred before watching any of them, then I could see the POV that it does not matter the order for the sake of watching, but I do understand the logic of the chronological order vs the way they were presented to a 5 year old. Being older and more able to comprehend "in medias res" story telling, I prefer the order as it occurred.

However, since you had started in chronological timeline, and should I have stepped in and injected a cartoon/movie out of the sequence and you pointed it out, I would have understood and not pressed the issue.\

"May with be Force you the!"

My kids are 7 and 9. We basically went through your whole planned viewing.

Do you think they kept the story straight?

I think he will be fine.

I started my now 24 year old son on Star Wars at about that age. Of course, this was pre Disney. Some of the stuff got out of order. Part of the fun of it was talking about the lore and the canon and nerding out about the timeline and stuff in between the movies.
He is still a fan today and we still nerd out over it sometimes.

Synopsis: don’t sweat the details right now, keep it light and fun.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
He's 5 and he's just glad to be watching Star Wars with his Dad, don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. You aren't splitting the atom here.

This. Be glad this is the biggest thing you have to deal with today with your son. Enjoy it. And pray someday that you don't look fondly back to this day and wish you can escape to this time.

Did your wife know of your plans beforehand? From your posts, it seems not.

^OP's last sentence says he didn't?

HOLY CRAP BATMAN!....That's all I have to say about that.

quote:

Originally posted by xd45man:
My son says: I thought Yoda and Obi-Wan were in hiding from Darth Vader. I said they are. My son then asks why is Yoda training these kids and how come they are not in the movies.

This sums everything up right here. xd45man had carefully planned out his son's education and his wife blew it all to hell.

Careful, xd45man, your wife is probably secretly showing your son Disney Avenger series shows behind your back. Wait until you try to put those movies in some semblance of order.

Now I realize that many may be thinking I am joking. but take a moment think about the time in school when you were learning about literary classics in English class. The reason they were "classics" was because of the profound impact they had on culture and society then as well as now. Whether you like them or hate them, movies like Star Wars and Avengers are our modern day classics. Think about the number of times you have seen references to these things by the press, by political candidates and in other movies. Hell, I'm sure if you really started to look at it you would find that a lot of the plots for Star Wars and Avengers were pulled from earlier classics. So having a grasp of these movies can help you have a leg up in understanding our history and culture.

I hope you eased up on your wife. In the big scheme of things, this is small potatoes. Particularly since she didn’t know your plans.
Clear communication is key in a marriage and when raising a child together.
We all have plans and hopes for our kids to experience the wonder that we felt during certain moments in our lives. Share that with your wife, and maybe she’ll “get it”.

5 years old might be slightly young to remember or appreciate the series in the long run; my kid was barely sitting through 1/2 hr episodes of cartoons at that age, much less movies with dialogue and plot twists!

My daughter was watching the original Star Wars trilogy with me while she was still in diapers, and still loves it to this day (turns 25 next week). Those are the only 3 movies that count to me... you can keep the rest. And no cartoon versions either!

If this is the worst thing you fight with your wife about, you're a lucky man.

At 5 it’s just chilling with dad. Enjoy it because he is. I took my oldest son to see Rush when he was that age. He wanted to leave after the first set. We did. It’s still one of the best memories for both of us. Enjoy the time.

I get it.

This is something you have always dreamed about. Sharing Star Wars with your son. For some maybe its watching the Superbowl with a son, for a mom picking out a prom dress for a daughter, etc.

Its an experience he had been looking forward to his whole life. Is it the end of the world? No. But its a bummer, A bonding experience he had been planning in his head forever.

Explain to your wife why it meant that much to you. He's only 5 though and ill bet he just loves watching star wars with dad no matter what. Its not exactly what you planned but it still can be the experience you want.

I also couldn't wait to share Star Wars with a son...and he turned into a Trekkie. Sigh....

But I learned to love Trek.. And he does enjoy Star Wars too.