It was bedtime, but five-year-old Rose wasn’t at all sleepy.
“Let’s talk about the first Star Wars movie!” she said, meaning A New Hope.
‘Okay,” I said, propping my eyes open. “Let’s talk about the first Star Wars movie. It starts with a battle–”
“No! It starts–” she made spittle-laced drumroll noises with her mouth, in imitation of the 20th Century Fox fanfare. “And then there’s music and lots and lots of letters.”
“Ah,” I said. “The Opening Expository Crawl. Yes. Every movie that begins with an opening expository crawl is bound to be awful except the Star Wars movies; they’re the only ones with an opening expository crawl that are worth watching. And then there’s… well, there’s sort of an outer space naval battle, and then the ship is boarded, and then the beautiful Princess Leia–”
Rose stared. “She is NOT beautiful!”
“She isn’t?” I asked.
“White is NOT a pretty color.”
“You mean her dress? But,” I pressed, with my tiresome parental habit of inserting a moral into every conversation, “Isn’t beauty more than clothing?”
Rose was jumping on the bed at this point, bouncing higher and higher with every emphatic statement. “Nothing goes with white, and nothing goes with black. So just never mind about her dress, never mind about the bottoms of her shoes! And never mind about Darth Vader! Never mind about his shirt, and never mind about his pants, and never mind about his plug-buttons. Nothing goes with gold either. So that’s three people in Star Wars nothing goes with. Never mind about her dress, never mind about the bottoms of her feet–”
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Never mind. So Princess Leia–”
“She has the hood of her dress over her head when she talks to the droids,” Rose went on. “And then she’s taken prisoner.”
“Right. And they say ‘tell Lord Vader we have a prisoner–‘”
Rose stopped bouncing. “And she says, ‘Darth Vader, you have a Finnish accent! How could you be so old? I’m a mummer on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.’ And Darth Vader points at her and says “You’re a member of the rebellion and a traitor! Take her away!”
“And they took her prisoner. Yes, that’s a very exciting scene. And at the ending of the movie there’s… there’s an award ceremony of sorts, isn’t there?”
Rose was genuinely surprised at my ignorance. “It’s a wedding.”
“A wedding?”
She stood on the bed, arms akimbo, indignant. “Of course, Mom. It’s a wedding.”
“But,” I pressed, “Leia gives Luke and Hahn medals, doesn’t she? They win gold medals. At the end of the movie.”
“Yes, at the wedding they win gold medals.”
“But why do you think it’s a wedding? Who does she marry?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said gravely. “But it’s a wedding.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
(image via Pixabay)
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