Should my 7 year old see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith?

As I have commented before, images can be and are extremely powerful influences on our minds, and we likely underestimate both the power and lasting impact of many images on our subconscious as well as conscious thought lives. This is supported from scientific/physiological, theological, and experiential perspectives.

Expectations can play a major role in shaping how we are affected as individuals by potentially traumatic events, however, and this is an important consideration as we get closer to the May 19th release date for Episode III. One of my favorite stories dramatizing this came from Stephen Glenn, author of “Raising Self Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World,” who wrote about a classroom experiment involving a rubber snake. One class of students was counseled in advance that in about 10 minutes, a prankster was going to throw a rubber snake into the classroom– but it would be harmless, and they should just ignore it. The students in the other classroom were given no advance warning or preparatory counseling. As you might expect, their reactions and experiences were quite different: students in the first class were mildly distracted by the event for a brief time, but students in the second class were traumatized to the point where the event likely left a major, lasting, negative impression on their minds. Same rubber snake, but different initial conditions and perceptions going into the event. As Qui Gon Jinn wisely commented in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, “Your focus determines your reality.” Another way of saying this is, “perceptions define reality.” Change perceptions, and you literally change the world, at least in the experiences of those whose perceptions have been altered.

We are reading the book version of “Revenge of the Sith” at home, and this has been a great experience. I do think that reading the book, discussing the events, and preparing mentally for what is going to happen in the film to Anakin is going to play a major role in helping my 7 year old sort out and deal with both the content and the images of the film. I do not have scientific research to back this up, but I think such advance preparation will make the film far less likely to have a major negative impact on his life: like giving him nightmares afterwards. Time will tell I guess.

My 4 year old is definitely not going to see the movie at this point. I know many parents who took their young children to see the Lord of the Rings movies, and perhaps they did some advance reading and discussion to get ready for those experiences. Both my wife and I have been in strong agreement that the themes and images (especially the images) of the LOTR movie trilogy are far too scary and real for our children at this point to watch. I have not decided when that “right time” will be in the future, but I am sure this is an issue which we will continue to discuss and wrestle with.

The bottom line for us now is this: Scott’s “Parent’s Guide to Revenge of the Sith” supports what we had already decided to do when the movie comes out: go out and see it ourselves first, and use that experience to help decide if our oldest child should see the film now in the theaters, and if so, under what conditions (will we hide eyes for part of it, leave the theater at some point, etc.) As I wrote about last week in my educational technology blog, the new law signed by President Bush at the end of April should open the door for companies like ClearPlay to help families like ours watching movies at home on DVD skip specific parts of the movie we don’t want our children (or possibly ourselves) to see, in a way that is much more specific, limited, and powerful that what you can do now by simply skipping an entire chapter in a DVD. I am enthused that law has passed and those types of family-friendly technologies will be allowed to legally develop further in the US.

Some other great resources are coming out that can help guide the decisions of parents on this, including a new Time magazine interview article with George Lucas himself. I have this link as well as others available on http://del.icio.us/wfryer/StarWars. I have started using the “social bookmarks service” of http://del.icio.us to post all my web favorities/bookmarks– both for my own use and the use of others who are interested. The service is free and even RSS friendly!