The Force Awakens IS the Star Wars Movie You're Looking For

Movie Viewed: Star Wars The Force Awakens

Moviegoers: Dude, 40; Mrs. Dude, 40; Little Dude, 6 & Littler Dude, 3

Family Fave Flicks: Beyond the original Star Wars films, some of our favorites to watch together are Toy Story, The Lion King, Despicable Me and most other modern animation flicks.

Fave movies for grown-ups: The Dude’s Faves (that the kids aren’t ready for): Bull Durham, Goodfellas & Old School

What’s the story: A few decades have passed since Luke Skywalker and the Rebels defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi and a new band of enemies have arisen in the galaxy. The First Order is led by the mysteriously masked Kylo Ren and their mission is to find the now-in-hiding last remaining Jedi Luke Skywalker. Thanks to some old friends and SW-universe newcomers like the rugged scavenger Rey, conflicted Stormtrooper Finn, fighter pilot Poe and next-gen droid BB-8, the battle to defeat the First Order and Kylo Ren has begun.

My group of Star Wars aficionados loved the 3-D effects, updated lightsaber battles and, of course, the lovable BB-8, heir apparent to the iconic R2-D2. My 6 year old was on the edge of his seat for most of the 2+ hours from the opening scroll until the final familiar theme outro. This is definitely the movie Star Wars fans have been looking for and it will leave you yearning for Episode VIII, due in May 2017.

What parents may like about this movie: As a big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, I appreciated the way this film quickly led us into a totally refreshed universe of exciting new heroes. It was wonderful to see both male and female positive role models that all kids can relate to. The classic Star Wars dilemma of good vs. evil was present, but it’s not too deep to be off-putting to a younger audience and will hopefully be thought provoking and a dialogue starter for older kids/tweens/teens.

What kids will like: BB-8, no question. My boys loved the movie as a whole, but BB-8 was the real deal for them, aided in part by being so familiar with him in advance from the trailers and retail toy departments.

Concerns: This was definitely a much more graphic Star Wars film than all of the previous iterations, except possibly Episode III, containing some epic battle sequences, however, true gore was virtually nonexistent. Intensity might be a concern for some younger kids, or those who haven’t been exposed to other films in the series, so one trick I like to implement before seeing movies that might contain is reinforcing with my kids that what they see on the screen is all pretend.  Humanizing the experience for them seems to help ease any concerns they might have during intense scenes.

Bottom Line: Movie elements ranked on a scale from 1-5, with 1/5 being the least and 5/5 being the highest.

Positive themes: The movie featured several key characters seeking to conquer various hardships without necessarily knowing why they were in those positions. There were also friendships forged among characters who might otherwise have not been connected if not for these adverse conditions. (5/5)

Violence/scare factor: There was a fair amount of violence in this film, though a majority of it was Stormtroopers using their laser blasters so it mostly looks like people getting knocked over. However, for the first time I can remember in a Star Wars film there was a little visible blood (albeit briefly) during one battle scene. Beyond that there was a large monster that captured a character and some other intense scenes involving essentially hand-to-hand combat. There was also a brief dream sequence which was both trippy and surprisingly intense. (3/5)

Sex/Romance: None. Two former paramours briefly embraced and there appeared to be another budding romance, but no action was taken. (0/5)

Bad language: None. Not even anyone being called a half-witted scruffy looking nerf herder. (0/5)

 

Another parent’s view: Click here for a Fandango mom’s take and another Mom's Movie Minute

Final thought: My wife, who had never seen a single Star Wars movie until we started watching them with the boys less than six months ago, said this just after our screening ended: “I really think we need to see it again, there are so many details I want to rewatch!” Enough said.

This post was written as part of my partnership with Fandango's Fandango Family team. I was compensated for this post, but the opinions contained within are entirely mine and my family's, for better or worse and light side or dark.

Spoiler Alert: If you aren't following @DudeOfTheHouse on Instagram, you might as well go pick up some power converters at Tosche Station.  

My Ultimate Cure for the Babysitter Blues

The first time Mrs. Dude and I left the Little Dude with a babysitter was on our 3^rd wedding anniversary. He was almost 8 months old and a friend offered to relieve us for a quiet and diaper-less night out. Long story short, he was asleep for the night before she arrived, we went out and had a lovely meal and upon our return learned that he’d woken up 30 minutes after we’d left and proceeded to cry for the next 2 hours until we got home. That evening pretty much set the tone for almost all of our subsequent babysitting experiences. 

From my experience, in addition to being conscientious caregivers, most sitters we’ve used have been generally at least 1 of 2 things: expensive and/or late, both of which are more environmental issues than anything else.  For those reasons, among others, we don’t splurge on babysitters as often as we might like and usually reserve them for special occasions.

For our recent wedding anniversary, which was also the 5^th anniversary of the experience mentioned above, I decided to spin the wheel again. This year, our big day fell on a Tuesday, which further complicated things as reliable, and available, weekday sitters are infinitely harder to find.

As we’d just gone out for a nice dinner a few weeks earlier for Mrs. Dude’s big birthday, I came up with another idea for our anniversary: a night at the movies. I know that may sound a tad pedestrian, but it had been quite a while since Mrs. Dude and I had been to a movie without the boys, so I splurged and picked a movie at a fancy theater with reserved leather-recliner seats where they serve dinner while you eat!

We’ve gotten used to going to movies and seeing somewhere between 50-90% of the film due to kids’ myriad bathroom breaks, snack requests and questions about what’s happening onscreen, so this time it was going to be feet-up, 3D glasses on our eyes and plates of hot noms in front of us. My biggest concern was our sitter. Not that I don’t inherently trust her to treat my children as her own, but would she be able to successfully battle the L.A. freeways to get to us with enough time for us to make it to the theater?

Thankfully, I could relax due to Fandango’s worry-free ticketing system. I booked our tickets and picked our primo seats via the Fandango mobile app, as always, so I knew we weren’t going to be shut out at the box office or stuck in the front row craning our necks to see the dinosaurs flying toward us. But sometimes life happens and your babysitter gets stuck in traffic, or their grandmother dies or the dog eats their homework and you can’t make your movie. Fandango takes care of that for you, too, with their Worry-Free option to return or exchange your Fandango tickets at least 2 hours before show time if you change your mind or if your babysitter changes theirs.

So how’d it go? As I’d planned (and prayed), our sitter arrived promptly, we got to the theater 5 minutes before the lights dimmed which was enough time to order drinks and dinner, leaned our dead-center seats back with our feet up and enjoyed an uninterrupted night at the theater. Plus, I can’t forget the gold star for our sitter who reported two sleeping boys and zero tears when we returned home a few hours later.

Needless to say, we fared much better than the dinosaurs we’d just watched onscreen.

Disclaimer: I wrote this post as part of my participation in the Fandango Family Digital Network. I was compensated for this post, but all content and opinions contained within are mine entirely, for better or worse. Come hang with the FF team on Facebook, too. 

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5 Things I Learned about Parenting from Star Wars

Spoiler Alert: There are key Star Wars plot points inside this piece. I shouldn’t need to warn anyone, as the original movies were all released 30+ years ago, so if you haven’t seen them and are shocked by any revelations here, that’s on you.

During both of Mrs. Dude’s pregnancies I received suggestions of must-read pregnancy and parenting books from more than a few people I knew and myriad more that I didn’t. I did explore a couple, partially to pacify those who had shared their recommendations and also, more frequently, to help me fall asleep on those I-can’t-freakin’-do-this pre-delivery sleepless nights.

But there is another source of parenting tips I’ve reflected upon countless times over the last 5+ years since the Little Dude was born. And now, with Father’s Day once again upon us, I want to share with you some of the great parenting dos and don’ts I learned from one of the most infamous movie fathers of all time, Darth Vader.

1) Be present for, and with, your children: As Vader was pretty much a deadbeat dad, albeit for very atypical reasons, his son was lucky to have his old man’s former mentor (aka Obi-Wan Kenobi) looking out for him during his most impressionable period. Sure, being raised on a farm in Tatooine by his father’s stepbrother Owen was probably not nearly as exciting as a childhood spent roaming the Death Star, but Luke received a good education (also from Mr. Kenobi), had a large outdoor area for playtime and ultimately proved to be a high moral character Jedi…despite his father’s best/worst/completely nonexistent efforts.

2) Don’t give your kids trendy names: Luke & Leia were excellent choices given their time and place in history. Context and family history are important, but when selecting names for your children, consider that they are the ones who will have to live with them for the rest of their lives, and it’s got to be difficult to be taken seriously in a professional workplace with a first name like Boba, Qui-Gon or Jar Jar.

3) Support & encourage your children’s interests: Luke was a skilled farmer thanks to his uncle’s tutelage, but he always yearned for something more than a normal (i.e. boring) desert life.  If not for Obi-Wan and Yoda, both of whom were contemporaries of Luke’s father, Luke might not have achieved his true destiny as a Jedi Knight. As it turned out, Luke was probably subconsciously hoping to earn his father’s respect, or at least attention, when he trained to become a skilled Lightsaber user. I doubt either of them anticipated how that one was going to turn out.

If only Vader had used his Lightsaber for dental hygiene instead of evil.

4) Use Your Words: In both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, father and son Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader were brought together via one-on-one physical combat. They shared a common dearth of quality time together, so it might have behooved them and their nonexistent relationship to air their grievances (i.e. Luke about his abandonment and Vader over his son’s refusal to join the family business and join him over on the Dark Side). When children are not mature enough to fully express themselves as they wish, they often resort to hitting, hair pulling or other physical actions and reactions as a method of communicating a message or getting the response and/or attention they truly crave. “Use Your Words” is teaching them that verbal communication is a more effective method for earning a desired outcome. Had Vader been a stronger communicator with better grasp of his emotions, he might have been able to convince his son to join him in the family business. Does it matter that said business was less than legit? Not really, after all, family is family.

5) Don’t Be a Jerk: Vader sliced his son’s hand off with a Lightsaber AND THEN finally revealed that he was Luke’s father. It’s well known that children learn both positive and negative behaviors from observing their parents’ habits and actions. Vader shouldn’t have been surprised when after forcefully removing Luke’s limb in the heat of battle, that Luke returned a year later and did the same exact thing to him. Darth should have considered the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, which Luke obviously took quite literally.

All of the above being said, the Star Wars saga is about family, relationships and dealing with others you may not see eye to eye with. There will always be issues up for debate (maybe Luke should have listened to his father and joined the Dark Side, with the goal of turning everyone good again?) but maintaining open lines of communication can help clear murky things up. I haven’t shown the Star Wars films to my son yet, but I think he may soon be due. After all, I know I can hardly wait for Part VII, aka The Force Awakens, which will be released later this year, on December 18!. Maybe we’ll find out if Luke settled down and had a family of his own. I’m hoping he taught his own son a lesson or two, unlike his father ever did for him.

Happy Father’s Day and May the Force be with you.

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Disclaimer: I wrote this post as part of my participation in the Fandango Family Digital Network. I was compensated accordingly, but all content and opinions contained within are mine entirely, for better or worse. Come hang with the FF team on Facebook, too. 

Want to take that special person in your life to see some movies, care of Fandango? Enter below for your chance to win a $100 Fandango Gift Card that you can use to take the fam to see something great this summer! You have up to 5 chances to enter and the entries will close Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 12:00am PST (midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning). 

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How the New Annie Movie Inspired Me as a Parent

There’s a scene early in the upcoming reimagining of the classic musical Annie, where Annie (played by Quvenzhane Wallis) responds to a friend wishing her good luck with “luck is for suckers”. From that moment forward, this spunky electric-haired 10-year-old girl had my attention, for it’s obvious that this Annie was wise beyond her years.

The Junior Dudes and me checking out the "Annie" cast. 

Abandoned while very young by her desperate parents, Annie was forced into survival mode early on. Now living in foster care with a handful of other girls in the home of the bitter Miss Hannigan, Annie longs for a reunion with her birth family but in the interim she manages to create something potentially more valuable with her similarly parentless foster sisters: a family of choice.

When my wife and I were engaged we took a course on preparing for marriage. The one message from that class which still occupies space in my brain so many years later is the concept of “family of origin and family of choice”. In context, we learned that the family you choose (in our case, by marriage) should become your priority in life. Everyone’s familial situations are different and sometimes in life we gravitate toward people who become like family, even if not related by blood. Not to diminish the importance of family of origin (i.e. birth family, or whoever raised you), but the families we choose can become more meaningful on a deeper level because they derive from free will.

Lumped together circumstantially, Miss Hannigan’s girls realize they have a “Hard Knock Life”, and some are quite bitter about it. But while Annie attempts to change their way of thinking, she’s constantly working every angle to improve her own situation with the ultimate goal of finding her family.

Throughout the movie, Annie proves to be an eternal optimist in the face of adversity. She doesn’t get hung up on lingering obstacles, like the kind which trip up many adults (like Cameron Diaz’s Miss Hannigan does), and not only strives to make a better situation for herself, but it is part of her credo: “The sun’ll come out tomorrow”, meaning good things are just around the corner for those who think positively.  

Family is something that many people take for granted. It’s easy amid our hectic and exhausting daily lives to overlook the big picture of how important family really is.  As the father of two young boys, my primary objective is to ensure they are safe and secure while I’m with them and, maybe even more importantly, when I’m not. I also hope that they are not only willing, but eager, to help each other as they grow up. Though they are not family by choice, like Annie and her sisters, I hope they choose to make each other a priority.

Annie’s longing for her family of origin indirectly leads her literally from the poorhouse to the penthouse. When she’s temporarily taken in by gazillionaire Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), this little girl whose own family history is fractured makes it her mission to teach the lonely Mr. Stacks what family truly means. The irony is she’s never really known a traditional family, yet seems to excel at the nuances involved with one.

The Littler Dude and Sandy. She won't bite. 

I didn’t know how my 2 and 5 year old sons, who had only seen animated features previously, would react to a movie like Annie. So when we were invited to an advance screening I was curious if amid the lively music and cute dog, the subtle messages conveyed in this film would stick with them. It’s obviously too early to tell, but I do know that they were literally dancing in the aisles to several of the songs during the film, none of which they’d ever heard before.

Annie presents an interesting take on today’s ever-increasing modern families, so I’m glad my boys were exposed to the positive messages of optimism, perseverance and family, which are all ideals I strive to teach them on a daily basis. Plus, as an added bonus, I still can’t get “Hard Knock Life” out of my head.

Annie will be in theaters on December 19^th.

The Junior Dudes and the cast. 

I was compensated for this post and invited with my family to an advance screening of the film. All opinions and ideas expressed in this post are solely mine, for better or worse. 

All images contained in this post are the sole property of Dude of the House and may not be copied, used or reproduced without permission. 

The Junior Dudes' First Movie

For the last few months, Mrs. Dude and I have discussed finally taking our 3.5 year old Little Dude to see his first movie in a theater. But with a newborn around, scheduling has proven tricky and frankly we just never made time. Though he loves movies, watching at home informally encourages him to take extended breaks during movie time. That contributed to my reluctance to take him. After all, taking a family to the movies is not cheap so I’d rather not drop $50 to see half of one.  So when I was invited by Target to go to the Red Carpet Hollywood Premiere of Disney’s Planes with my family, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

The Little Dude is an animation aficionado, having seen the Toy Story and Cars movies at least 50 times each. And ever since he first spotted a display of Planes toys at Target a few weeks ago, he’s become obsessed with the characters of a movie he didn’t even know existed.  To ensure he was familiar in advance, the rad crew at Target sent over a box of Planes gear for both Junior Dudes to enjoy before the event:

We headed to Hollywood earlier this week for the premiere at the legendary El Capitan Theater. Just like at the Oscars, which are held across the street, this was a high fashion event, so the Little Dude wore Dusty Crophopper and his brother was dressed in El Chupacabra.

Hollywood Boulevard was blocked off and decorated with the traditional red carpet, albeit with lines like you’d see on an airport’s runway.

Once we entered the Target Landing Zone for the pre-show party, my boys were overwhelmed by the carnival of fun that stood before them.

We surveyed the scene and went booth-to-booth, where the Little Dude got to play aerial-themed games and win awesome prizes from Target’s Planes collection. He went “Fly” Fishing:

Played The Claw game, (which he knew from Toy Story):

And took aim at a Balloon Pop:

There were plenty of snacks and drinks for everyone, including some cool Jamba Juice kids’ drinks and sliders so good that I ate 3. OK, 4. I meant 5. 

The sun was beating down, but luckily there were some cool spots to check out the complete Target Planes collection. I had to literally pry the Little Dude away from there a couple times so he could enjoy more of the party, though he would have been content starting at the scooters, toys, etc. for the duration of the event.

Our 10-month-old Littler Dude was along for the ride and had a great time with a Dusty Crophopper fan that someone handed him on the way in. He clutched it tight for 2 hours, as though it were the law.

Then it was time for the main event. We made our way into the theater, not knowing how either of our boys would sustain for the duration of the 90 minute flick. Once the house lights went down and the 3-D glasses went on, all four of us were quickly caught up in the tale of Dusty Crophopper, an underdog cropduster plane with a big dream of participating in an around the world speed race. If you don’t know much about planes, this would be like someone driving a 1972 Ford Pinto entering the Indy 500. But Dusty is determined and through hard work, and assistance from his neighbor, a retired jet fighter named Skipper, Dusty qualifies for the race. Along the way, he meets planes from around the world, like El Chupacabra, a Mexican plane desperately trying to both win the race and find a mate. El Chu and Dusty help each other while challenging the evil defending champion plane Ripslinger for the world title.

Planes is a light film that will appeal to most kids. Its tagline is “from the world above Cars”, which is explains why the visual styling of the film is strongly resembles both Cars movies.  The premise of Planes also appears to be a hybrid of the two Cars movies, featuring the naïve youngster, the crusty older mentor, and a big race featuring international opponents.

You might be wondering, how the Junior Dudes fared during the film. The Littler Dude sat through about half before needing to go into the lobby to crawl around. His older brother, however, was literally on the edge of his seat for 90 minutes, totally enthralled by the action before him.  Overall, it was a great day. The only issue is that no matter what we take them to see next, they will invariably be looking for the red carpet, games, food and endless toys that made up our wonderful Planes experience.

What's your favorite animated movie? Do you plan to see Planes? 

Thanks to Target for providing an assortment of Planes gear, as well as entrance to the party and screening. All opinions expressed within this post are mine, for better or worse.  I was compensated in kind in exchange for this review. My kids are thrilled.