Chewbacca Was a Fuzzy Little Bear

The children recently watched Star Wars again, and it brought me back to the first time they saw the DVD. Jessica was just five at the time. She couldn't begin to follow the plot, but the music entranced her.

Some recollections:

• Whenever another character mentioned Leia, Jessica would cry out “Where's the princess?” “There!” Nathaniel would say, exasperated, when Princess Leia was on screen. But to Jessica, whose idea of a princess involved glittering ball gowns, long gloves, and flowing hair, Princess Leia was unrecognizable. “Where?” she would persist.


• Remember Chewbacca, the towering, ape-like sidekick who cast aside pairs of stormtroopers effortlessly with the back of his huge arm? He talked in a strange, unearthly sound that must have seemed to Jessica like a cry of pain. Twice when he grunted, Jessica asked, “They didn't hurt the little fuzzy bear, did they?”


• Jessica also had trouble following the cuts and scene changes. After having seen Darth Vader in one scene on the rebel spaceship and in another on his own bridge, she saw him in a third location. She threw up her hands and sighed dramatically. “Another Dark Vader? There are Dark Vaders everywhere!”