July 8, 2025 • 45 mins
Ever wondered if the Force could help with… algebra? (Spoiler Alert: It probably cant!) Join us this week as we chat with Craig Dickinson of Reading Between the Reels.
Craig shares hilarious and insightful stories of how Star Wars wormed its way into his heart as a kid – remember being four and utterly bewildered by Vader's big reveal? – and how he now uses it to conquer the classroom.
Forget boring textbooks! Craig, a board-certified teacher, treats Star Wars like a literary masterpiece, diving deep into narrative structure and cinematography. Think novel study, but with lightsabers!
He reveals how active viewing and dissecting character motivations turn even the most reluctant students into Jedi Masters of analysis.
But the saga doesn't end in the classroom. Craig also opens up about introducing Star Wars to his own kids – a mission that started with sequel trilogy excitement but has since… well, let’s just say the Force isn't always strong with the younger generation. Can he reignite their passion with the originals?
Plus, they explore the incredible Star Wars community, the power of shared fandom, and Craig's top tips for sharing your love of a galaxy far, far away with your kids without turning into a Sith Lord of forced enthusiasm.
Get ready for laughs, insights, and maybe even a little homework inspiration! For more from Craig, check out Reading Between the Reels and don't forget to follow Tatooine Sons for all your Star Wars Dad insights!
Looking for more episodes? https://podfollow.com/tatooine-sons-a-pop-culture-podcast/home
Join our Facebook Community SPECIFICALLY for Star Wars Dads! > https://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarsdads
Craig shares hilarious and insightful stories of how Star Wars wormed its way into his heart as a kid – remember being four and utterly bewildered by Vader's big reveal? – and how he now uses it to conquer the classroom.
Forget boring textbooks! Craig, a board-certified teacher, treats Star Wars like a literary masterpiece, diving deep into narrative structure and cinematography. Think novel study, but with lightsabers!
He reveals how active viewing and dissecting character motivations turn even the most reluctant students into Jedi Masters of analysis.
But the saga doesn't end in the classroom. Craig also opens up about introducing Star Wars to his own kids – a mission that started with sequel trilogy excitement but has since… well, let’s just say the Force isn't always strong with the younger generation. Can he reignite their passion with the originals?
Plus, they explore the incredible Star Wars community, the power of shared fandom, and Craig's top tips for sharing your love of a galaxy far, far away with your kids without turning into a Sith Lord of forced enthusiasm.
Get ready for laughs, insights, and maybe even a little homework inspiration! For more from Craig, check out Reading Between the Reels and don't forget to follow Tatooine Sons for all your Star Wars Dad insights!
Looking for more episodes? https://podfollow.com/tatooine-sons-a-pop-culture-podcast/home
Join our Facebook Community SPECIFICALLY for Star Wars Dads! > https://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarsdads
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So imagine being such a Star Wars nerd that you
have built an entire curriculum off of a galaxy far
far away, and you use this to teach middle schoolers
about literature and storytale telling, but meanwhile, your own kids
really just aren't all that into Star Wars. In this
week's episode, I am actually hanging out with Craig Dickinson
(00:22):
from Reading Between the Reels, and this guy is a
Jedi master when it comes to turning Star Wars into
a super effective teaching tool. He has figured out how
to use those epic storylines and unforgettable characters to grab
even the most literature a verse kids' attention. He's turning
(00:43):
Shakespeare and narrative structure into something as thrilling as a
lightsaber battle. Maybe let's be real about it. But anyway,
at the same time, his own kids have basically moved
on from Star Wars. They aren't nearly as into it
as he is. What's that like for Craig. We'll be
(01:04):
diving into the tricky bits of introducing this galaxy far
far away to a new generation and how to keep
that Star Wars magic alive. So expect some laughs, some
aha moments, maybe a fresh way to think about sharing
your love of literature. Oh, thanks to the Force. Get
(01:25):
ready to use the Force for good and maybe even
for homework. This is Tatooine Sons.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Welcome to Tatooine's Sons, a Star Wars podcast, the only
fan podcast to name a Cannon Star Wars creature and
to be endorsed by the writer and director of The
Last Jedi, Ryan Johnson. Get ready to explore a galaxy far,
far away across the generations. Here is your host, David
(01:55):
the bow Tie Jedi Guy, along with his special guest,
the host off reading but between the reels, Craig Dickinson.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
For a lot of us dads, Star Wars is our
first cinematic love. You saw Empire back in the theaters
at a really young age. What are you like, What
are your earliest memories of that experience. How do you
think seeing that on the big screen kind of shaped
your lifelong relationship with the Force.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Oh yeah, I was I was four, My brother was two,
and I can't imagine taking a four and a two
year old to any movie at this point. I remember
my parents being excited about it and say, Hey, we're
going to take you to this Star Wars movie, and
I didn't know what that was at all. And I
remember two things about the movie. I remember, I remember
the battle hof because I mean, that's just so epic
(02:49):
and there's just white everywhere. I remember the white more
than I do anything else. And I remember having some
very serious discussions as a four year old trying to
figure out how Darth Vader had died on on Dago
but and then came back later. So, I mean adults
struggle with that scene. Imagine, you know what happen Eddergarden
has children trying to figure this out. Was he a robot?
(03:09):
Shappen there? That's yeah, that was I was exactly the
right age. But by the time Jedi came out, I
mean it was end of my first grade year, and
had by that point collected the figures in the ships
and had seen the original film because they you know,
they re released them in the theaters. And I also
remember seeing a new Hope for the first time after
having seen Empire and wondering why these people didn't know
(03:31):
each other. That was a weird I remember very vividly,
like Luca Buddies, like, how does this.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Very Star Wars thing to do? To watch those out
of order, right right.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, and then like I said, Jedi came out at
the exact right time, and that's actually my favorite Star
Wars movie.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's awesome. So the Eoks were never an issue for
you because you were the right you were the demographic
for the Ewoks, it was, Yeah, I had a wicked
lunch pail, right yeah, I loved.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It, super excited. Love the whole Java sequence. Like yeah,
so yeah, as a kid, that was right in my wheelhouse.
The e Walk movies, you know, shortly after that, so yeah,
I know they would. They catered to us pretty hardcore
on that that demographic right there.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So that's funny. So Empire's the like of the trilogy,
the original trilogy. It's clearly the darkest of the of
the three movies with it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I mean, was.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Your like, did that impact the way that you'd Star
Wars or was it just something that because you're so little,
it was just fun for you and and you were
just kind of into the cool lightsaber battles and spaceships
and aliens and creatures and and then later on it's
kind of changed your pos your perspective as you grew
into this into the Sagamore.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Oh yeah, I mean I got the whole I am
your father moment that would have flown completely over my head.
I had no idea what that was. But I do
remember I remember not liking Orlando, like I think we
kind of just lived with it, you know, like I
don't even know if I saw it again before I
saw Jedi, but I remember knowing the story we had
the I do remember that, and I still have it somewhere,
(05:04):
the tape, you know, the audiobooks they used to do
back before home video was a big thing. So I
knew the story really really well, all the major beats
of that, so I'd listened to it. I knew that
that kind of group my knowledge of the story, so
I knew I knew the story. I was waiting for
his Darth Fitter, really his That was where I was at,
like is it really his dad? And I remember like,
(05:27):
Lando's a bad guy. I don't like him. He was
mean to his friends. That being a very strong, strongly
held opinion by little me. So it's funny how we
how we, you know, have these really intense memories of
these movies that we really only saw like the one
time because home video wasn't a thing, but eat, we
had the lived experience with the action figure.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Come out one forty five days after the movie exactors, right,
and you watch it on Disney Plus on boob right.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, but we talk about it, right, You talk about
it with your friends, and so you kind of recreate
did those those moments in that way?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah? I didn't see any of the original trilogy in
theaters until the special editions because oh wow, my family
just didn't go to movies. It's funny, I joke. People
ask me all the time, what was my first movie
in the theaters? It was Star Trek the Motion Picture
on Christmas Day in nineteen seventy nine, which is probably
why I'm a Star Wars fan. That was doing that
(06:23):
was a weird first experience in the theater, sure, as
a four year old, but yeah, I mean Star Wars
for me was the books that I got from the library,
you know, and check. I would check them out repeatedly,
over and over again. Right, And I remember and watching
it on HBO. Sorry, like I remember a New Hope
(06:45):
a Star Wars before being on HBO, And I'm watching
that over and over and over and over and over
and over again. Falling asleep during the Tattooine scenes and
then waking up later with it. That was my That
was my Star Wars experience. But and I clearly remember
my friends down the street taking getting a copy. I
(07:06):
don't remember how they got it was before I saw Empire.
They they got a copy of Empire that they recorded
or got a vha. I don't remember where they found it.
It musn't been on TV or something, and they recorded
it and we and watching and them watching me watch
that I Am your father because I hadn't I didn't
know it. I didn't know the scene. And so that
them like sitting there waiting for me to react to
(07:30):
that scene and then getting the books of Return of
the Jedi and reading it. But then all of a
sudden for me they had told I had I had
it in my head that Anakiin was like a twin
brother of Darth Vader. And I mean I had this
old mythology around Star Wars that didn't exist from playing
with my friends, right, because we would play Star Wars
(07:50):
in the backyard with broomsticks, like everybody you know, a
broomboy was was our life with it and make up
our own mythologies and our own characters and and all
that kind of stuff. And you're like, I mean, Star
Wars and a mythology is a big part of your
world because of what you guys do in the classroom
and and and all that. Your your board certified teacher
and all of that. Give me a peek into how
(08:13):
you use Star Wars a galaxy far far away with
your your students and your curriculum and the projects that
you do with that.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Sure, So the the shorthand way of explaining it is,
I treat it like it's a novel study. And that's
kind of how I have to because I've had to
justify it over the years. Like you guys are just
watching movies or what have you. It's like, no, we're
doing a serious deep dive into not only the narrative
aspects of the of these stories, but I also have
(08:42):
throughout the year I kind of see it in lots
of video in my class anyway, Like we watch a
couple of Twilight Zones early on, looking at for plot
and theme and things like that. Uh, and then when
we do act, we like we read The Hunger Games
and then I watched the movie and we pull out
That's where I begin to teach them some cinematography things
about camera angles and some things like lightmotif with music
and stuff, and then we do another movie later and
(09:03):
I talk about performances and set design stuff, so that
when we get to Star Wars, it's like, hey, we've
already done each of these skills independently. Now we're going
to do them all together. And they rotate through so
they don't have to do everything at once because there's
just too much going on. But it's basically a review
of all the things we've done throughout the year, and
then they rotate through each you know, every day, like
(09:25):
one group's looking at cinematography, one's looking at sound, and
then but there's also we have narrative questions at the beginning,
open ended things, and open ended questions at the end,
and they get invested. And it's hilarious because every year,
you know, oh, I've seen Star Wars one hundred times.
I don't care like yip, but you haven't watched it
with me, Or I no, Star Wars is dumb, I
don't want to watch it. You haven't watched it with
me yet, And it depends. Most of the time, it's
(09:49):
not because we end with the order. It's important thing too.
We do a lot of them haven't watched in the order,
So we do episode four, because you should always start
with us episode four, and naturally episode five, and then
the Vader your Father thing happens, and then we go
let's talk about how that happened, and then we go
back in time and we go one, two, and three,
and then finish with Return of the Jedi. So usually
(10:13):
Empire about halfway through is when I get a lot
of kids suddenly involved because they've seen most have seen
episode four, but we have the Han and Leier romance,
which gets some of them. Yoda shows up and he's hilarious,
and that grabs him. But what I've seen recently is
some kids will still be bored through that. They're just doing,
you know, going through the motions. But we get to
episode one and Jarjar picks up a lot of kids,
(10:38):
and then if that hasn't got them, we get to
episode two and it's usually most of the girls who
haven't wanted to watch this. Hayden Christensen, they're one hundred
percent in this year especially was like, oh he's so hot,
Like I've just heard repeatedly that was like I don't
care how you get invested. You know, this is like
(10:58):
a lot of what we're trying to do is like
build empathy because a lot of the you know, was
it okay to a lot of people first, you know,
for certain reasons to try and shield them from stuff.
That's one of the big questions we ask. But if
I just have to get you in the you're hooked
into the relationship aspect, I've still got you, and you're
still going to go in the journey and you're going
to see him fall and you're going to feel a
certain way about that. So yeah, that's that's kind of
(11:22):
that in a nutshell, a long nut shell, a big nutshell.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Why why why did you pick Star Wars to get
to kind of have those kinds of conversations?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So a couple of things. But I didn't start this
my first year. I didn't do I wasn't brave enough
to try and use Star Wars in the classroom because
you're just kind of like, you know, kind of white
knuckling it and you don't really know what you're doing, right.
And then my second year teaching, I think it was
in the fall honestly, when and I think I talked
to you a little bit about this off, Mike. I
(11:50):
saw Star Wars the Legacy revealed on the History Channel.
Watch that documentary like in a week, so like on
a Saturday, and I was just blown aw way by it.
I think, honestly, I think that's the first time I'd
ever heard about Joseph Campbell, right, maybe i'd heard about
it before, but like they explained everything and laid it out,
(12:10):
and I was just like, I one, I'm fascinated by this,
and you know, you gotta be passionate about what you're
teaching and to like there's some legitimate educational purposes I
could I could use for this, Like I could nationalize
using this. And I just started building a unit from there,
and I googled a bunch of stuff to see what
was out there, and I kind of begged and borrowed
and stole from different things and just kind of made
(12:31):
it my own. And and then that year we watched
just episode four, That's the only one we did, and
that was and then I think I watched like the
first half of Empire because we had a little bit
more time. And then I started thinking, Okay, how do
I incorporate the prequels because I really want to do.
(12:52):
I want to do more and what I did the
first point and I got really ambitious about it, and
I was like, you know that all these scenes are rhyme,
Like I'm going to show those back to back because
that's cool. Yeah, right, I'd be fine this work, right, Well,
this is this is what twenty eleven. Right, so this
is a pre Disney purchase. Every year I would have kids,
(13:15):
and the numbers have changed dramatically over the years. Hey,
who's seen Star Who hasn't? And I would have when
I started, like half of them had never seen any
Star Wars at all. Sure, which is amazing, Like by
now they've seen something, you know, it's the Mandalorian or
something else, Strength Stiff or whatever. So the issue with this,
(13:35):
which sounded great on paper, was that a lot of
kids had not still hadn't seen Star Wars, and so
showing them some Luke and then showing them some Anakin,
thoroughly confused about the timeline, had no idea how to
do that, Like, you know what, I just got to
go back to just you know, let's just go in
chronological order. But then I was listening to Full of
Sith and Sam Wenter was on there and he was
(13:58):
talking about introducing Star Wars two. He know from another
friend and they do Star Wars to a third friend,
and he talked about the Machhetty order, which is essentially
what I use, except for, of course, some shady order
cuts out episode one. And I was like, that's that's it.
That's how you do it. That's how you incorporate the prequels,
that's how you show the rhyming. Yeah, you set it
all up with four and five and then you go
through and you're like, hey, remember when we saw Luke
(14:19):
book Desk Star check out how he blows up the
George Control shit for instance. Right, you remember Luke and
Degg about having visions about you know, Hanahla being tortured,
and he leaves and he's not supposed to. Here's Anakin
having visions about his mom. He's not supposed to leave,
but he does remember that. Remember this, Remember that? And
so that's not the main thing that I'm doing, but like,
that's kind of like my carrot for doing it. I'm like,
look at this, look at this. It all rhymes. I
(14:41):
love that, and I've just ever since I've done that,
I'm like, yes, got I get new stuff out of
it every time now too.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That's so cool. You've been involved in the Star Wars
community for a long time now, You've done some right
with cop Kenoby, You've done some amazing things. What do
you love most about the Star Wars community?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I think, really it's it's the support, you know, just
the community aspect of it.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That was so for me.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
When when the Disney sale happened, I was really excited
about it. I mean one of my first thoughts was,
I'm going to get to take my kids to go
see a Star Wars movie in the theater, absolutely because
they hadn't They weren't born before, and you know, the
before two thousand and five. My son was born three
thousand and eight, and I wanted to talk about it,
and I couldn't find enough people to talk about it.
(15:35):
I had a handful of friends that were kind of
into Star Wars at a buddy mine. We went to
go see like the three D release of Phantom Menace
and stuff, but like the overall community, I was like,
I don't have that group of people. And that's when
I started looking for podcasts and online forums and then
just got addicted to it and so pretty much ever
(15:55):
since then, It's like I have to listen to podcasts.
I have to listen to podcasts. And then, you know,
at the same time I'm doing my Star Wars unit,
I hear the thing from you know, on Full of Sith,
and then they asked me to be on the show
and kind of talk about what I do about my classroom.
And so I came on like six times and like
just the last ten minutes of that show, like six
(16:15):
times in a row, and just kind of updated those
guys on what was happening. I met Dan with Coffu
with Kenobe during that time. He reached out like over
Twitter and was like, Hey, come on and talk about
what you do in class and so that's how we met.
And so all these here's for Dan burgeoning friendships. Virgining
is an inside joke for Dan and I, but just
(16:36):
kind of came out of nowhere and then it just
kept building and it just kept progressing. And then you know,
there was things like you know, Ian Desher with William
Shakespeare Star Wars was on Coffeo with Kenoby talking about
you know, his adaptations, and I was reading, so I
was like, this is right on my ownly I'm an
English teacher. I love Shakespeare, love Star Wars. Was reading
(16:58):
that and just you know, on a whim, send him
a message on Twitter, this is hilarious. I love this book.
And he reaches back out and says, hey, if you
ever want me to talk to your classes, let me know,
like what, it's okay, and he did, and he would
like we facetimed him in and he talked to my
six rade classes who we hadn't done any Shakespeare, but
he just like volunteered to do it and that was amazing.
(17:21):
And at the end he's like, hey, next time with
student in person. Cool next year. And he lives in Portland, Oregon.
It's only like three hours from me, and he brought
his family and they came and he did a whole
assembly and we hung out for a couple hours. And
so yeah, just this continual like super nice, supportive. Everybody's
kind of backing everybody, let me know what you're doing,
(17:42):
from retweets to guessing on people's shows to just you know,
sharing and talking shop. All these things just been incredibly supportive.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Love it. And then like happens with so many of us,
you listening to a bunch of Star Wars podcasts, maybe
getting an opportunity to be a guest on him, and
the next thing, you know, you've got your own podcast, right,
and so you guys started Now you started it originally
as what was the name of it was Coursant Course
(18:11):
on Trinity College of course. Yeah, we got really into that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
We had like a logo design looked like a you know,
like Harvard or like the you know, coat of Arms
and stuff, and it had like in Latin, it was
like the Imperial Academy is not for everybody, it was.
It was pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
What was the premise of Coursson Community College because obviously
Reading between the Reels is has evolved from that.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, no, totally. So really what it was was, uh,
it was an outgrowth of what so what I was
doing in class, and then my podcasting partner at the time,
Matt Leader was we collaborated. He did had done Shakespeare
Star Wars in class, which I now do, and so
I borrowed that stuff from him, and I shared the
stuff that I was doing with the overall saga at
the end of the year type of stuff, and so
(18:56):
we collaborated about that kind of stuff and we just
kept having these conversations during prep, like when we're supposed
to be you know, prepping and grading stuff, we were
just like, let's talk about Star Wars and we'd do that,
and we're like, you know what, we should record this,
Let's make a podcast out of this, And so that
really just became let's let's share what we're doing in
class with our audience. So let's break down those movies.
(19:17):
Let's talk about all right, what did you guys see
camera angles here? What let's talk about the lightmotifs and
Attack of the Clones and whatnot. So it really just
became here's what we're doing in class, and we're gonna
just do it publicly, and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And then.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Ultimately the biggest reason that we changed things was, well, one,
we were gonna run out of Star Wars movies at
some point. But even before that, our design, which I'm
still very happy with, got taken down off a tea
public because like a cease and desist thing from Disney. Yes, right,
we're on the map. They saw us and it was like, well,
we what are we gonna do here? This is kind
(19:54):
of a you know, this is a watershed moment. How
we're gonna how we're gonna handle this, and so we
talked to Dan dan Zayer again about you know, what
do we really want to do And you know, I
always kind of had in the back of my mind,
I want to do movies other than Star Wars, Like, oh, yes,
I want to do Star Wars. That's how it started.
But long term, what do we want to do?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And there would be was it to give you a
spin off show, or we can talk about Marvel movies
or what have you, or we can rebrand and expand,
and ultimately that's where we landed.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
So tell us tell us more about reading between the
reels and kind of how that has evolved from that
what it is now.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, So were actually we were like halfway through the
Star Wars movies when we when we rebranded, and so
we finished those. We had Brian Young on as a guest,
which was pretty cool, and we talked about because he's
also he's a teacher now, which is which is fantastic,
and so we got to talk about how we got
into film and those kinds of things. That was like
(20:55):
our big, first big interview that we had, and then
we just kind of started picking up movies that we
wanted to talk about. And I just started like, Okay,
what's going to be trending. What's you know if if
Jurassic Park, you know, like new Jurassic Park movies coming out,
Let's do a Jurassic Park movie and see if we
can get you caught up in the algorithm that way.
And it was more or less that or hey, you
know what, this is just a fun movie. I want
(21:15):
to talk about it. And we did that for a
while and then is your you know, you know this.
You guys have done some rejiggering here and there. Keep
absolutely all the time right, try and be reflectible what
you're doing. It's like, how are we going to you
know what, what's the best path forward? Because this isn't
quite working. I'm like, we're always wondering what are we
going to do next? And it just became a little
(21:37):
bit of a burden just trying to figure out what
you do and you don't want to just be like
I'm gonna just try try and be trendy all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And one of my goals has always been to try
and do evergreen content as much as possible, because I like,
just for myself as a you know, as a podcast consumer,
like I listened to a lot of sports podcasts too,
and like, well, you know, there's there's news that has
now made that previous episode date. I just won't listen
to it. So how do I do that where I
can just kind of keep it and come back to it.
(22:05):
And so we got close to our hundredth episode and
started thinking about what are we gonna do? And so
we had our hundred episode and that was fun. We
just kind of had We had a bunch of guests
on and and it was just like, well, basically what
I did was I ripped off Brett Goldstein's podcast, which
is a fantastic podcast, Films to be Buried With. I
don't know if you've heard it, but it's it's it's great.
(22:26):
It's basically tell me about your life through film, Like
what's the first movie you saw? A movie that make
you cry? Those kind of things. And so had a
bunch of guests that we had talked with multiple times.
Dan was on there, a bunch of other guys. And
then after that, I was like, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna basically it's a one hund episode, perfect time
to restart, perfect time to do something new. Let's do series.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And so.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I mean last this was all about last summer when
we were kind of figuring this out, and you know,
dead pulling Wolverine. It come out, and that was one
thing like it brought all these Marvel movies back, you know,
the front and they're like, it was like, let's watch
Fantastic four again. Let's watch you know Blade, I love Blade,
Let's watch that. And so we decided to do our
first series that we decided to do was the pre MCU,
(23:12):
so all Marvel before the MCU. And no we didn't
do Howard the Duck, and no we didn't do Dolphilins
and Punish her. But like the modern comic book movie,
as much as X Men gets the credit for it
really starts with Blade in ninety eight, and so we
did it was like, let's do deep dimes that we
did Blade, and then we did X Men, and we
went all the way through to two thousand and seven,
(23:33):
right up until right before Iron Man, and tried to
look at it as the through the lens of what
if this was a cohesive universe? Could it work? And
most of the time it kind of does. But there
are some outliers, but we revisited some things we hadn't
seen in a long time, like Ghostwriter, you know, X
(23:53):
Men three, some of these ones that were kind of
a burden to get through.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
But it was still fun.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Because like the next movie, the list, Yeah, we gotta
gotta do it, we gotta do it. And so we
finished that and that was a lot of fun. The
first half. I mean, the first half of that was great.
Second half, I mean, you got Fantastic four, rights of
the Silver Surfers, the last one, you got Spider Man three,
X Men three, Ghostwriter. As I said, so that's a
little bit of slog But now what I really wanted
(24:20):
to do is we're going through the films of Christopher Nolan,
huge Nolan fan. M So we've so far, we've gone
through and a lot of my My My podcast partners
Justin and Corey have not seen some of the early ones.
So we did Memento they hadn't seen it, Insomnia they
hadn't seen it, and then we did of course Batman begins,
and then we're through the Prestige. So that knows them
(24:43):
just as you know, if we're going from some of
these movies are good to maybe great like X two,
Spider Man two, to someones that are not so good.
Nolan's just banger after banger after.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Every single time. Yeah, Nathan's favorite director of all time
is Chris for Nolan, he loves everything Christopher Nolan does.
He knows like his favorite like both of Sam and Naked.
Sam's favorite movie of all time is Interstellar. Nathan's favorite
movie of all time is Inception with that so yeah,
those are fun. You know, your kid, your your students
(25:17):
are your kids in a lot of ways. Because my
mom was a teacher, I understand that and I know
that that that's the way you feel. But there's you know,
there's so many things like family, and I know that
those you know, your family and your kids you talked to,
we talked to earlier, your daughters, you know, teenager and
all of that. You've got You've got your own kids.
How does Star Wars? How has it been bringing seeing
(25:39):
your kids experience Star Wars in this new era? You know?
And really there's two eras that they've experienced it in, right,
You've got the sequel trilogy era with the films and
Rogue one and Solo and that era, and then we've
had the post sequel trilogy era, which has been primarily
(26:00):
Disney streaming service content with it. What's it been like
watching Star Wars with them in that in that era?
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So, I mean initially the sequel trilogy, they were excited
about that. I think the first they were still kind
of young when when Force Awakens came out, but they
saw Last Jedi in the theater, saw Solo, and they
saw Rise of Skywalker and they were excited. Just they
like going to the movies period, and they enjoyed those
stories and got some of the figures, and like it
(26:29):
was big. I missed the action figure line so much.
Like that was a big thing me and my son
would do. He was still pretty little, because like the
movie would come out in December and then like right
before spring break. It seemed like I'm always right on
spring break, so I had the day off, like they'd
dropped the Blue Aray release, and there'd be a whole
bunch of action figures that would come out, and so
we'd go and just go to Target and lit up
a munch of that. So that was some of my
(26:49):
best memories from that. But as they've gotten older, they've
kind of stepped away from that, and they're kind of
just doing their own thing, and I'm just kind of like, well,
you know, maybe that's not for you as much. My
daughter has mentioned recently, it's like, you know, some of
these movies I've only seen once. I'm like, oh, okay, good,
let's there's a door. Let's let's walk through that a
(27:10):
little bit. So I think we're gonna I'm gonna probably
start with episode one with her and kind of go
back through and and do some of those. And but
I will say that they watched we did watch Ahsoka
together because they had watched about half of Rebels when
it was on. We had watched that, and then I
was like, you guys have to finish Rebels. We have
to watch that, and so I didn't watch it all,
(27:30):
but I kind of picked and choose which different as yet,
you gotta watch this, you gotta watch this. And then
we got to the end, of course, and they're like,
all right, now you're ready to watch Ahsoka, which is
kind of Rebels season five. But because I loved Rebels,
that was one of my all time one of my
favorite Disney things that they've done, so that I think
that was probably the last thing that they were fully
(27:51):
invested in. We watched The Mandalorian in the first couple
of seasons and then they've kind of petered off. I
haven't really watched a lot of that stuff, but yeah,
I'm kind of so that being back and letting them,
if they get interested, come on with that. My daughter loves.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
What's that like for you? Because Star Wars is, like,
you know, you talk about it, It's a big part
of who you are, right It's your fandom, and I
know that, you know, there's been a lot of reasons
that people have sort of kind of have different mixed
feelings in the Disney era about Star Wars. But with
our kids, you know, for me, watching with Sam and
(28:27):
Nate brought me back into Star Wars and changed my
perspective on it. You know, Rebels is our thing. We
I literally just finished a rewatch of Rebels this weekend
with Nathan and we finished it up over Father's Day
and it was awesome. But that's what brought them into
Star Wars, and I think part of the connection for
(28:49):
them has been this podcast has sort of forced them
to stay engaged with it with it, But why do
you feel like, you know, kids are some kids it's
not grabbing them the way that that it did with us.
Is it is it just too much? Is it too
many choices? I think of that.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, I mean the the one hand, there's so many
entry points, which is great. And I mean that's one
of the last things I do after we finish the
six movies. We only watched the six, although this year
I wanted I also showed them Rogue one because and
Or had just finished and like, I haven't seen Rogue one.
And then I go through and like, hey, here are
the other things that if you're interested, you can pursue
and all of you know, as an English teacher, I
(29:33):
obviously hit here are the books that you should read
this summer, and I have a bunch of those in
my classroom, and like, hey, read this kind of stuff.
But I do think that there is almost too much stuff.
But you can be a little bit overwhelming to do that.
So yeah, and as far as my own kids, I
(29:53):
think I have. My experience with Star Wars right now
is kind of unique in the fact that I'm guaring
teed to watch episodes one through six every year, five times.
So I don't have a whole lot. I don't have
a whole lot of motivation and or desire to watch.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
To watch it outside, to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Like for you know, for five weeks or what have you,
it's gonna be living and breathing, and you know that
those movies, Uh, it's pretty intensely during that time, and
so yeah, it's gonna like, oh, for me to actually
have the excitement to do that, I kind of have
to have a break because by the time I get
to the end, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have
to finish this already. Even though again Jedi is my
(30:37):
favorite movie, that's the last one we watch. But I
will say watching those movies, I'm gonna say this as
positively as I can. Those movies have held up. Yes,
even the prequels have held up so well and better
than some of the newer stuff. And I'm going to
put it that way at least I think because and again,
(30:59):
my one of my biggest thrust with this is the mythology,
right is looking at the chosen one in the rise, fall,
and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. For me, that's the central
thing of Star Wars that really gets me. That's why
I love Jedi. You know, you get that last bit
on the you know, in the Throne room with the
Emperor Invader and Luke. That's my favorite moment, Luke throwing
away his lightsaber. I'm a Jedi like my father before me.
(31:20):
That's my all time favorite Star Wars moment. So anything
that pulls from that, detracts from that, I'm less interested in.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I know that when The Acolyte came out, I think
you and I even connected a little bit and talked
a little bit about it. That one of the challenges
that I had with The Acolyte was a there was
no clear antagonist. There was no clear protagonist. You you
really couldn't figure out who the good guys were and
the bad guys were in it with it. And that's
(31:53):
one of the things with Star Wars that, especially in
the originals, you know, the first six movies, the Lucas
era of Star Wars, that wasn't the same. Yeah, like
you clearly, you clearly knew what was going on with
good guys and bad guys with it, which is why
Anakin's fall is so impactful because you see him go
(32:13):
from good guy to bad guy very very clearly with that.
Do you do you feel like that's part of one
of the challenges that's that's happening in this new era?
Is this this this graying of of the morality tale
within within Star Wars?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
No, definitely. I mean I even think of it in
terms of like the beginning of Rogue one where where
Cassion you know, kills the guy so he can get away,
like and like justifiable, I think, But it's also like, wow,
we've never seen a good guy do that, right, this
guy who we're supposed to root for. And I mean
that is a thing too, that, especially when we get
into the prequels. When I'm talking with my students, is
we talk a lot about you know, are the Jedi
(32:52):
this you know, they set themselves up as this moral authority,
but are they really that? Are they infaul and so
clearly or not? Like we talked about, well why can't
they have relationships? We talk about like, you know, they're
over zealous in this kind of thing. They're they're actually afraid.
They're not bad guys though, right, They're misguided, They're full
of pride. It's you know, it's the hubris, which you
(33:15):
know it's a last yet I think that you get yes,
you know, they allowed themselves to be you know, they
could deceived or whatever, and then they had were full
of pride. They let this happen, so they had this
tragic flaw, but they're not bad guys, and to me,
that's that's an important distinction.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Mhm. I've been thinking a lot about the Rise of
Skywalker recently, which is weird, but anyway, just based on
the it, everything in the Rise of Skywalker feels like
an overreaction to me. Yeah, an overreaction to the death
(33:55):
of Carrie Fisher, an overreaction to the struggles of Colin
Tramorrow's book of Henry release and pulling him out, an
overreaction to the Last Jedi, of course, and some of
that an overreaction to Solo's box office, which was a
(34:19):
mistake of their own that had nothing to do with
the movie as much as it did with very little
to do with the movie and more to do with
timing and marketing. From my perspective with it, do you
feel like part of the challenge that that that the
story has right now, that Star Wars has right now
is this it is a corporate thing, which is very
(34:42):
different from what it was with the Lucas era. It's
becomes it's become a business and it's first or foremost
of money making opportunity versus a storytelling opportunity.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, no, I totally do. I think that you see
that like with and as much as I love Filoni stuff,
that you there's so many cameos and Easter eggs and
things like that, that and this has been talked about
a nauseum that you know that again the there's many
entry points. But also as as we as earlier said
like Ahsoka, if you hadn't watched Rebels, absolutely you're in trouble.
(35:12):
So yeah, I mean, like, and I know you guys
love Skeleton Crew. That's a really easy thing to get
into because like it happens in that galaxy, but you
don't really have to know anything to have previously get
into that. So yeah, I think that, you know, the
part of the issue with say like Force Awakens is
it's it's it is kind of a reboot in a way.
(35:33):
Is that kind of stuff. And we've got you know,
the legacy characters in that, even though we didn't reunite
them all together in one scene, which is tragedy I
will never get over. But we don't there's nothing new happening.
I think that's still in the spirit of what the
originals would be like. So I mean that is a struggle.
I mean, I get it. I think that really it is.
(35:55):
That's why we had the cameos, That's why we had
the legacy characters. That's why we have the touch stones,
you know, in Mando to Clone Wars and those kind
of things. So yeah, it's I mean, that's and that's
not just the lucasfilm problem, and that's why we have
so many reboots and sequels and everything else, because all
these original ideas, those are that's a gamble.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's a run home to mama. We you know, if
things aren't working. I mean, we've got another Jurassic Park
movie coming out just a couple of couple of weekends.
You know, it's like studios and they're just like, let's
go back to I saw a great video my Heavy
Spoilers about this today and where Paul talks about the uh,
just the the death spiral of nostalgia in these franchises
(36:37):
and how that's that's that's hurting. And I feel like,
you know, going back to the Rise of Skywalker, I'm
wondering more and more if there was a missed opportunity
with the death of Carrie Fisher and everything that happened
there to basically reboot the franchise with Know no Carrier No,
(37:02):
not having any legacy characters in the rise of in
the episode nine, and just leaning into a completely new
future with that, and they struggled with that. How do
you see you know, when you meet with these when
you have this experience with your students specifically, and they
get engaged, I'm sure, I'm sure many of them because
(37:23):
they're hearing the story different. They're seeing the story so
much more in depth than they would watching it on
Disney Plus with a phone in their hand and a
bunch of mistakes, you know, things going on in the
background and distractions and things like that. They're engaging with
the story. They're understanding the story, they're seeing it like literature,
like you tried to do with that. What's the what's
(37:46):
the experience like for them not just understanding Star Wars
and moving forward, but seeing the mythology of this and
how that impacts them. What's that? What's that like for
these students? And is it is it similar from year
to year or do you have really dramatic differences with
different classes and different students.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
No, it's it's pretty similar. I mean the fact that
they're you know, I'm as much as I see it
five times a day, they only see it once, right, right,
and then we're watching about forty five minutes, and so
it's very it's very focused on what they're doing. And
I think it's it's I don't know if it's the
best way to watch it, but it's a different way
(38:29):
to watch it, so that they have to kind of
live with the material for a while. And discussion is
a huge thing I want them to do, like literally,
take five ten minutes, let's debrief what you thought. Let's
let's talk about these choices that people made. So you're
not just zoning out while you're doing you have a
very active thing that you're doing while you're watching the film.
(38:49):
There is no you like, I don't put your head down,
turn the lights on. That's gonna be hard rough on everybody.
Like you've got to it's an active viewing experience, and
I think you couldn't do that would necessarily any movie
like these movies. They help they hold up so well.
There's some like I every time I joke about this,
every time I watch these movies, every year I pick
up new stuff, and sometimes it's just because I'm watching
(39:10):
the margins. At this point, I'm just gonna watch the
left side of the screen. Oh that I never noticed
this character. Oh my gosh, the table fill in this guy,
I didn't even notice that happened. That kind of stuff.
So yeah, I think going deeper into them, into the
films and having them kind of marinade. The kids kind
of have to marinate in that stuff, and that's they
(39:32):
and sometimes it takes a little while till we get
to the end. And that's what I loved about it
this year, Like we finished like a week before school
was out, and then we got to watch What Going
a little bit and they had some other things they
had kind of do, but they wanted to keep talking
about it now that they had the entire picture of
the six films. So that was for me, that's the
most fun. And that almost that happens almost every year.
(39:52):
But I will say one thing that one thing that's
random every year is which kids have seen it which
kids haven't. And I always it's it's kind of fun
because it's a lot of times it's the kids that
are more introverted that really know Star Wars. They're they're
all in already, yeah yeah, but they become like the
rock stars because they're experts and everybody wants to hear
what they have to say. And I have to every year.
(40:13):
I have to caution look like, don't don't spoil stings
for people. You have to just pretend it's like a
Christmas gift and you can't tell them what they're getting
for Christmas. And I use this example. I had this
kid one year and I don't know how it slipped
through the cracks. She didn't know who Yoda was, so
when Yoda reveals himself, she freaked out, like in the
(40:36):
best possible way, how did you not know? Like you
don't know guys who doesn't know what? And it's way
more fun to watch them figure it out than it
is to tell them. Give yourself the gift of watching
somebody explore this for the first time.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Wow, that's cool because that kind of goes back to
what I was saying about my friends watching me watch
Empire strikes back for the first time and in that moment,
off I am your father and wanting to see my experience.
That's cool. That's cool. So you you know, if You've
got this dichotomy in your in your life when it
(41:16):
comes to Star Wars. Right, You've got these students, which
are a captive audience, which are required for their grave
their grade, to engage with Star Wars at the end
of every school year with you, and and you've got
that world. And then you've got your kids, which you've
been really really careful to bring them into Star Wars
(41:38):
at their own pace and in their own way and
not force it on them and that kind of thing.
So there's so many people that listen to this to
our podcast who are most of them are dads that
are just die to have their kids be as excited
(42:03):
about Star Wars as they are, and the reality is
that's probably never going to happen. I'm with it. What's
your advice for those dads on how to navigate that
(42:24):
that balancing act for wanting to share something that they
love so much with their kids without forcing it on them.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Well, I can think of two things. I mean, and
I've heard you guys talk about this on your show
before that like, Hey, it's Father's Day, I'm picking this movie,
and so you kind of have orgum, maybe it's your birthday,
you know, Hey, the gift that you guys can give
me is quality time, is sitting here and watching this
with me, Like you know, it's once a year, twice
a year maybe, like it's two hours out of your life.
(42:53):
I'm not gonna bug you about it the rest of
the year. Let's just do it here. And the second
thing I would say is, if you haven't watched the movies,
the six movies in the I'm gonna just use them
a shaddy order for shorthand try that and try and
go through because it is a different experience because a
lot of times I've seen it, but you hadn't watch
it this way, because you will pick up things narratively
(43:16):
that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
This is not going to go the way you think.
So much fun. As we kind of pull our speeder
up to a stop on this episode, let's recap some
of the awesome wisdom that Craig dropped on us. First
of all, Craig's Star Wars origin story is seriously cool.
(43:38):
It wasn't just about watching the movies. It molded how
he teaches. This guy is using Star Wars to get
kids excited about literature. I mean, come on, who wouldn't
want to dissect plot points when lightsabers are involved. He's
proving that the Force can make anything more interesting, even Shakespeare,
(43:59):
Sorry Bill. Secondly, Craig really hammered home the power of
the Star Wars community. It's not just about who's got
the best Wookie roar, though, let's be honest, that's a
big part of it. It's about the friendships and the
collaborations that blossom when you find your tribe. It is
a great reminder that sharing our passions connects us all.
(44:23):
And then, finally, for all of you dads out there
that are trying to pass on the Star Wars torch,
Craig gave us some Jedi level parenting advice. Don't force
choke your kids with Star Wars, create special moments, get
creative with viewing orders, just let their love for the
galaxy Far far away grow naturally. Trust us, it's a
(44:45):
lot more fun this way. Definitely go check out Reading
Between the Reels for more of Craig's brilliant film insights.
Of course, keep your scanners locked in on Tato Wine's
suns for all of your Star Wars fix and of course,
maybe the Force and happy parenting be with you. Remember
I am your father. Jokes are always acceptable always.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Thank you for listening to Tattooine Suns, a Star Wars podcast.
Please subscribe and follow Tattooine Suns on Apple Podcasts, Spotify YouTube,
or your favorite podcast app. Tatooine Sons regularly publishes thoughtful
articles intended to provoke conversation about the larger themes and
Star Wars. Go to tattooinsuns dot com to explore further,
(45:30):
and may the Force be with you always.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
This podcast, website, and social media accounts are not endorsed
by the Walt Disney Company or Lucasfilm Limited, and it's
intended for entertainment purposes only. Star Wars, all names and sounds,
and any other Star Wars related items and properties are
trademarks of Lucasfilm Limited and its affiliates. All original contents
of this podcast in website is the intellectual property of
Tattooing Sons unless otherwise indicated
So imagine being such a Star Wars nerd that you
have built an entire curriculum off of a galaxy far
far away, and you use this to teach middle schoolers
about literature and storytale telling, but meanwhile, your own kids
really just aren't all that into Star Wars. In this
week's episode, I am actually hanging out with Craig Dickinson
(00:22):
from Reading Between the Reels, and this guy is a
Jedi master when it comes to turning Star Wars into
a super effective teaching tool. He has figured out how
to use those epic storylines and unforgettable characters to grab
even the most literature a verse kids' attention. He's turning
(00:43):
Shakespeare and narrative structure into something as thrilling as a
lightsaber battle. Maybe let's be real about it. But anyway,
at the same time, his own kids have basically moved
on from Star Wars. They aren't nearly as into it
as he is. What's that like for Craig. We'll be
(01:04):
diving into the tricky bits of introducing this galaxy far
far away to a new generation and how to keep
that Star Wars magic alive. So expect some laughs, some
aha moments, maybe a fresh way to think about sharing
your love of literature. Oh, thanks to the Force. Get
(01:25):
ready to use the Force for good and maybe even
for homework. This is Tatooine Sons.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Welcome to Tatooine's Sons, a Star Wars podcast, the only
fan podcast to name a Cannon Star Wars creature and
to be endorsed by the writer and director of The
Last Jedi, Ryan Johnson. Get ready to explore a galaxy far,
far away across the generations. Here is your host, David
(01:55):
the bow Tie Jedi Guy, along with his special guest,
the host off reading but between the reels, Craig Dickinson.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
For a lot of us dads, Star Wars is our
first cinematic love. You saw Empire back in the theaters
at a really young age. What are you like, What
are your earliest memories of that experience. How do you
think seeing that on the big screen kind of shaped
your lifelong relationship with the Force.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Oh yeah, I was I was four, My brother was two,
and I can't imagine taking a four and a two
year old to any movie at this point. I remember
my parents being excited about it and say, Hey, we're
going to take you to this Star Wars movie, and
I didn't know what that was at all. And I
remember two things about the movie. I remember, I remember
the battle hof because I mean, that's just so epic
(02:49):
and there's just white everywhere. I remember the white more
than I do anything else. And I remember having some
very serious discussions as a four year old trying to
figure out how Darth Vader had died on on Dago
but and then came back later. So, I mean adults
struggle with that scene. Imagine, you know what happen Eddergarden
has children trying to figure this out. Was he a robot?
(03:09):
Shappen there? That's yeah, that was I was exactly the
right age. But by the time Jedi came out, I
mean it was end of my first grade year, and
had by that point collected the figures in the ships
and had seen the original film because they you know,
they re released them in the theaters. And I also
remember seeing a new Hope for the first time after
having seen Empire and wondering why these people didn't know
(03:31):
each other. That was a weird I remember very vividly,
like Luca Buddies, like, how does this.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Very Star Wars thing to do? To watch those out
of order, right right.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, and then like I said, Jedi came out at
the exact right time, and that's actually my favorite Star
Wars movie.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's awesome. So the Eoks were never an issue for
you because you were the right you were the demographic
for the Ewoks, it was, Yeah, I had a wicked
lunch pail, right yeah, I loved.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It, super excited. Love the whole Java sequence. Like yeah,
so yeah, as a kid, that was right in my wheelhouse.
The e Walk movies, you know, shortly after that, so yeah,
I know they would. They catered to us pretty hardcore
on that that demographic right there.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So that's funny. So Empire's the like of the trilogy,
the original trilogy. It's clearly the darkest of the of
the three movies with it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I mean, was.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Your like, did that impact the way that you'd Star
Wars or was it just something that because you're so little,
it was just fun for you and and you were
just kind of into the cool lightsaber battles and spaceships
and aliens and creatures and and then later on it's
kind of changed your pos your perspective as you grew
into this into the Sagamore.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Oh yeah, I mean I got the whole I am
your father moment that would have flown completely over my head.
I had no idea what that was. But I do
remember I remember not liking Orlando, like I think we
kind of just lived with it, you know, like I
don't even know if I saw it again before I
saw Jedi, but I remember knowing the story we had
the I do remember that, and I still have it somewhere,
(05:04):
the tape, you know, the audiobooks they used to do
back before home video was a big thing. So I
knew the story really really well, all the major beats
of that, so I'd listened to it. I knew that
that kind of group my knowledge of the story, so
I knew I knew the story. I was waiting for
his Darth Fitter, really his That was where I was at,
like is it really his dad? And I remember like,
(05:27):
Lando's a bad guy. I don't like him. He was
mean to his friends. That being a very strong, strongly
held opinion by little me. So it's funny how we
how we, you know, have these really intense memories of
these movies that we really only saw like the one
time because home video wasn't a thing, but eat, we
had the lived experience with the action figure.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Come out one forty five days after the movie exactors, right,
and you watch it on Disney Plus on boob right.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, but we talk about it, right, You talk about
it with your friends, and so you kind of recreate
did those those moments in that way?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah? I didn't see any of the original trilogy in
theaters until the special editions because oh wow, my family
just didn't go to movies. It's funny, I joke. People
ask me all the time, what was my first movie
in the theaters? It was Star Trek the Motion Picture
on Christmas Day in nineteen seventy nine, which is probably
why I'm a Star Wars fan. That was doing that
(06:23):
was a weird first experience in the theater, sure, as
a four year old, but yeah, I mean Star Wars
for me was the books that I got from the library,
you know, and check. I would check them out repeatedly,
over and over again. Right, And I remember and watching
it on HBO. Sorry, like I remember a New Hope
(06:45):
a Star Wars before being on HBO, And I'm watching
that over and over and over and over and over
and over again. Falling asleep during the Tattooine scenes and
then waking up later with it. That was my That
was my Star Wars experience. But and I clearly remember
my friends down the street taking getting a copy. I
(07:06):
don't remember how they got it was before I saw Empire.
They they got a copy of Empire that they recorded
or got a vha. I don't remember where they found it.
It musn't been on TV or something, and they recorded
it and we and watching and them watching me watch
that I Am your father because I hadn't I didn't
know it. I didn't know the scene. And so that
them like sitting there waiting for me to react to
(07:30):
that scene and then getting the books of Return of
the Jedi and reading it. But then all of a
sudden for me they had told I had I had
it in my head that Anakiin was like a twin
brother of Darth Vader. And I mean I had this
old mythology around Star Wars that didn't exist from playing
with my friends, right, because we would play Star Wars
(07:50):
in the backyard with broomsticks, like everybody you know, a
broomboy was was our life with it and make up
our own mythologies and our own characters and and all
that kind of stuff. And you're like, I mean, Star
Wars and a mythology is a big part of your
world because of what you guys do in the classroom
and and and all that. Your your board certified teacher
and all of that. Give me a peek into how
(08:13):
you use Star Wars a galaxy far far away with
your your students and your curriculum and the projects that
you do with that.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Sure, So the the shorthand way of explaining it is,
I treat it like it's a novel study. And that's
kind of how I have to because I've had to
justify it over the years. Like you guys are just
watching movies or what have you. It's like, no, we're
doing a serious deep dive into not only the narrative
aspects of the of these stories, but I also have
(08:42):
throughout the year I kind of see it in lots
of video in my class anyway, Like we watch a
couple of Twilight Zones early on, looking at for plot
and theme and things like that. Uh, and then when
we do act, we like we read The Hunger Games
and then I watched the movie and we pull out
That's where I begin to teach them some cinematography things
about camera angles and some things like lightmotif with music
and stuff, and then we do another movie later and
(09:03):
I talk about performances and set design stuff, so that
when we get to Star Wars, it's like, hey, we've
already done each of these skills independently. Now we're going
to do them all together. And they rotate through so
they don't have to do everything at once because there's
just too much going on. But it's basically a review
of all the things we've done throughout the year, and
then they rotate through each you know, every day, like
(09:25):
one group's looking at cinematography, one's looking at sound, and
then but there's also we have narrative questions at the beginning,
open ended things, and open ended questions at the end,
and they get invested. And it's hilarious because every year,
you know, oh, I've seen Star Wars one hundred times.
I don't care like yip, but you haven't watched it
with me, Or I no, Star Wars is dumb, I
don't want to watch it. You haven't watched it with
me yet, And it depends. Most of the time, it's
(09:49):
not because we end with the order. It's important thing too.
We do a lot of them haven't watched in the order,
So we do episode four, because you should always start
with us episode four, and naturally episode five, and then
the Vader your Father thing happens, and then we go
let's talk about how that happened, and then we go
back in time and we go one, two, and three,
and then finish with Return of the Jedi. So usually
(10:13):
Empire about halfway through is when I get a lot
of kids suddenly involved because they've seen most have seen
episode four, but we have the Han and Leier romance,
which gets some of them. Yoda shows up and he's hilarious,
and that grabs him. But what I've seen recently is
some kids will still be bored through that. They're just doing,
you know, going through the motions. But we get to
episode one and Jarjar picks up a lot of kids,
(10:38):
and then if that hasn't got them, we get to
episode two and it's usually most of the girls who
haven't wanted to watch this. Hayden Christensen, they're one hundred
percent in this year especially was like, oh he's so hot,
Like I've just heard repeatedly that was like I don't
care how you get invested. You know, this is like
(10:58):
a lot of what we're trying to do is like
build empathy because a lot of the you know, was
it okay to a lot of people first, you know,
for certain reasons to try and shield them from stuff.
That's one of the big questions we ask. But if
I just have to get you in the you're hooked
into the relationship aspect, I've still got you, and you're
still going to go in the journey and you're going
to see him fall and you're going to feel a
certain way about that. So yeah, that's that's kind of
(11:22):
that in a nutshell, a long nut shell, a big nutshell.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Why why why did you pick Star Wars to get
to kind of have those kinds of conversations?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So a couple of things. But I didn't start this
my first year. I didn't do I wasn't brave enough
to try and use Star Wars in the classroom because
you're just kind of like, you know, kind of white
knuckling it and you don't really know what you're doing, right.
And then my second year teaching, I think it was
in the fall honestly, when and I think I talked
to you a little bit about this off, Mike. I
(11:50):
saw Star Wars the Legacy revealed on the History Channel.
Watch that documentary like in a week, so like on
a Saturday, and I was just blown aw way by it.
I think, honestly, I think that's the first time I'd
ever heard about Joseph Campbell, right, maybe i'd heard about
it before, but like they explained everything and laid it out,
(12:10):
and I was just like, I one, I'm fascinated by this,
and you know, you gotta be passionate about what you're
teaching and to like there's some legitimate educational purposes I
could I could use for this, Like I could nationalize
using this. And I just started building a unit from there,
and I googled a bunch of stuff to see what
was out there, and I kind of begged and borrowed
and stole from different things and just kind of made
(12:31):
it my own. And and then that year we watched
just episode four, That's the only one we did, and
that was and then I think I watched like the
first half of Empire because we had a little bit
more time. And then I started thinking, Okay, how do
I incorporate the prequels because I really want to do.
(12:52):
I want to do more and what I did the
first point and I got really ambitious about it, and
I was like, you know that all these scenes are rhyme,
Like I'm going to show those back to back because
that's cool. Yeah, right, I'd be fine this work, right, Well,
this is this is what twenty eleven. Right, so this
is a pre Disney purchase. Every year I would have kids,
(13:15):
and the numbers have changed dramatically over the years. Hey,
who's seen Star Who hasn't? And I would have when
I started, like half of them had never seen any
Star Wars at all. Sure, which is amazing, Like by
now they've seen something, you know, it's the Mandalorian or
something else, Strength Stiff or whatever. So the issue with this,
(13:35):
which sounded great on paper, was that a lot of
kids had not still hadn't seen Star Wars, and so
showing them some Luke and then showing them some Anakin,
thoroughly confused about the timeline, had no idea how to
do that, Like, you know what, I just got to
go back to just you know, let's just go in
chronological order. But then I was listening to Full of
Sith and Sam Wenter was on there and he was
(13:58):
talking about introducing Star Wars two. He know from another
friend and they do Star Wars to a third friend,
and he talked about the Machhetty order, which is essentially
what I use, except for, of course, some shady order
cuts out episode one. And I was like, that's that's it.
That's how you do it. That's how you incorporate the prequels,
that's how you show the rhyming. Yeah, you set it
all up with four and five and then you go
through and you're like, hey, remember when we saw Luke
(14:19):
book Desk Star check out how he blows up the
George Control shit for instance. Right, you remember Luke and
Degg about having visions about you know, Hanahla being tortured,
and he leaves and he's not supposed to. Here's Anakin
having visions about his mom. He's not supposed to leave,
but he does remember that. Remember this, Remember that? And
so that's not the main thing that I'm doing, but like,
that's kind of like my carrot for doing it. I'm like,
look at this, look at this. It all rhymes. I
(14:41):
love that, and I've just ever since I've done that,
I'm like, yes, got I get new stuff out of
it every time now too.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That's so cool. You've been involved in the Star Wars
community for a long time now, You've done some right
with cop Kenoby, You've done some amazing things. What do
you love most about the Star Wars community?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I think, really it's it's the support, you know, just
the community aspect of it.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That was so for me.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
When when the Disney sale happened, I was really excited
about it. I mean one of my first thoughts was,
I'm going to get to take my kids to go
see a Star Wars movie in the theater, absolutely because
they hadn't They weren't born before, and you know, the
before two thousand and five. My son was born three
thousand and eight, and I wanted to talk about it,
and I couldn't find enough people to talk about it.
(15:35):
I had a handful of friends that were kind of
into Star Wars at a buddy mine. We went to
go see like the three D release of Phantom Menace
and stuff, but like the overall community, I was like,
I don't have that group of people. And that's when
I started looking for podcasts and online forums and then
just got addicted to it and so pretty much ever
(15:55):
since then, It's like I have to listen to podcasts.
I have to listen to podcasts. And then, you know,
at the same time I'm doing my Star Wars unit,
I hear the thing from you know, on Full of Sith,
and then they asked me to be on the show
and kind of talk about what I do about my classroom.
And so I came on like six times and like
just the last ten minutes of that show, like six
(16:15):
times in a row, and just kind of updated those
guys on what was happening. I met Dan with Coffu
with Kenobe during that time. He reached out like over
Twitter and was like, Hey, come on and talk about
what you do in class and so that's how we met.
And so all these here's for Dan burgeoning friendships. Virgining
is an inside joke for Dan and I, but just
(16:36):
kind of came out of nowhere and then it just
kept building and it just kept progressing. And then you know,
there was things like you know, Ian Desher with William
Shakespeare Star Wars was on Coffeo with Kenoby talking about
you know, his adaptations, and I was reading, so I
was like, this is right on my ownly I'm an
English teacher. I love Shakespeare, love Star Wars. Was reading
(16:58):
that and just you know, on a whim, send him
a message on Twitter, this is hilarious. I love this book.
And he reaches back out and says, hey, if you
ever want me to talk to your classes, let me know,
like what, it's okay, and he did, and he would
like we facetimed him in and he talked to my
six rade classes who we hadn't done any Shakespeare, but
he just like volunteered to do it and that was amazing.
(17:21):
And at the end he's like, hey, next time with
student in person. Cool next year. And he lives in Portland, Oregon.
It's only like three hours from me, and he brought
his family and they came and he did a whole
assembly and we hung out for a couple hours. And
so yeah, just this continual like super nice, supportive. Everybody's
kind of backing everybody, let me know what you're doing,
(17:42):
from retweets to guessing on people's shows to just you know,
sharing and talking shop. All these things just been incredibly supportive.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Love it. And then like happens with so many of us,
you listening to a bunch of Star Wars podcasts, maybe
getting an opportunity to be a guest on him, and
the next thing, you know, you've got your own podcast, right,
and so you guys started Now you started it originally
as what was the name of it was Coursant Course
(18:11):
on Trinity College of course. Yeah, we got really into that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
We had like a logo design looked like a you know,
like Harvard or like the you know, coat of Arms
and stuff, and it had like in Latin, it was
like the Imperial Academy is not for everybody, it was.
It was pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
What was the premise of Coursson Community College because obviously
Reading between the Reels is has evolved from that.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, no, totally. So really what it was was, uh,
it was an outgrowth of what so what I was
doing in class, and then my podcasting partner at the time,
Matt Leader was we collaborated. He did had done Shakespeare
Star Wars in class, which I now do, and so
I borrowed that stuff from him, and I shared the
stuff that I was doing with the overall saga at
the end of the year type of stuff, and so
(18:56):
we collaborated about that kind of stuff and we just
kept having these conversations during prep, like when we're supposed
to be you know, prepping and grading stuff, we were
just like, let's talk about Star Wars and we'd do that,
and we're like, you know what, we should record this,
Let's make a podcast out of this, And so that
really just became let's let's share what we're doing in
class with our audience. So let's break down those movies.
(19:17):
Let's talk about all right, what did you guys see
camera angles here? What let's talk about the lightmotifs and
Attack of the Clones and whatnot. So it really just
became here's what we're doing in class, and we're gonna
just do it publicly, and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And then.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Ultimately the biggest reason that we changed things was, well, one,
we were gonna run out of Star Wars movies at
some point. But even before that, our design, which I'm
still very happy with, got taken down off a tea
public because like a cease and desist thing from Disney. Yes, right,
we're on the map. They saw us and it was like, well,
we what are we gonna do here? This is kind
(19:54):
of a you know, this is a watershed moment. How
we're gonna how we're gonna handle this, and so we
talked to Dan dan Zayer again about you know, what
do we really want to do And you know, I
always kind of had in the back of my mind,
I want to do movies other than Star Wars, Like, oh, yes,
I want to do Star Wars. That's how it started.
But long term, what do we want to do?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And there would be was it to give you a
spin off show, or we can talk about Marvel movies
or what have you, or we can rebrand and expand,
and ultimately that's where we landed.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
So tell us tell us more about reading between the
reels and kind of how that has evolved from that
what it is now.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, So were actually we were like halfway through the
Star Wars movies when we when we rebranded, and so
we finished those. We had Brian Young on as a guest,
which was pretty cool, and we talked about because he's
also he's a teacher now, which is which is fantastic,
and so we got to talk about how we got
into film and those kinds of things. That was like
(20:55):
our big, first big interview that we had, and then
we just kind of started picking up movies that we
wanted to talk about. And I just started like, Okay,
what's going to be trending. What's you know if if
Jurassic Park, you know, like new Jurassic Park movies coming out,
Let's do a Jurassic Park movie and see if we
can get you caught up in the algorithm that way.
And it was more or less that or hey, you
know what, this is just a fun movie. I want
(21:15):
to talk about it. And we did that for a
while and then is your you know, you know this.
You guys have done some rejiggering here and there. Keep
absolutely all the time right, try and be reflectible what
you're doing. It's like, how are we going to you
know what, what's the best path forward? Because this isn't
quite working. I'm like, we're always wondering what are we
going to do next? And it just became a little
(21:37):
bit of a burden just trying to figure out what
you do and you don't want to just be like
I'm gonna just try try and be trendy all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And one of my goals has always been to try
and do evergreen content as much as possible, because I like,
just for myself as a you know, as a podcast consumer,
like I listened to a lot of sports podcasts too,
and like, well, you know, there's there's news that has
now made that previous episode date. I just won't listen
to it. So how do I do that where I
can just kind of keep it and come back to it.
(22:05):
And so we got close to our hundredth episode and
started thinking about what are we gonna do? And so
we had our hundred episode and that was fun. We
just kind of had We had a bunch of guests
on and and it was just like, well, basically what
I did was I ripped off Brett Goldstein's podcast, which
is a fantastic podcast, Films to be Buried With. I
don't know if you've heard it, but it's it's it's great.
(22:26):
It's basically tell me about your life through film, Like
what's the first movie you saw? A movie that make
you cry? Those kind of things. And so had a
bunch of guests that we had talked with multiple times.
Dan was on there, a bunch of other guys. And
then after that, I was like, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna basically it's a one hund episode, perfect time
to restart, perfect time to do something new. Let's do series.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And so.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I mean last this was all about last summer when
we were kind of figuring this out, and you know,
dead pulling Wolverine. It come out, and that was one
thing like it brought all these Marvel movies back, you know,
the front and they're like, it was like, let's watch
Fantastic four again. Let's watch you know Blade, I love Blade,
Let's watch that. And so we decided to do our
first series that we decided to do was the pre MCU,
(23:12):
so all Marvel before the MCU. And no we didn't
do Howard the Duck, and no we didn't do Dolphilins
and Punish her. But like the modern comic book movie,
as much as X Men gets the credit for it
really starts with Blade in ninety eight, and so we
did it was like, let's do deep dimes that we
did Blade, and then we did X Men, and we
went all the way through to two thousand and seven,
(23:33):
right up until right before Iron Man, and tried to
look at it as the through the lens of what
if this was a cohesive universe? Could it work? And
most of the time it kind of does. But there
are some outliers, but we revisited some things we hadn't
seen in a long time, like Ghostwriter, you know, X
(23:53):
Men three, some of these ones that were kind of
a burden to get through.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
But it was still fun.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Because like the next movie, the list, Yeah, we gotta
gotta do it, we gotta do it. And so we
finished that and that was a lot of fun. The
first half. I mean, the first half of that was great.
Second half, I mean, you got Fantastic four, rights of
the Silver Surfers, the last one, you got Spider Man three,
X Men three, Ghostwriter. As I said, so that's a
little bit of slog But now what I really wanted
(24:20):
to do is we're going through the films of Christopher Nolan,
huge Nolan fan. M So we've so far, we've gone
through and a lot of my My My podcast partners
Justin and Corey have not seen some of the early ones.
So we did Memento they hadn't seen it, Insomnia they
hadn't seen it, and then we did of course Batman begins,
and then we're through the Prestige. So that knows them
(24:43):
just as you know, if we're going from some of
these movies are good to maybe great like X two,
Spider Man two, to someones that are not so good.
Nolan's just banger after banger after.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Every single time. Yeah, Nathan's favorite director of all time
is Chris for Nolan, he loves everything Christopher Nolan does.
He knows like his favorite like both of Sam and Naked.
Sam's favorite movie of all time is Interstellar. Nathan's favorite
movie of all time is Inception with that so yeah,
those are fun. You know, your kid, your your students
(25:17):
are your kids in a lot of ways. Because my
mom was a teacher, I understand that and I know
that that that's the way you feel. But there's you know,
there's so many things like family, and I know that
those you know, your family and your kids you talked to,
we talked to earlier, your daughters, you know, teenager and
all of that. You've got You've got your own kids.
How does Star Wars? How has it been bringing seeing
(25:39):
your kids experience Star Wars in this new era? You know?
And really there's two eras that they've experienced it in, right,
You've got the sequel trilogy era with the films and
Rogue one and Solo and that era, and then we've
had the post sequel trilogy era, which has been primarily
(26:00):
Disney streaming service content with it. What's it been like
watching Star Wars with them in that in that era?
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So, I mean initially the sequel trilogy, they were excited
about that. I think the first they were still kind
of young when when Force Awakens came out, but they
saw Last Jedi in the theater, saw Solo, and they
saw Rise of Skywalker and they were excited. Just they
like going to the movies period, and they enjoyed those
stories and got some of the figures, and like it
(26:29):
was big. I missed the action figure line so much.
Like that was a big thing me and my son
would do. He was still pretty little, because like the
movie would come out in December and then like right
before spring break. It seemed like I'm always right on
spring break, so I had the day off, like they'd
dropped the Blue Aray release, and there'd be a whole
bunch of action figures that would come out, and so
we'd go and just go to Target and lit up
a munch of that. So that was some of my
(26:49):
best memories from that. But as they've gotten older, they've
kind of stepped away from that, and they're kind of
just doing their own thing, and I'm just kind of like, well,
you know, maybe that's not for you as much. My
daughter has mentioned recently, it's like, you know, some of
these movies I've only seen once. I'm like, oh, okay, good,
let's there's a door. Let's let's walk through that a
(27:10):
little bit. So I think we're gonna I'm gonna probably
start with episode one with her and kind of go
back through and and do some of those. And but
I will say that they watched we did watch Ahsoka
together because they had watched about half of Rebels when
it was on. We had watched that, and then I
was like, you guys have to finish Rebels. We have
to watch that, and so I didn't watch it all,
(27:30):
but I kind of picked and choose which different as yet,
you gotta watch this, you gotta watch this. And then
we got to the end, of course, and they're like,
all right, now you're ready to watch Ahsoka, which is
kind of Rebels season five. But because I loved Rebels,
that was one of my all time one of my
favorite Disney things that they've done, so that I think
that was probably the last thing that they were fully
(27:51):
invested in. We watched The Mandalorian in the first couple
of seasons and then they've kind of petered off. I
haven't really watched a lot of that stuff, but yeah,
I'm kind of so that being back and letting them,
if they get interested, come on with that. My daughter loves.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
What's that like for you? Because Star Wars is, like,
you know, you talk about it, It's a big part
of who you are, right It's your fandom, and I
know that, you know, there's been a lot of reasons
that people have sort of kind of have different mixed
feelings in the Disney era about Star Wars. But with
our kids, you know, for me, watching with Sam and
(28:27):
Nate brought me back into Star Wars and changed my
perspective on it. You know, Rebels is our thing. We
I literally just finished a rewatch of Rebels this weekend
with Nathan and we finished it up over Father's Day
and it was awesome. But that's what brought them into
Star Wars, and I think part of the connection for
(28:49):
them has been this podcast has sort of forced them
to stay engaged with it with it, But why do
you feel like, you know, kids are some kids it's
not grabbing them the way that that it did with us.
Is it is it just too much? Is it too
many choices? I think of that.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, I mean the the one hand, there's so many
entry points, which is great. And I mean that's one
of the last things I do after we finish the
six movies. We only watched the six, although this year
I wanted I also showed them Rogue one because and
Or had just finished and like, I haven't seen Rogue one.
And then I go through and like, hey, here are
the other things that if you're interested, you can pursue
and all of you know, as an English teacher, I
(29:33):
obviously hit here are the books that you should read
this summer, and I have a bunch of those in
my classroom, and like, hey, read this kind of stuff.
But I do think that there is almost too much stuff.
But you can be a little bit overwhelming to do that.
So yeah, and as far as my own kids, I
(29:53):
think I have. My experience with Star Wars right now
is kind of unique in the fact that I'm guaring
teed to watch episodes one through six every year, five times.
So I don't have a whole lot. I don't have
a whole lot of motivation and or desire to watch.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
To watch it outside, to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Like for you know, for five weeks or what have you,
it's gonna be living and breathing, and you know that
those movies, Uh, it's pretty intensely during that time, and
so yeah, it's gonna like, oh, for me to actually
have the excitement to do that, I kind of have
to have a break because by the time I get
to the end, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have
to finish this already. Even though again Jedi is my
(30:37):
favorite movie, that's the last one we watch. But I
will say watching those movies, I'm gonna say this as
positively as I can. Those movies have held up. Yes,
even the prequels have held up so well and better
than some of the newer stuff. And I'm going to
put it that way at least I think because and again,
(30:59):
my one of my biggest thrust with this is the mythology,
right is looking at the chosen one in the rise, fall,
and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. For me, that's the central
thing of Star Wars that really gets me. That's why
I love Jedi. You know, you get that last bit
on the you know, in the Throne room with the
Emperor Invader and Luke. That's my favorite moment, Luke throwing
away his lightsaber. I'm a Jedi like my father before me.
(31:20):
That's my all time favorite Star Wars moment. So anything
that pulls from that, detracts from that, I'm less interested in.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I know that when The Acolyte came out, I think
you and I even connected a little bit and talked
a little bit about it. That one of the challenges
that I had with The Acolyte was a there was
no clear antagonist. There was no clear protagonist. You you
really couldn't figure out who the good guys were and
the bad guys were in it with it. And that's
(31:53):
one of the things with Star Wars that, especially in
the originals, you know, the first six movies, the Lucas
era of Star Wars, that wasn't the same. Yeah, like
you clearly, you clearly knew what was going on with
good guys and bad guys with it, which is why
Anakin's fall is so impactful because you see him go
(32:13):
from good guy to bad guy very very clearly with that.
Do you do you feel like that's part of one
of the challenges that's that's happening in this new era?
Is this this this graying of of the morality tale
within within Star Wars?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
No, definitely. I mean I even think of it in
terms of like the beginning of Rogue one where where
Cassion you know, kills the guy so he can get away,
like and like justifiable, I think, But it's also like, wow,
we've never seen a good guy do that, right, this
guy who we're supposed to root for. And I mean
that is a thing too, that, especially when we get
into the prequels. When I'm talking with my students, is
we talk a lot about you know, are the Jedi
(32:52):
this you know, they set themselves up as this moral authority,
but are they really that? Are they infaul and so
clearly or not? Like we talked about, well why can't
they have relationships? We talk about like, you know, they're
over zealous in this kind of thing. They're they're actually afraid.
They're not bad guys though, right, They're misguided, They're full
of pride. It's you know, it's the hubris, which you
(33:15):
know it's a last yet I think that you get yes,
you know, they allowed themselves to be you know, they
could deceived or whatever, and then they had were full
of pride. They let this happen, so they had this
tragic flaw, but they're not bad guys, and to me,
that's that's an important distinction.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Mhm. I've been thinking a lot about the Rise of
Skywalker recently, which is weird, but anyway, just based on
the it, everything in the Rise of Skywalker feels like
an overreaction to me. Yeah, an overreaction to the death
(33:55):
of Carrie Fisher, an overreaction to the struggles of Colin
Tramorrow's book of Henry release and pulling him out, an
overreaction to the Last Jedi, of course, and some of
that an overreaction to Solo's box office, which was a
(34:19):
mistake of their own that had nothing to do with
the movie as much as it did with very little
to do with the movie and more to do with
timing and marketing. From my perspective with it, do you
feel like part of the challenge that that that the
story has right now, that Star Wars has right now
is this it is a corporate thing, which is very
(34:42):
different from what it was with the Lucas era. It's
becomes it's become a business and it's first or foremost
of money making opportunity versus a storytelling opportunity.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, no, I totally do. I think that you see
that like with and as much as I love Filoni stuff,
that you there's so many cameos and Easter eggs and
things like that, that and this has been talked about
a nauseum that you know that again the there's many
entry points. But also as as we as earlier said
like Ahsoka, if you hadn't watched Rebels, absolutely you're in trouble.
(35:12):
So yeah, I mean, like, and I know you guys
love Skeleton Crew. That's a really easy thing to get
into because like it happens in that galaxy, but you
don't really have to know anything to have previously get
into that. So yeah, I think that, you know, the
part of the issue with say like Force Awakens is
it's it's it is kind of a reboot in a way.
(35:33):
Is that kind of stuff. And we've got you know,
the legacy characters in that, even though we didn't reunite
them all together in one scene, which is tragedy I
will never get over. But we don't there's nothing new happening.
I think that's still in the spirit of what the
originals would be like. So I mean that is a struggle.
I mean, I get it. I think that really it is.
(35:55):
That's why we had the cameos, That's why we had
the legacy characters. That's why we have the touch stones,
you know, in Mando to Clone Wars and those kind
of things. So yeah, it's I mean, that's and that's
not just the lucasfilm problem, and that's why we have
so many reboots and sequels and everything else, because all
these original ideas, those are that's a gamble.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's a run home to mama. We you know, if
things aren't working. I mean, we've got another Jurassic Park
movie coming out just a couple of couple of weekends.
You know, it's like studios and they're just like, let's
go back to I saw a great video my Heavy
Spoilers about this today and where Paul talks about the uh,
just the the death spiral of nostalgia in these franchises
(36:37):
and how that's that's that's hurting. And I feel like,
you know, going back to the Rise of Skywalker, I'm
wondering more and more if there was a missed opportunity
with the death of Carrie Fisher and everything that happened
there to basically reboot the franchise with Know no Carrier No,
(37:02):
not having any legacy characters in the rise of in
the episode nine, and just leaning into a completely new
future with that, and they struggled with that. How do
you see you know, when you meet with these when
you have this experience with your students specifically, and they
get engaged, I'm sure, I'm sure many of them because
(37:23):
they're hearing the story different. They're seeing the story so
much more in depth than they would watching it on
Disney Plus with a phone in their hand and a
bunch of mistakes, you know, things going on in the
background and distractions and things like that. They're engaging with
the story. They're understanding the story, they're seeing it like literature,
like you tried to do with that. What's the what's
(37:46):
the experience like for them not just understanding Star Wars
and moving forward, but seeing the mythology of this and
how that impacts them. What's that? What's that like for
these students? And is it is it similar from year
to year or do you have really dramatic differences with
different classes and different students.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
No, it's it's pretty similar. I mean the fact that
they're you know, I'm as much as I see it
five times a day, they only see it once, right, right,
and then we're watching about forty five minutes, and so
it's very it's very focused on what they're doing. And
I think it's it's I don't know if it's the
best way to watch it, but it's a different way
(38:29):
to watch it, so that they have to kind of
live with the material for a while. And discussion is
a huge thing I want them to do, like literally,
take five ten minutes, let's debrief what you thought. Let's
let's talk about these choices that people made. So you're
not just zoning out while you're doing you have a
very active thing that you're doing while you're watching the film.
(38:49):
There is no you like, I don't put your head down,
turn the lights on. That's gonna be hard rough on everybody.
Like you've got to it's an active viewing experience, and
I think you couldn't do that would necessarily any movie
like these movies. They help they hold up so well.
There's some like I every time I joke about this,
every time I watch these movies, every year I pick
up new stuff, and sometimes it's just because I'm watching
(39:10):
the margins. At this point, I'm just gonna watch the
left side of the screen. Oh that I never noticed
this character. Oh my gosh, the table fill in this guy,
I didn't even notice that happened. That kind of stuff.
So yeah, I think going deeper into them, into the
films and having them kind of marinade. The kids kind
of have to marinate in that stuff, and that's they
(39:32):
and sometimes it takes a little while till we get
to the end. And that's what I loved about it
this year, Like we finished like a week before school
was out, and then we got to watch What Going
a little bit and they had some other things they
had kind of do, but they wanted to keep talking
about it now that they had the entire picture of
the six films. So that was for me, that's the
most fun. And that almost that happens almost every year.
(39:52):
But I will say one thing that one thing that's
random every year is which kids have seen it which
kids haven't. And I always it's it's kind of fun
because it's a lot of times it's the kids that
are more introverted that really know Star Wars. They're they're
all in already, yeah yeah, but they become like the
rock stars because they're experts and everybody wants to hear
what they have to say. And I have to every year.
(40:13):
I have to caution look like, don't don't spoil stings
for people. You have to just pretend it's like a
Christmas gift and you can't tell them what they're getting
for Christmas. And I use this example. I had this
kid one year and I don't know how it slipped
through the cracks. She didn't know who Yoda was, so
when Yoda reveals himself, she freaked out, like in the
(40:36):
best possible way, how did you not know? Like you
don't know guys who doesn't know what? And it's way
more fun to watch them figure it out than it
is to tell them. Give yourself the gift of watching
somebody explore this for the first time.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Wow, that's cool because that kind of goes back to
what I was saying about my friends watching me watch
Empire strikes back for the first time and in that moment,
off I am your father and wanting to see my experience.
That's cool. That's cool. So you you know, if You've
got this dichotomy in your in your life when it
(41:16):
comes to Star Wars. Right, You've got these students, which
are a captive audience, which are required for their grave
their grade, to engage with Star Wars at the end
of every school year with you, and and you've got
that world. And then you've got your kids, which you've
been really really careful to bring them into Star Wars
(41:38):
at their own pace and in their own way and
not force it on them and that kind of thing.
So there's so many people that listen to this to
our podcast who are most of them are dads that
are just die to have their kids be as excited
(42:03):
about Star Wars as they are, and the reality is
that's probably never going to happen. I'm with it. What's
your advice for those dads on how to navigate that
(42:24):
that balancing act for wanting to share something that they
love so much with their kids without forcing it on them.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Well, I can think of two things. I mean, and
I've heard you guys talk about this on your show
before that like, Hey, it's Father's Day, I'm picking this movie,
and so you kind of have orgum, maybe it's your birthday,
you know, Hey, the gift that you guys can give
me is quality time, is sitting here and watching this
with me, Like you know, it's once a year, twice
a year maybe, like it's two hours out of your life.
(42:53):
I'm not gonna bug you about it the rest of
the year. Let's just do it here. And the second
thing I would say is, if you haven't watched the movies,
the six movies in the I'm gonna just use them
a shaddy order for shorthand try that and try and
go through because it is a different experience because a
lot of times I've seen it, but you hadn't watch
it this way, because you will pick up things narratively
(43:16):
that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
This is not going to go the way you think.
So much fun. As we kind of pull our speeder
up to a stop on this episode, let's recap some
of the awesome wisdom that Craig dropped on us. First
of all, Craig's Star Wars origin story is seriously cool.
(43:38):
It wasn't just about watching the movies. It molded how
he teaches. This guy is using Star Wars to get
kids excited about literature. I mean, come on, who wouldn't
want to dissect plot points when lightsabers are involved. He's
proving that the Force can make anything more interesting, even Shakespeare,
(43:59):
Sorry Bill. Secondly, Craig really hammered home the power of
the Star Wars community. It's not just about who's got
the best Wookie roar, though, let's be honest, that's a
big part of it. It's about the friendships and the
collaborations that blossom when you find your tribe. It is
a great reminder that sharing our passions connects us all.
(44:23):
And then, finally, for all of you dads out there
that are trying to pass on the Star Wars torch,
Craig gave us some Jedi level parenting advice. Don't force
choke your kids with Star Wars, create special moments, get
creative with viewing orders, just let their love for the
galaxy Far far away grow naturally. Trust us, it's a
(44:45):
lot more fun this way. Definitely go check out Reading
Between the Reels for more of Craig's brilliant film insights.
Of course, keep your scanners locked in on Tato Wine's
suns for all of your Star Wars fix and of course,
maybe the Force and happy parenting be with you. Remember
I am your father. Jokes are always acceptable always.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Thank you for listening to Tattooine Suns, a Star Wars podcast.
Please subscribe and follow Tattooine Suns on Apple Podcasts, Spotify YouTube,
or your favorite podcast app. Tatooine Sons regularly publishes thoughtful
articles intended to provoke conversation about the larger themes and
Star Wars. Go to tattooinsuns dot com to explore further,
(45:30):
and may the Force be with you always.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
This podcast, website, and social media accounts are not endorsed
by the Walt Disney Company or Lucasfilm Limited, and it's
intended for entertainment purposes only. Star Wars, all names and sounds,
and any other Star Wars related items and properties are
trademarks of Lucasfilm Limited and its affiliates. All original contents
of this podcast in website is the intellectual property of
Tattooing Sons unless otherwise indicated
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