(deleted) why ask on the internet you boring woman just let them watch it. whats the worst that is gonna happen they get a little bit scared and the world comes to an end. you are (deleted) mrs.

I think an 8 year old can handle the original Star Wars trilogy.

I've been a star wars fan my whole life starting at the age of 4. I use to come home from kindergarten and pop Star Wars ep. IV: A New Hope in the VCR every single day while I played with other toys. I've got a son now (5) and we're going to spend the day watching the original trilogy.

Seriously, Darth Vader scary?

My 4 year old daughter has seen all of the original Star Wars movies. I asked her if she thought Darth Vader was scary to which she promptly replied, "No, he's Luke's father."

I think it really depends on the child. Maybe start with the prequels instead of the original three.

"Maybe start with the prequels instead of the original three"

Bite your tongue. Let the children watch it in the same order we all did. Thats the only way they should ever be seen. IMO

And i think its cool for them to watch it at those ages, Just watch it with them to explain to them what is happening when they ask and help them realize the story really is one big space aged fairy tale.

One rainy weekend, I wanted to show my 6 year old daughter a movie about good guys and bad guys that wouldnt take too much explaining. So Star wars was it. After watching the first she begged me to finish the series with her. For her, the best parts were seeing Princess Leia in full girl power mode, fighting storm troopers. But she cried when Han Solo was lowered in the carbonite. But i would say the scariest scene for her was in Episode 3 when Anakin crawled out of the lava pit.

Good question -- if parents are concerned, they can check out our site (www.screenit.com) that provides highly detailed content reviews of those films and thousands more.

Snow White is scary, Lion King is very scary, going back from kids movies to fairy tales - just about everything the Brothers Grimm wrote was, well, Grim with the capital G.

If your kids are old enough to know what the moon is, and the space shuttle, I think they are old enough to appreciate Star Wars. If not, maybe start them with Disney's version of "Treasure Planet"...

I showed the first Star Wars (IV) to my boys when they were almost 3yo. They enjoyed it, they didn't get the Uncle Owen scene (I was worried about that one too, and distracted them for those few seconds anyway), and after the movie they ran around pretending to be Storm Troopers and Darth Vader.

Should I be worried ???

Hehe... the only moment I had any real trouble with was the trash compactor scene. One of the kids jumped up off his seat and yelled, "they have to get out of there!" He seemed genuinely concerned and a little scared. It ended up being a good teaching moment about how stories work, about how they use drama, and about how movie people don't get hurt for real :)

They aren't old enough yet I think to debate the merits of "Han Shot First" (and only), but still, I think it was OK under supervision.

"...it brings up a question I've been pondering lately. When is a child old enough to see "Star Wars"?"

Just curious, how long is "lately"? I'm guessing about 3 weeks since that's when a blog called The Mommy Files "pondered" the same question:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=38467

Actually, I hadn't seen that. It's come up in our house because the kids' best friends were playing Star Wars with them on a play date a week ago, and my kids are now asking to watch it. I'll have to take a look. KS

Jeez Tom, get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

My daughter has been watching them since she was 4. She is 7 now and can tell me more trivia than I ever knew.

I was 7 when it came out and so I would think your kids can handle it.

My boys are 3 and 4 and LOVE star wars... in fact the 3 year old is a die hard fan. They love Anakin, and even understand the fact he turned evil (darth) but then turned good again in the end... I don't think I've traumatized them for life... I do avoid letting watch the end of episode III though as its pretty graphic... that's a bit much for little kids to see their hero burst into flames, etc... they have great imaginations, and are very polite and sweet kids despite having sudden urges to re-enact a good lightsaber duel after watching the movies... in fact as I type this I've just started up The Empire Strikes Back and my 3 year old is happily humming along to the opening scrawl... Happy Star Wars Day... and don't forget to let your kids be kids.... Star Wars is wonderful and magic for a youngling's imagination!!!

It has been a while since I've seen the original trilogy, but I don't recall them as being too scary for kids.

But the real reason I'm commenting is to tell you I've used the "May the 4th" joke six times in my office and nobody had heard it before.

Was that an original?

No, not an original from me. It came from whoever came up with Star Wars Day.

it really depends on how you feel your kids will react to what they see. My kids have seen all 6, and have suffered no ill effects. That I know of :)

At age 5, my son knew all of the Star Wars characters, had seen all 6 movies a few times each, and UNDERSTOOD how Anakin was turned to the Dark Side, committed a boatload of evil acts, and still had enough good in him to defeat the Emperor and prove his son was right about him. My son is my hero, with no ill effects.

Our sons are 7 years apart, and from a fairly young age the younger one and the older one watched the original trilogy together every summer. The younger son grew up knowing every single word of the dialogue (you could turn off the sound and he wouldn't miss a beat). This same son found a lot of other movies very scary, but it was clear from the beginning that this was all make-believe.

The Grimm fairy tales are really violent, as are many tales from the Bible, and even many earlier cartoons.
I think kiddie-lit is too sanitized these days. Best idea: watch the movies with the kids, in case there are any problems.
By the way, I was reading Poe's stories (originals) by the time I was eight, so I may be warped anyway.

Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in the theaters at the ripe old age of 4, and not only did it give me a love for those films, but for film in general, leading me to a film degree from NYU and work as a screenwriter. I've been showing them to my son as long as he's been able to understand TV and he absolutely loves them.

Too many parents these days try to shield their children from the pain in the world, rather than giving them the emotional tools to deal with it. My son feels like he can take on a whole army of stormtroopers with his lightsaber. Scared? Don't think so do I.

I've been watching Star Wars since I was younger than 2 and I'm not emotionally damaged in any way, expect for whatever my mother has done to me.

I first saw Star Wars (Episode IV) when I was just shy of 5 and I loved it!!! It was when I saw The Empire Strikes Back that it was tough for me. I was nearly 8 years old and Luke getting his hand cut off was pretty traumatic for me. By the time I was 11 and watching Return of the Jedi, I was over any ill effects and enjoying the movies.

when the original star wars movie was released i was five. i saw it in a movie theater with my cousin (who was also 5) my mom and my aunt, and i can remember it as if it had been yesterday... that movie changed my (very short at the moment) life forever. and my cousin's too, we are both fans...

what i'm afraid of, is that today's kids might find the movies a little bit "slow"...

I tried to have my 5 year old watch it. She got bored and went to play about 20 minutes into it.

1. You can edit out stuff.
2. Kids are different.

You don't have to let them see all the scenes. I think when I showed episode IV (the original Star Wars) to my son when he was 4 (1993) I distracted him during the fried aunt and uncle shot.

Actually, I showed him the movies because he seemed interested in robots. When C3PO and R2D2 were not in the scenes he'd ask where did they go? It was about 3 or 4 time through before he realized it was a story about people, not robots (due to my misleading).

-tps

I would like to add that I doubt I will let them watch EP1 for a long time... mostly because I'm worried that they'll see Jar-Jar Binks, the most frightening and disturbing character in the Star Wars Universe.

We'll stick with the real Star Wars (IV-VI) for now, thanks :)

Kate,
I would say that 8 is plenty old for eps 4-5(SW and Empire). the 5 yr old is good to go on eps 1-3 (new ones) and ep 6 (Jedi). I'm not a parent though so take it with a grain of salt.

May the 4th.....[chuckling]...too funny. I wish I had read this post two days ago so I could use that line!

You know your own children better than anyone, but going from my own experience (which is very different than the current home video experience):

I was eight and my brother was three when our parents took us to see the first SW movie in the theater. At the time, I found the poster (with Darth Vader looming over Luke and Princess Leia) to be very scary. But after seeing the movie, both my 3-year-old brother and I were hooked.

Keep in mind that seeing them in original release made me eleven and my brother six by the time "Empire" came out. And we were fourteen and nine respectively for "Return."

Of course I'm not suggesting that you make your kids wait three years between movies, and keep in mind that your experience of seeing the movies on the silver screen (the only way to see them, imo) and watching them at home on TV is very different.

What I am saying is that the first movie is probably tame enough for the 5-year-old, provided you're there to answer questions or provide security or whatever.

As for the prequels? I personally prefer to ignore them. At the very least, I suggest allowing your kids the pleasure of discovering the movies as they were originally released rather than viewing them in numeric order. (Kids who did not grow up with Vader's heavy, mechanical breathing as the very harbinger of evil will not understand the chill that went down my spine when he took that first breath in "Revenge of the Sith.")

Yes, Dave T is absolutely right--Jar Jar Binks is the worst and most annoying character ever. I think he must have been designed to sell toys, not movies. But I will forgive George Lucas because of the original episodes.

Anyone have information on the workprint of Star Wars WITHOUT John William's score? Yup, there was one. Interesting: http://tinyurl.com/dn3wtr

Ridiculous!

I first saw that when I was three I think. Maybe I saw it younger, but just don't remember. I'm not sure.

If I knew those kids, I'd make fun of them for never having seen Star Wars.
Star Wars is amazing!

Star Wars was the fiirst movie i ever watched and i dont remember being scared

My son is 5 years old and has watched all six and loves them. I feel though that he is drawn to the dark side, he likes Anakin/Darth Vader all the way through. Funny how I am the same way, :)

Let em see it. You may want to cover their eyes when Obi Wan slices off that one creature's arm in the Cantina scene (and yes, when Luke finds the remains of his family).
Otherwise, this is pretty family friendly stuff.

OMG! Life wouldn't be worth living without Star Wars! I was six when I saw the movie at the theaters, way back in the 70's. It is still my favorite movie of all time. I've watched it hundreds of times. It's best to experience it at a young age

If you let young children watch television and generally expose them to mainstream ideas, they will dig violent and/or scary movies at a young age. My son does not watch television, he has never watched a death (real or dramatized) and I have taught him that guns are violent weaponry that kill, and that that is serious business. I believe he'll have to be somewhat older to "get" the difference, as he is five, and still takes everything so literally (as five-year-olds tend to do). It's disturbing to me that so many children in his age group are into guns, but I suppose that's their parents' problem. Hopefully it doesn't become ours.

Similar issues arise with the later movies in the Harry Potter Series and the mid-primary crowd ...

I started watching Star Wars at the age of 6 - beginning with the original trilogy - and it has caused me no ill effects (I think!). I don't remember being disturbed by the scene with Luke's Aunt & Uncle dead, or Darth Vader - it was only my sister, two years younger than me, who was scared of Vader.

I saw it age 8. The scary stuff went by me, including the Owen and Beru part. Only later I though "that's pretty gruesome". I think this is one of these things when we look at children with adult eyes. They are not affected in the way we think.
The older you become, the more violence you see, the more you realize violence isn't fun (in real life at least).
The reason I don't let my kids watch Star Wars but not The Godfather is that the violence is scary, not because I think it will make them insensitive to it.

I was 11 when the original Star Wars came out. My brother took me to see it on opening day. I was hooked and was even called the number 1 Star Wars fan in Amarillo by the news stations when I came out and I bought a ton of SW merch at Toys R Us.

I was also a non believer until age 33. I look back at my life and see that I loved Sci-Fi with a passion, all of it. I think that contributed to my not believing on God.

All of my children have seen all of the Star Wars and love them. The difference is that I take the time to explain why it is all fiction. Two of my children also read Sci-Fi as much as I used to but once again I communicate with them.

It all boils down to how the parent handles the questions and makes sure the child knows the difference between fact and fiction.

A comment on the inevitability of star wars:
I bought my son (at 3) a sticker book because he was into stickers. The book happened to be a star wars sticker book. It was the first thing in his life that he could not put down. He studied every page and image even though he had not been exposed to any of the films, and had me read every caption 100 times over. I would argue that a mild obsession with something is important developmentally, and my son is of course awesome. star wars is definitely a part of that.