'Bacca

Recently, my wife bought me an old print of the original Star Wars book, the version with the scenes from the movie in the middle. I had the book as a kid and remembered how big it looked and how proud I was of myself when I read the WHOLE thing. Yeah, my wife can be pretty cool sometimes.

Well, keeping the tradition, my 21-month-old daughter loves to read. Her and I read every night and I could not be happier. However, one day, she got the copy of Star Wars and opened it. Obviously, she did not read the words. However, she went to the middle and looked at the pictures. When questioned, I told her who the pictures depicted and, when I showed her Chewbacca, she smiled and said "'Bacca!" Now, whenever she sees the book, she wants to see 'Bacca. So, I happily indulge her.

Fast forward a couple of days and we are in Toys 'R Us. Elizabeth sees a little 6" figure of Chewbacca and, with wide eyed exaltation, exclaimed "BACCA!" so I had to buy it for her. Later, when she was playing with the figure (i.e., putting 'Bacca to bed, putting 'Bacca in a swing, putting a diaper on 'Bacca), I asked her if she wanted to see 'Bacca and she got all excited.

So, doing a quick mental scan of when Chewie appears in the Trilogy, I remembered that he made a lot of appearances at the end of ESB (The Empire Strikes Back for all you people who pretend not to know what I meant). So, I put the tape in (yes, tape), and started it right when they find C-3PO in pieces. Well, he comes on the screen and she is ALL about BACCA!!!! BACCA!!!!

OK... I was not that happy with ESB becoming "The Bacca Show" but, whatever.

Then, something really cool happened. They went to dinner and saw Vader... and Elizabeth knew something was wrong. She got very serious when Vader came on the screen and came closer to me on the bed. Later, when Chewie is in his cell with the loud noises torturing him (stop pretending you don't know what I am talking about), she got all sad and wide-eyed and showed real empathy for him. She was pointing saying "Bacca" looking as if she was really concerned for his well being and wondering why I was not doing anything to help him. After the noises stopped, and 'Bacca began to put 3PO back together, her eyes got wet.

I suddenly realized that any T.V. shows she may watch have no dramatic tension. You know, Franklin lost his purple shoe, Little Bear let go of his kite, Dora has to get over the shaky bridge, etc. But, for the first time, there was a character on the screen, who she liked, and he was in trouble... and she knew it. It was really something else. I had to fight back a tear. Well, lets just say I tried to fight one back.

Then something even cooler happened. It was the scene where Luke goes into the carbonite chamber and you hear Vader's breathing ("You have learned much young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet.") (Stop pretending you do not hear it in your head right now). She heard the breathing and crawled across the bed to sit next to me and grabbed my hand. When the fight started, she put her head on my shoulder and held my hand tighter.

A 21-month-old, with no concept of space, galaxies far, far away or even good and bad, related, in a very real way to that movie.

There really was magic in the original trilogy.

It is so sad that was magic was lost.