Star Wars is a very different thing for kids today than it was for me. It’s not that Star Wars wasn’t marketed out the wazoo when I was little… but that marketing is much more faceted. In addition to standard Star Wars figurines that look as they look in the movies you have Star Wars Legos and sort of chibi Playskool toys and Angry Birds Star Wars and on and on. This is to say nothing of the complicating presence of the 3 prequels.
Joshua knows Star Wars because his Daddy loves Star Wars. It’s basically written into me. I can’t not love Star Wars. It’s ingrained in this sort of passive, casual way. Like how people love certain foods. You just do. It’s not really a decision. As a result, I have various books and swag around the house that are Star Wars-related. In these, Darth Vader is the bad guy. He is chief enforcer of the evil Empire and he does many bad things. I liked Vader when I was a kid, but I always understood his role in the Star Wars universe. He might have been the start of bad guys being both cool and bad at the same time (because it sure as hell wasn’t Skeletor).
However, we also have other, more kid-friendly Star Wars items. We have Darth Vader and Son and Vader’s Little Princess which are hugely charming little books that chronicle an alternate timeline where Vader is caring for a young Luke and young Leia as an attentive father. We have Darth Vader plush toys. We have a red Darth Vader lightsaber that was my toy when I was a little boy. We have Star Wars Angry Birds.
So already Joshua understands that Vader is Luke’s father (which ruins that fun reveal later, in case he grows out of this phase and forgets all he’s learned, which is a real possibility), but doesn’t really understand anything else about the character. He thinks that Vader is Luke’s Daddy – the guy who gave up his own ice cream to make Luke feel better after he dropped his. So when he is older and watches the movies he’ll experience the reverse process most of us got to experience. Instead of Vader being an evil man humanized and redeemed in the end by his fatal choice to do the right thing, Joshua will find out that this charming storybook father is actual a ruthless general terrorizing the galaxy and, if he watches follow-up prequels (in one of Lucas’ more inexplicable extravagances), a child-murderer. I think he’s starting to understand that the Anakin he sees referenced in all the books and materials relating to the prequels grows up to be Darth Vader – but I’m not sure he really gets what that actually means overall.
The introduction of Angry Birds Star Wars (which is his current obsession) throws even more of a wrench into things, because Joshua recognizes the bird characters have their Star Wars analogs – but Angry Birds tweaks the names and this causes a lot of back and forth chatter. Joshua has a couple of little Angry Bird Star Wars books (they are marketing geniuses over at Rovio) and I am constantly being corrected that Lard Vader, Boba Fatt, R2-EGG2, C3P-YOLK, Terebacca, Ham Solo, etc., are not their real names. I’m trying to teach him that they are different versions of characters he already knows but that does not seem to be one of those things that is going to take hold easily.
I have this same problem with Emil, but I guess I shouldn’t be worried. In his view the Star Wars character (Clone/Storm Trooper) is the main character. Which I kinda dig.