Star Wars and Astronomy

Posted by Kelly Whitt Sep 10, 2007

When people learn I am interested and knowledgeable about astronomy, they often think I am a Star Wars (or Star Trek) fan. But in fact, I know next to nothing about these shows. I have seen one, maybe two partial episodes of Star Trek. I had seen all three of the original Star Wars movies when I was in grade school and I did go to see the new Episode I when it came out in theaters, but it didn't interest me very much.

People also assume that because my son knows a lot about space that he is a Star Wars fan. That wasn't true... until now. He had gotten a gift of a Darth Vader transformer last year. About a month ago I finally got around to borrowing the movies from the library. They are set in space, even if they don't really refer to hardly anything astronomical, and all the places are fictional.

So far we've gotten through the first two. The third one (and by that I guess I mean Episode Six) we'll watch tomorrow. And guess what? He loves them. Although he can't decide which characters he likes better, the good guys or the bad guys. That Darth Vader really does have an attractive aura, for a bad dude.

The movies interest me slightly more than I thought they would. I remembered some small parts of the movie but not all. And I didn't really "get" just how funny and what a breath of fresh air it was when Harrison Ford enters the movie as Han Solo.

So, no, Star Wars is not really about space even though it is set in space. But it is about the fight between good and evil, which is still a good lesson to teach children. And I'm hoping the last two episodes (II and III), which I've never seen, do not disappoint.