Is this really what we've come to? "After three years of lobbying, Paul and I decided that Simon could handle watching the first Star Wars movie again." How out of touch with reality do you have to be to think that there's something objectionable about kids watching Star Wars? What the f*$% is wrong with this woman?

Kids like Star Wars because it's a good story! Kids like good stories! And for who even knows what reason, this woman has been able to fill her life with people who morosely snuff out every shred of imagination the poor kid has. The insularity required to maintain such a delusional approach to parenting is incomprehensible to me.

This kid doesn't have a chance, and it's the fault of his mother, for believing tripe like she spews in this article, and it's the fault of his father, for not recognizing her mental illness and obtaining custody and a restraining order against her.

YES!!! Very well said.

Not only is she neurotic but she misses the point of Star Wars and thus fails to really answer her own question: Why DO kids like Star Wars so much? Because, like foobar says, it's a good story. But to that I would add that it's a good story because it uses classic archetypes and story structures that appear again and again and again: In the bible, soap operas, Grrek Mythos/Homer, Shakespeare, everywhere--even in our "history" books. And yes, in Harry Potter too, as much as I despise that franchise. Her husband could pick up on this, and she does to a certain extent, but of course hyperactive parenting stands in the way of what should be this kid's introduction to classic storytelling.

Yes, there's the branding, but that's a cheap, lazy, typically Slate-ish answer (blame the big corporations) to a question that could be answered any number of ways but ultimately boils down to the fact that little boys like good stories. ESPECIALLY stories about young men finding their way in a forbidding world with only their wits, bodies and furry friends to depend on.

Okay Gobot and Foobar,

we know you are really George Lucas! Brazelon is not trying to squash her kids' imaginations by keeping them in the dark about Star Wars. She is merely questioning the crazed effect the movies have on her 3-year old, and regrets showing the film to one so young. As the mom of a 3-year old, I wouldn't show the film to my son either. Let him wait until he's in grade school. No one at his preschool has seen the films and we can hold off the incessant Star Wars talk for a few years. Nothing wrong with that.

The "crazed effect" is probably in her head, for starters, and if not, well, it's probably because the poor kid is so starved for stimulation that ANYTHING interesting that comes along is going to set him off.

But how could discussing the moral implications in Anna Karenina over high tea be boring to a three year old boy?

"As the mom of a 3-year old, I wouldn't show the film to my son either."

I feel sorry for the kid. Hell, I feel sorry for most kids growing up these days, with their cowardly parents who feel like the whole world has to be sanitized for their precious little miracles. Gag me with a rusty fork. My mother took me to see STAR WARS during its original theatrical run when I was two months old, and I saw Empire at the drive-in when I had barely turned three. No trauma ensued; I did not turn into a violent child. I was always among the top students in my classes, and I'm now earning a nice living as an adult. Your kid? He'll be lucky if he's not in therapy his entire adult life.

Cut the cord, lady. Your son will thank you for it some day.