GlennFrazier.com

My two oldest chidren love the Star Wars saga. One of them practically lives and breaths the Force. As a family we have been counting down the months until Episode III launches, with the screening of a different film each month. First A New Hope, then Empire Strikes Back, then Phantom Menace, then Attack of the Clones, and most recently Clone Wars, Volume 1 and Volume 2. The plan was to see Revenge of the Sith in the theater this month, then top it off with a home screening of Return of the Jedi. All along the way, we've been avoiding most of the runup-to-debut publicity, rumors, etc.

We have a problem.

This month's film, as it turns out, is getting a PG-13 rating for intense violence and scenes that may be inappropriate for children. I've just scanned a few headlines and a couple of articles (e.g., here, here, and here), and from what I've seen there will definitely be moments that my kids should not experience until they are older.

The plan was for my wife and I to prescreen the film anyway, but my assumption was that it would be PG like every other one of the films, and that at worst there would be one or two moments we'd have to manage the kids through. Now I'm not so sure. I guess I won't know for certain until we do finally do our own viewing of the film. In the meantime, I guess we'll have to start laying the groundwork with the boys that will prepare them for a delay in seeing this installment of the series.

Somewaht related, I was pleased to see that Kevin Smith (a director whose opinion on film I've come to respect quite a bit) is nearly ecstatic about Episode III. I'm still in spoiler-avoidance mode, so I've only read an article summarizing his recent review of the film, and that only as far as possible without hitting plot/scene details.

For those other Kevin Smith fans out there who also want this, I've quoted just the first half of the MTV article on his review below:

"Clerks" director Kevin Smith recently saw "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" and he summed up the final chapter in director George Lucas' space epic as "quite simply, f---ing awesome."

Smith posted a rave review of the film — which opens May 19 — on his official Web site, describing the movie as the "prequel the haters have been bitching for since '[The Phantom] Menace' came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying."

The comic-obsessed director said the dramatic closing chapter not only ties up loose ends and finally provides a look at the birth of the Darth Vader character, but it hides plenty of elegant links to the original movies as a treat for hardcore fans who've felt the previous two new episodes were at times disjointed.

And while Smith said Ian McDiarmid (Senator Palpatine) and Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) steal the show, he also predicted that Hayden Christensen's strong performance as Anakin crossing over into Darth Vader will "silence naysayers who wrote him off as too whiney in '[Attack of the] Clones.' "

Not only is the film beautiful to look at, but the opening battle sequence is the best of any in the six-film series, Smith said, adding that as dark as "The Empire Strikes Back" was, "This movie goes a thousand times darker." Lucas has warned that "Sith" is the most intense film in the series, which has earned it the first PG-13 rating in "Star Wars" history.

The rest of the article is full of spoilers, so read at your own risk.