Star Wars is in cinemas now, but is it appropriate to go to The Force Awakens with a six year old?
Seeing Star Force – The Force Awakens with a six year old might sound like a challenge – after all, the film is certified a 12A, but that doesn’t mean your child can’t go, it just means they need to be accompanied by an adult.
I had a look at other films which had a 12A rating, which include James Bond. H has only watched the very start of Skyfall (she likes Adele) which made me feel quite nervous about what The Force Awakens might have in it content-wise.
To be safe I had to check spoilers, and ask friends for advice who had seen the film before me. This link is really helpful – WARNING – it does have a major spoiler in it which you can’t avoid (it doesn’t name the character), so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Once I’d read the info on this page I felt fairly comfortable that H would cope fine with the plot.
One thing which we didn’t think about were the trailers beforehand. Obviously, being a 12A means the films being trailed aren’t sweet films like Charlie Brown, you’re getting violent content. We had around 30 minutes of trailers before the film started, so it may be worth checking how long they are before you go. They were the scariest part of it all. I kind of wished the trailers were PG, as they must know younger kids will be going (example – one film was about London being destroyed and was quite graphic).
There was one part H was left uncomfortable with, when two major characters meet in a forest and there’s conflict. Other than that everything seemed fairly standard Star Wars stuff – the violence was more implied than seen. It was LOUD. Really loud. It was possibly at my limit without earplugs – so if your child doesn’t like noise then it might be worth having some earplugs or headphones handy when you go. A lot of the film reminded me of the spirit of the first film (Episode IV these days).
In fact, on coming out of The Force Awakens with a six year old she decided to play ‘Star Wars’ with her friend. She was Rey, the most kick-ass female lead in a movie in a while. I approve. Rey put up a good fight in the film and strikes me as a good confident role model.
In fact, Disney have just released a whole new load of merchandise bits for The Force Awakens, including plenty of Rey figures included. I suspect we’ll be getting H a Rey costume at some point in the next year… All the items below are available now from the Disney Store!
