Star Wars Canteen and Cabin Fever

Halloween. Good times

Maybe you heard that we got a huge blizzard here on the east coast about a month ago. School was closed for a week, it was actually a nice break. I love when the kids are home and it's all of us just hanging out. The kids like it too. Even with all the love of being home we do end up looking for things to do. This blizzard gave us a chance to take on a project we'd been talking about for a few months, the kids' version of Eddie Izzard's "Death Star Canteen" bit.

If you haven't seen, then for crying out loud, click the link. It's brilliant. If you prefer there's also an animated version and a fantastic stop-motion Lego version.The problem for me as a parent is that there's some cursing, so I can't play it for the kids. The bigger problem is that I forgot about the cursing, played it for one kid, then had to play it for the other kid. Then they both started dropping casual f-bombs. So we had to clean it up. First, we found a transcript online, and I bowdlerized it. We had fun doing readings of that for a while, and then reciting it on weekend mornings while making breakfast. Once Buddy decided to be Darth Vader for Halloween we knew we'd end up doing a filmed version. The blizzard finally gave us the time.

Now look, I don't know how this goes for the Holderness family, but making a movie like this with a four year old kind of sucks. Also, Buddy is kind of a perfectionist so not getting it in one take was frustrating. The main problem for Lou was waiting for her part, and being quiet. But after a few dozen takes it finally came together. So below I present to you a clean, kid friendly version of Eddie Izzard's Death Star Canteen.