Anybody with thoughts on taking small children to see this?
(I'm looking mostly for opinions from people with children or with otherwise relevant viewpoints; I'm not looking for armchair parenting judgments.)
My son is almost 4 and LOVES Star Wars. He has seen 4, 5, 1, and 2. He got upset when Anakin left his mother in TPM. I skipped over Shmi's death and the ensuing Tusken slaughter.
I'll show him Jedi (though it's likely he'll find the emperor creepy), but I think RoTS would be too much. Starting with the Dooku beheading and ending with Anakin's dismemberment... though during Clones, he said, "look, they broke Boba Fett's head off. That's a bad boo boo." And wasn't distressed. He doesn't have much understanding of death yet.
I'm inclined to say TFA isn't drastically more intense than ESB, but it IS more intense. It's definitely less intense than Sith. I think he can probably handle it since some of the "mature" themes will go over his head unnoticed, and because he does have a very good handle on real vs. make believe.
A small part of the concern is I don't want to sit there having people judging my parenting. Though at my screening last week there were a handful of kids definitely younger than 6.
Thoughts?