My son and I converse about Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and OBGYN practices of a galaxy far advanced over ours in every technological aspect.
I was sitting at the dinner table with my 13-year-old son the other day and out of the blue a Star Wars question of great urgency struck me and I was forced to interrupt his perusing of his favorite TikTok’s of the week.
“You remember in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, when Ani freaks out because he has bad dreams about Padme dying during childbirth?” I asked.
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“Of course,” he replied, spinning his phone on its PopSocket as if the $1,000 minicomputer were nothing more than a fidget.
“Why didn’t she just tell him they could schedule a C-section and avoid the whole labor thing and any potential complications with the childbirth process?”
He nodded at me knowingly and blinked and stared as if I were some lizard that lurked under the three rocks a person could find in the deserts of Jakku and then shook his head as if he had no answer and said, “What’s a C-section?”
Good question kid. It’s the same question Padme and Anakin apparently had at a time when our favorite familiar far away galaxy perched treacherously on the edge of doom. I paused for a moment, gathered myself and then explained the technique that had been mastered in this solar system many years ago.
After thinking about it for a bit he blinked at me again and rolled his eyes and said, “I guess because the movie would have been a lot shorter and there would have been no New Hope, Empire, or Jedi.”
Kids. They think they know everything. It’s maddening. But I wanted to delve into this further.
“Think about it,” I said. “They have ships that can travel at faster than light speed. They fixed Finn after Kylo ran that janky light saber down the middle of his back. Are you telling me their OBGYN practices are that far behind all the other technology?”
He sighed and shook his head at me and stared again and not for the first time I became self-conscious and began to question myself and this line of logic. What did he know that I didn’t?
After a moment he answered. “What’s OBGYN?”
Ugh. “What are they teaching you in schools these days?”
“Algebra.”
“Well, I mean, I suppose that’s good.”
“Social studies.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Today we dissected a frog in science.”
Enough already with the education! How was I going to get through to him on this???
Again I collected myself and explained OBGYN and then looked him squarely in the eyes and asked the question of all questions. “How would you feel if we were on the verge of Order 66 in this galaxy and some dumb young couple decided they’d just go about it the old-fashioned way when the technology is there to fix the problem?”
For the final time he fixed me with that gaze, that mingling of youth and wisdom that only those in their teens can achieve. “I think Order 66 would be awesome!”
Of course he would. Look at his father. No surprise there.
Do you think this could have saved Padme?