Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate love.

And many, many people, as I type this, are gathering in Anaheim, California to celebrate their love of Star Wars. Alas, we Star Wars fans of Children of the Force remain here in lovely Minnesota. Sure, we’ll lament. But we’re also going to make the most of it.

Thankfully, it was announced recently that Celebration will be live-streamed on starwars.com, so we aren’t completely left behind. Thank you Star Wars. For everything.

Now on to the episode. We’re back from a Spring Break hiatus with episode #4 of Children of the Force.

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Stay on tangent… Stay on tangent…

At the top of the show, we go off on a tangent about sports and Star Wars and I bring up Jason Fry’s excellent article about the topic which can be read at starwars.com here. Here’s just a snippet of the brilliance:

To me, sports and space fantasy have an essential commonality. Some people’s passion is stirred by doings in a fictional universe; others respond to the deeds of a temporary assemblage of athletes. But it’s the same passion. Some folks like their drama scripted for the page or screen; others like it to emerge from a succession of plays on the athletic field. But it’s the same drama.

STAR WARSY STUFF

Since we last spoke, we met a waitress with a full Star Wars tattoo sleeve that the kids and I thought was awesome. No photo, because I would have felt too awkward to ask her. But I just googled “star wars tattoo sleeve” and HOLY CRAP there are a lot of amazing Star Wars tattoo sleeves out there. Go ahead, google it. I’ll be right here when you get back.

Liam got the Hoth Han and Luke action figures, so that’s cool. And we played quite a bit of Star Wars 20 Questions on our trip. It’s a fun time-waster.

Anna is next in line in her class to read Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand, which mysteriously appeared in her classroom (I swear it wasn’t planted by me … I haven’t even read the thing). But I look forward to hearing Anna’s take on her first exposure to one of fandom’s favorite characters. It has apparently made quite the splash with her classmates, which is great news.

And of course, the last Star Warsy thing I have been doing is trying to keep up with the onslaught of Star Wars Celebration social media posts. I just, right after typing that sentence, spent 30 minutes nearly hyperventilating looking at awesome pre-Celebration twitter posts. This is my life for the next four days, people.

Aaaaanyway…

NEWS

It’s almost laughable to talk about news on a day like today. Tomorrow, Thursday, April 16th, the biggest piece of Star Wars news in at least 4 1/2 months is going to likely drop (the trailer, of course). So we talked about that possibility and now the kids are so excited about it that someone’s going to get a strongly worded letter if it doesn’t happen.

Also in the news, Anna and I take turns reading descriptions for the Journey to Star Wars: Force Awakens books and we all talk about the varying degrees with which we are looking forward to them. Anna’s really excited about Lost Stars and Aftermath. We all are looking forward to The Weapon of a Jedi.

CANON NEWS

Jedi master Depa Billaba “emerged” from something before choosing Caleb Dume as her Padawan. We discuss why she was in a coma according to the Legends continuity. And Anna, Liam and I all have different reasons for why it would be unacceptable if it had to be Yoda’s kiss that woke Sleeping Billaba up.

Al: Kissing someone in their sleep is kissing without consent, and that is unacceptable.

Liam: Jedi aren’t supposed to have relationships.

Anna: Because “ew.”

JOKE

Anna and Liam are the ones with the joke this time. What is Count Dooku’s favorite song? They sing it. It’s not in English. My kids are the best kind of weird.

REVIEW

Finally, we review Kanan: The Last Padawan #1, written by Greg Weisman with art by Pepe Larraz. It blew us all away. Beautiful art. Beautiful storytelling. Moments that live in the sublime. Panels that almost make me cry.

We loved the action, too, which can be seen in this preview over at starwars.com.

Issue #2 is going to hurt so much.

CotF rating (scale of 1-10): 9.23

QUESTION & ANSWER COUNCIL

What/Who is your favorite droid?
What’s your least favorite planet?
Who’s your favorite Jedi?

Thanks for giving our podcast a listen. I know it’s still a little quiet, and I hope to get those volume issues fixed for the next episode. But for now, just make like a princess and blast it!

So that’s episode #4. Here’s how to get a hold of us on social media, etc.:

Twitter: @forcechildren
Facebook: Children of the Force
Email: forcechildren@gmail.com
Website: www.childrenoftheforce.com

Join us, and together we will celebrate vicariously as father and son and daughter and listener…

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