More Outdoor Winter Play, the Star Wars Way!

Since 1977, re-enacting scenes from Star Wars has been a fun outdoor activity for kids. Depending on where you live though, it might take a little more imagination for some moments!

If you live near a forest then it is easy to recreate the battle of Endor. If you live near swamps then you have an instant Dagobah for Jedi training with Yoda! If you happen have a sandy desert area nearby suddenly you can imagine you’re podracing on Tatooine or stealing the Millennium Falcon from Unkar Plutt on Jakku.

Mittens? I don't even need a jacket!

Then there’s winter…

A while back we looked at playing out the snowy scenes of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back and parts of The Clone Wars. Since then, The Force Awakens has introduced several new “cool” scenes to kids who don’t mind a little cold weather.

Whether you get your lightsabers out and duel in the snow, or bring your action figures outside and hope they don’t get lost until spring, here’s a few ideas for more outdoor winter play the Star Wars way!

In the movie Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren face off in an epic winter lightsaber fight. Finn starts trying his skills with the lightsaber but it’s Rey who really challenges Kylo during the snowy battle.

Starkiller Base itself offers many wintery moments, from the crash of the Falcon to Han, Chewie and Finn trying to get inside. If you think the Force will keep you warm though, remember Han’s words there: “That’s not how the Force works!"

Or you could recreate General Hux’s passionate speech about the First Order, though you may need a lot of friends to be the Stormtroopers! Perhaps a few of the troops could be snowmen?

Do you want to build a snowtrooper?

The deleted scenes from The Force Awakens (available on the bluray) provide even more inspiration for fun, including a snow-speeder chase that did not make it into the final movie.

Here she'll wear a jacket!

May the Force be with you, however you play Star Wars this winter!

 

Skywalking in a Winter Wonderland: Outdoor Play the Star Wars Way!

Get outside and enjoy the winter weather, Star Wars style! There are plenty of moments to re-enact in the snow. Imagining being on The Empire Strikes Back's "remote ice world" of Hoth was a common part of outdoor winter play for me. Due to our winters, Hoth seemed the most familiar location among all the exotic locations of the galaxy far, far away.

Of course we didn't have AT-AT walkers, wampas or tauntauns, but we had plenty of snow and imaginations. Snow forts could easily become Echo Base, or the rebel trenches or even the wampa cave. Hanging upside down like Luke was a little trickier though!

The battle of Hoth is one of the coolest (hehe) scenes ever presented on film, but did you know Hoth is not the only icy place to play in the Star Wars Galaxy?

Jude Watson's 2001 children's novel Jedi Quest: The Path to Truth introduced a new icy planet called Ilum to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. There a chilly young Anakin seeks a crystal to create his lightsaber as part of his training, just as Jedi trainees had done for generations before him.

If this sounds familiar to you, you may remember in The Clone Wars when the Jedi Younglings travel to Ilum to seek their own crystals in the ice caves. In The Gathering (episode 6, season 5) Ahsoka & Yoda instruct six young Jedi (including my favourite Gungi the Wookiee!) on what they must do and face within the ice caves to retrieve their very own crystals as a rite of passage for Jedi.

"Cold we ALL are. Complain you will not."

In the earlier Star Wars: Clone Wars "micro-series", 3 mini-episodes (Chapter 14-16) featured Jedi Master Luminara Unduli guiding her Padawan Barriss Offee to construct her own lightsaber with a newly-aquired crystal. Things go horribly wrong when Separatist droids sneak in and try to destroy the sacred temple among the ice caves. Yoda, Padmé, C-3P0 & R2-D2 must brave the cold and face the invisible droids to rescue them.

"Frightful, the weather outside is. Delightful, a fire would be."

Once you're done imagining you're a Jedi on a sacred quest to find your own lightsaber crystal on Ilum, you can take a pretend hyperspace jump over to yet another ice planet in the Star Wars Galaxy to the "bleak, snow-covered planet" of  Orto Plutonia.

In The Clone Wars first season (Episode 15: Trespass), Anakin and Obi-Wan travel to Orto Plutonia to investigate what happened to a Republic base but find themselves in a conflict between the Pantoran military and the furry native Talz species. Peace is eventually reached but not without a price.

For some reason Santa went with reindeer instead.

So if you happen to live somewhere snowy, you can envision yourself riding a Narglatch snow cat with the Talz or zipping over the ice on a Freeco speeder bike too!

UPDATE: December 2014
Once we find out who this guy is and what he's doing in a dark, snowy forest there's whole new scenes to play out & have fun in the snow!

Just because it's cold and snowy outside, don't let that get in the way of your Star Wars play. There's plenty to re-enact or create yourself in the wintery Galaxy. 'Tis the season!

"I'm going to stink for weeks!"

Just an aside: I've never understood how Han Solo's Tauntaun (a native species of Hoth) freezes while Han himself and Luke can survive the freezing conditions. Any thoughts? Leave a comment below!