Not the case with two new Star Wars micro-series! On May 4th, 2021, Disney+ dropped Star Wars: Biomes and Star Wars: Vehicle Flythroughs. Of these two, I can strongly recommend watching Star Wars: Biomes with a child as young as 3-years-old. My almost-4-year-old and I watched all 18 minutes of Star Wars: Biomes and were utterly memorized. What is it? Well if you haven’t already clicked over to Disney+ to see for yourself, Biomes is like a calming bird’s-eye view of various Star Wars planets. You start in a sweeping aerial view of Hoth, move to Tatooine, fly through Crait, briefly visit Mustafar and that Swamp Planet from Mando, and close-out over Luke’s island from The Last Jedi. (A few Porgs even fly by!) There is zero violence and even Mustafar (complete with Darth Vader’s castle) is somehow calming. My small child actually said she loved the lava planet, which I guess should make me slightly worried, but actually, it doesn’t. Star Wars: Biomes is smart because it lingers on the beauty of made-up planetary landscapes, and just lets you get zoned-out, reveling in how aesthetically pleasing these environments are. If there was ever an argument for the fact that the world of Star Wars is more interesting than the story of Star Wars, it’s Star Wars: Biomes. (Vehicle Flythroughs is similar, but because those are about non-organic things, it’s slightly harder to recommend.) My kid has never seen a Star Wars movie, and who knows when she ever will. But, flying across the surface of Hoth was a magical way for her to dip her toe into a galaxy far, far away. Much like the Disney Zenimations, the smart move here is to take all the anxious energy out of the context of Star Wars, and briefly, turn it into something closer to Star Peace. Watch Star Wars: Biomes on Disney+ here.
