Star Wars

I am not familiar with Star Wars fans in other cities. My entire experience has been with the ones that live in the greater Los Angeles area.

This past Saturday the most rabid of these fans met at a hotel on Hollywood Blvd for breakfast and to review guidelines for life in the big line.

What line the innocent amongst you may ask? The line to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.

Wait a minute I thought that movie came out on May 19th, what line are you talking about? The most hardcore of all Star Wars fans have traditionally began waiting in line outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater at least forty days before the actual showing.

Now I am not saying these fans are nuts, just a tiny bit obsessed. They camp out on Hollywood Blvd. Discussing all things Star Wars, sharing the sidewalks with the homeless population of Hollywood. Regardless of the weather, the mocking media and indifferent passerby’s the majority persist right up to premier.

Opening night finds them posing for the media. The line has been transformed from a rag tag group of geeks into a population of Jedi, Storm Troopers, Emperor’s and youngsters with multicolored light sabers. Excitement grips them, as they file into the theater ready to lose themselves in the Star Wars universe.

This year though it appears that the dark side of the force is being wielded by someone intent on ruining the experience for our fun loving geeks.

The line has always been run by the Starlight/Starbright foundation, which raises money to aide terminally ill children. Someone at the foundation dropped the ball because the fans began lining up on Saturday and yesterday it was released that the movie would not even be playing at Grauman’s Chinese but down the street at the Arclight Theater.

Quite a few fans quit the line but a hardcore group of eleven were still there this evening. Claiming it was not the movie that mattered but the line experience. I hope that is not their idea of a slogan for keeping the line going because hardcore fans want to see the movie not just wait in line.

Who knows how it will play out? On one hand the geeks are easy to make fun of. On the other with the series about to end it would be sad if they did not have their final day in the sun.