"In this day and age, we're sorely lacking for good stories and good mythology," says Morgan Phillips. "For most people I know, the Bible doesn't cut it. But for our generation, Star Wars came to us at a time when we were still developing. It came right when I was in a vacuum."
The description of Star Wars as the basis for a modern faith is so rudimentary, so powerfully simple, so obvious it sounds corny. But for anybody who did not experience a world war or the "invasion" of the Beatles, the story of Luke Skywalker is the one event that binds and melds together the mess of modern life. For those who did not learn right and wrong from Vietnam or JFK or Selma, Ala., for those who never fought in a war or marched on Washington, for those of us who didn't experience the '60s, there is Star Wars.
"If I go to a party with a bunch of people I have nothing in common with, like Republicans, I can always talk to any guy my age about Star Wars," says Cline, the writer of Fanboys. "It's our mythology, like fairy tales or religion that other people had. And now, it's like a new chapter of the Bible is being sent down to Earth and being released."
Guys like Cline and girls like Seaskull knew the wisdom of Yoda, the tiny green Jedi master, with his fractured English haikus about the Force that surrounds us ("Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter"), long before studying philosophy, Eastern or otherwise.
"I don't think you would find any psychologist or religious leader who would disagree with Yoda's tenets of life," Chernoff says. "And, of course, they were delivered by a cute, crazy little green creature, so it was a bonus."
From the moment Luke Skywalker chooses to follow the old desert-dwelling hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi until his final defeat of the Emperor, through three long movies, he makes all the hard choices and makes them correctly. He becomes a man. The prequels will tell a gloomier tale, that of Luke's father's seduction by the Dark Side, his fall from grace, his (and Obi-Wan's) failure to stay on the right path.
"It speaks to something that we know deep down or want to believe in, and that is -- how can I say this without sounding dumb?" Chernoff pauses. "It presents two choices: the light side and the dark side. It sounds silly to discuss it that seriously, but call it what you will, those are real choices we all have to make in life."
The trials of the Star Wars fan don't end with an understanding of the films and an action-figure collection. Growing up with Luke Skywalker took patience, belief, and faith. Between 1983 and the early '90s, the "story by George Lucas" credit appeared a few times but always as a false apparition, a test. It showed up on Tucker, the Coppola-directed biopic of some fellow who invented a car. Big deal. It was on the infamous flop Howard the Duck and the underrated The Radioland Murders, a deft slapstick that Groucho might have liked. And most disappointing was the Lucas-produced, Ron Howard-directed Willow, a blending of Arthurian and biblical myths into a story about a midget, a dragon, and Val Kilmer. As much as the fans wanted to love it, they couldn't. Yet another false messiah.
Since 1992, things have been different. Lucas began licensing Luke, Leia, and Boba Fett to sci-fi writers and comic-book companies. Keeping a close grip on what they could touch (mostly the post-Jedi universe), he eased America back into the Star Wars habit. For a year, almost every book released with Star Wars in the title was a best seller. Then came a new series of action figures, a remastered video release, the Special Edition, and, now, finally, Episode I. The faithful will be rewarded. But to those behind the line, there must be more: a pilgrimage, a celebration, a fast of sorts -- one month of their lives.
Chernoff explains the massive ground-level swell of fan fever as the fulfillment of many childhood dreams. For those who grew up with Star Wars, the past 16 years have been a long journey through the desert, a hell filled with doubt and denial.
"As a kid, you imagine your own future, the way you're going to be as a teenager and an adult," Chernoff says. "The older you get, the more disillusioned you become. Your parents won't get back together. Jim Henson dies, and there are no more Muppets."
Parents stay divorced, you age, get a sucky job, raise kids. Reality sets in. But now that Star Wars is coming back, so is childhood. The real world can be shoved aside, for either two hours in a dark theater or for a full month on the sidewalk: You decide. The faithful are being separated from the idle, the hard-core from the wannabe, the trend-hopper from the fan. On April 19, when the fans started sitting on the sidewalk, a new era began.
"And this is where my highfalutin theory comes in," Chernoff says. "For our generation, for people in their mid-20s and early 30s, it's almost as if Star Wars is the one thing in life that is coming through.
