who you callin’ scruffy lookin’

chewbacca the star wars sex symbol.

I am a life long Star Wars fan.  I am one of those crazy people who will seemingly buy almost anything George Lucas slaps a Star Wars logo on.  I am not however one of those deranged fans who dresses up as a little known bounty hunter who has all of two and a half seconds of screen time, then parades around in public as that character.

Last weekend my wife and I took our nephew Isaiah to the Star Wars exhibit at the Seattle Pacific Science Center.  For someone like me who is absolutely fanatical about the movies, especially the original three, this is a dream come true.

This was my opportunity to get a close up look at Luke’s landspeeder, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Yoda, and the Millennium Falcon, so on and so on.  When we had walked through the entire exhibit, I turned us around and we went through it again.  I could have spent all day there studying each item on display, looking at the tiny crack in the rubber of Yoda or discovering the tiny writing on the side of the Millennium Falcon.

If there was one thing that attempted to ruin the experience for me it was those fans who came dressed up.  Unlike with the Harry Potter exhibit where dressing up meant putting on slacks, a v-neck sweater, and one of four different striped ties, Star Wars fans have large elaborate costumes.

I have come to accept that while I could blow your typical fan out of the water with my knowledge of Star Wars, these costumed creepos could easily demolish me.  Not because they love Star Wars more than I do (The Empire Strikes Back is my number one desert island movie) it’s because they do nothing else, this has become their life.

You might have seen that man who chooses to live as a baby video that began making the rounds on Youtube last week.  Personally I see very little difference between these fans and that sad baby-man.  Both have chosen to live in a fantasy life, and as tolerant as I want to believe I am I just cannot accept.

I thought this was super cool... I don't know why.

It disturbs me to see a 250 pound man squeeze into a skin tight Stormtrooper costume and walk around striking poses that I struck when I was ten.  My wife would say good for them for being brave enough to display their crazy right out in the open.  I say that it creeps me out the see them in public and the thought that they might dress up at home when their alone literally frightens me.

no one ever dresses up as Yoda, why not?  He's cool.

To a certain degree I understand what is happening here.  For those who were kids when the original movies came out, we had less authentic looking merchandise to interact with.  Our lightsabers were any stick you could find, our lazar blasters were any toy gun you had lying around.  We relied heavily on our imagination.

Now things have become so realistic and elaborate, I see how it could be hard for these big kids to resist living out the fantasy like they wanted to as children.

jaime and I are divorcing so she can marry this wampa

There are many things at times that we would like to do when and where ever we want, as it turns out when you become an adult you have to resist those urges.  I’m not here to kill anyones imagination, but if that overweight lady in the Princess Leia costume had taken all the hours that it no doubt took to create that costume and applied it to some other creative outlet, she might not be the crazy Princess Leia.  Instead she might be know as that talented sculptor.  They’re not untalented they’ve just chosen to waste it on something that creeps me out.

posted by: brian snider