Star Wars Youth,or, The Kids Are Alright by Mary Jo Fox I’m guessing most of you reading this zine fall in between the ages of 18 and 30.  I figure some of you may be a bit younger or a bit older.  Okay, maybe a lot older.  In any case, we’ve all noticed how in recent times SW has attracted a young audience a second time around.  A good number of the people who were in line to see the Special Editions were teenagers.  Parents brought their grade-schoolers.  Within weeks the small fry were clambering for action figures and stomping about in their spiffy Darth Vader sneakers. On three different occasions, wearing three different t-shirts, three different small kids upon seeing the images on the shirts exclaimed, “Look!  Star Wars!” as if they’d just seen Santa Claus.  All one boy saw was the image of a frozen Han on my back.  He didn’t even see a SW logo but he instantly recognized what it was.  One day I was in a mall Halloween shop, admiring its display of SW masks and costumes, when a kid comes running up, shouting, “Star Wars!  Mom, can we get a costume here?!”  I was amazed, and moved, by these incidents. I’m also impressed by the teens who have been so active in the fandom.  In fact some of the most hardcore SW fans I have ever met are like 15 or 16 years old, that generation of kids who (up until last winter) had seen the trilogy only on their t.v. screens.  These young people have formed clubs, written and shared fan stories, and established web sites.  One of my favorite Leia web pages is run by a 16-year-old high school student.  I couldn’t even run a computer when I was that age!  Teens are active collectors and CCG players.  A couple of BH readers who are teachers have told me they trade CCG cards with their students and loan them fanzines.  Perhaps Michelle Pfeiffer should’ve tried this in “Dangerous Minds.” But not everyone thinks this is all so wonderful.  I’ve heard grumblings from members of the “original” SW generation about these fans.  Grumblings that these little punks don’t know anything about SW.  In fact, I remember a letter in SW Insider from a 16-year-old girl who was denied membership in a local fan/collecting club because she was “too young” to “appreciate the wonder of SW.”  Helloooo?!  We’re not talking about the films of Werner Herzog here.  The trilogy was designed to appeal to children’s sense of wonder.  And it’s a sure bet that those club members were kids themselves when the films first came out.  They’re not going to tell you they didn’t understand the movies back then, are they?  Probably not. A younger fan may not know as much trivia about SW as someone who has been a fan for 20 years, but come on!  That’s because they haven’t lived as long as you have.  Instead of sneering at these kids, we ought to remember this slogan oft repeated in the African American community:  “Each one, teach one.”  Knowledge is meant to be shared. Other older fans sometimes question young fans’ integrity.  Oh please!  What were most of you doing when you were in your teens?  You were probably hiding your Death Star playset and pinning a Playboy centerfold over your “Revenge of the Jedi” poster whenever your “cool” friends were coming over to your house.  Today’s young fans not only proudly display their action figure collection, they get Boba Fett tattoos on their heinies to impress their girlfriends. A reader told me there’s no guarantee these kids will be fans over the long term.  Well, that is certainly true, but not everyone in my second grade class back in 1977 is producing a SW fanzine nowadays either.  I know that many of the adults who were publishing zines and writing fan fiction in the late 1970s and early 1980s bolted from SW fandom for “Star Trek,” “Blake’s 7,” or whatever else the nanosecond credits rolled at the end of ROTJ.  Yet there are teens who already have been fans for a long time...my 17-year-old pen pal Gina has been a fan since the age of four.   So long-term loyalty can’t be determined by age alone. To be blunt, us twenty/thirtysomethings shouldn’t hog SW, particularly since we’re always dissing baby boomers for being the cultural imperialists that they are.  SW lives only so long as it keeps attracting new fans; if it’s stuck as part of only one generation’s identity, it ages and dies along with that generation.  Sure we care about the effect new fans will have on the fandom and of course we will always have the first-hand experience of the glory years of 1977-1983 while our youthful counterparts never will.  But let’s give them a break.  With all of the horror stories in the news about American youth troubled with broken homes, violence, drugs, and premature sex, it’s great to know there are kids involved with something positive. So a tip of the lightsaber to all of the young Jedi Knights out there--you guys are the future of fandom, the ones to carry on the torch while we’re being spoonfed in the old folks home.  Keep your head up and MTFBWY!

"Zen and the Art of Toy Collecting, part II (excerpt)" by James Addams After writing about toy collecting for BH11, it occured to me to take a step back and ask myself that one vital question that we have all asked ourselves, and I’m not talking about the one whos answer is 42.  The question I’m referring to is: At the age of thirty, what the hell am I doing spending several thousand dollars per year on toys?  What value, from a spiritual or Zen standpoint, do these objects hold in my life?  How do they enrich me?  Make me whole?  Add to the quality of life? This article will not attempt to address that issue.  The reason for this is because I really don’t have an answer.  If you can tell me why I’d rather have 15 cases of action figures in my closet than $1400 in the bank, I’d like to talk to you. So let’s talk toys. Someone important must have read the toys update we ran in BH12, the one in which I mentioned that a Dr. Evazan figure would be cool, because mere days after that issue came out, news of the Cantina Showdown three-pack hit the streets.  This Wal-Mart exclusive features Obi-Wan, Ponda Baba, and the figure I have most clamored for, Dr. Evazan.  Now, why am I getting so bent out of shape over such a minor character?  I’ll tell you! In the past Kenner has made figures of lots and lots of characters that don’t say a single word on screen (Momaw Nadon, Imperial Dignitary, 8D8).  In fact, they’ve made a lot of figures of characters that you really have to do some work to even spot in the films at all (Snaggletooth, Amanaman, Prune Face... and who makes up these silly names anyway?).  Considering that this company is making Action Figures, at least they could produce characters who figure into the action!  Characters like ol’ Doc E.  He says some of the trilogy’s most famous lines (“He doesn’t like you!  I don’t like you either!”), then throws Luke across the room.  This guy rules!  He has the death sentence on 12 systems!  But does he get an action figure?  Nope.  Not until now.  Instead, in the classic line, Kenner bothered us with eight different Ewoks.  Other amazing characters who got stiffed in the past, like Wedge Antilles and Grand Moff Tarkin, have made the pegs this year, and I think they all look pretty good.  So thumbs up for the Doc! Here’s some cool Doctor Evazan trivia:  In spite of the fact that he had a speaking part in the film, he was not credited.  The actor who played “Grubby Human” (later dubbed Doc Evazan by West End Games) was Alfie Curtis, whos only other major film role was as a janitor in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man.  This is doubly interesting because Lynch was asked by Lucas to direct Return of the Jedi  based on his great work helming Elephant Man. So... back to action figures!  Speaking of Baba (that’s Ponda Baba, not his brother Ali) this figure definitely places in the top five for “most improved figure” over the old line, as do most of the other aliens.  They still didn’t get his hands right, but I guess he wouldn’t have been able to hold a blaster if they kept his hands as they were in the film.  Something that is really keeping me awake at night though, are the scale problems I’ve noticed lately.  Did any of you guys notice that the Rebel Fleet Trooper is taller than Chewbacca?  The AT-AT Commander and Driver that come with the new AT-AT are both larger than their boss, Vader!  Greedo is taller than Fett, as is the otherwise awesome “Slave” Leia.  Luke Trooper is taller than Han Trooper.  It’s as if the sculptors over at Kenner decided that if they couldn’t make the characters as buff and “He-Man-like” as they did with the first wave in ‘95, then they would  make up for it in height!  Forget the fact that you can’t make the new Han and Chewie sit together in the Falcon’s cockpit, forget that Boba doesn’t fit properly into the Slave I, let’s deal with the fact that you can’t display the ‘97 figures next to the ‘95/’96 lines without them looking... just... wrong.  At least the Jawas are short enough! Doctor Evazan is a behemoth also, but I’ll make an exception in his case! Let me point out a few other things that just sort of bug me.  On the back of the Yak Face figure’s card, it says his weapon of choice is a “double-barreled Blaster Pistol with Modified Trigger Guard”.  Then why the hell does he come with a battle staff instead of the pistol?  And check out the photo on the Rebel Fleet Trooper’s card: his eyes are closed!  They couldn’t find a different shot with open eyes?  And the new Royal Guard.  Nice uni-leg.  These all-plastic figures are really getting annoying.  I used to joke about the cloth/plastic controversy, but it is really getting out of hand with the Guard.  This thing really just sucks.  Remember the old  Royal Guard figure?  Nice red cloth robes with two poseable legs underneath.  What the hell is this crap they’re putting out now?  So much for that scene I used to play when I was a kid where the Imp Guards stole X-Wings!  The only action this guy can take is, well, standing there!  What with a 6-issue Dark Horse series focusing on these guys starting next month, you’d think Kenner would make an effort not to botch the figure!

But here I go being critical again.  I just can’t help myself!  Ever since I discovered that evidence in the New Mexico desert a few years ago, those FBI guys won’t leave me alone.  Since then, I’ve been trying to uncover every conspiracy I can get my hands on.  I have actually speculated that the Voynich Manuscript was written by an ancient Enochian sub-sect of the Freemasons, who later split off to join Hitler in creating the Illuminatti with James Dean, JFK, and Dr. Suess.  They later contacted Pleidians who... well, drop me an Email (encrypted) if you want to know. Were we talking toys here? I’ll wrap this article up with a little update on the scalper scene.  When the “Bossk Wave” hit the shelves in February, Chicago got inundated with the five new figures.  I thought that Kenner had resolved its distribution problems once and for all.  The problem is, it is now October, and we are still inundated with Bossk Wave.  “Ackbar Wave”, “Tarkin Wave”, and “Yak Face Wave” figures, plus other new items (like Slave Leia) are all still very hard to get here.  Every time I go to Toys R Us, Target, or Wal-Mart, I still see Bossk, 2-1B, and AT-ST Drivers galore, and not much else.  But, rather than just complain about it, I have decided to take action. There are four Toys R Us stores within a reasonable radius of my abode.  I usually visit one or two at random each week.  It depends on my schedule, really.  Whichever one I happen to be near, I visit.  I always ask the employees very politely if they have any other figures in back.  They always says “no”.  I ask politely when a truck might come in.  They always claim ignorance.  How I envy those of you who live in smaller towns where the demand is not so high, and the supply has a prayer of catching up! One day, I was looking for the bathroom, and I found myself in the stockroom.  Alone.  I realized that it isn’t at all well guarded.  I took a look around, and what did I see?  Three cases of “Ackbar Wave”.  I helped myself to what I needed, and left the rest as it was.  This was in July.  The next week I went back.  Same polite questions, same lies for answers.  I waited until the coast was clear, and like Obi-Wan sneaking around in the Death Star, I slid into the stock room.  One case of “Tarkin Wave”, two cases of “Ackbar Wave”.  I loaded up on the “Tarkin Wave” figures. Next time, I wasn’t so lucky.  Just Ackbar.  Not on the shelves; still only Bossk and his friends there.  But, this really friendly Samoan guy who seemed like an honest collector was there, and he looked pretty down about not getting any new stuff either.  So, feeling less like Obi-Wan and more like Robin Hood, I slid into my new home away from home, the TRU stock room, and came back with an “Ackbar Case” for him.  He was stunned.  I was his hero!  He asked if I wanted the Dengar or the ASP-7, but I told him I had them.  The case was all his.  “Just put the extras on the pegs when you’ve taken what you want”,  I told him.  If we keep things neat we won’t get busted!  Then some lady asked me to open the case of Spider-Man figures that was sitting on the floor in front of her.  She and her son had been shopping and were afraid to open a case that was sitting right out in the aisle!  They were amazed when I told them I didn’t work there (hell, it isn’t as if I walk around in a blue polo shirt!), and with a newly discovered freedom, they tore into the case together, mother and son.  It was heartwarming. Another time, I found five cases of the assortment containing Slave Leia in the stockroom.   All five cases  had been opened, and all ten Leias had been removed.  None of the other figures, including the new Bespin Han, had been touched.  Was it the work of another brash collector like myself, or was this foul play?  You be the judge.  Personally, I would’ve only taken one or two Leias, not all ten! I pulled two more selfless Robin Hood acts in the next month, before finally finding some “Yak Face Wave” cases for myself.  By then, every the TRU employee in Cook County was on to me (or maybe I’m just paranoid; I was never actually caught), so I’ve had to calm down.  I guess I’ll have to wait six months to get new stuff just like everyone else from now on.  But this summer was a lot of fun, and it was good while it lasted! ©1997 Blue Harvest

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