Lust for Lines!
by James Addams

May, 2005

A careful viewer of the Star Wars saga on film may notice that never, at any point, do the characters on screen wait in any sort of line.  The Star Wars galaxy is a big one, and with all of that space, there never seems to be anyone waiting around for goods and services.  From Tatooine’s Mos Eisley Cantina to Coruscant’s Outlander Club, you can always get a drink as soon as you need one.  From Watto’s junk shop to Bespin passport control, there is never a moment’s wait.  Wanna blow up a Death Star?  Only one guy in line ahead of ya' , Farmboy, and he blew his shot at it.  All yours.

It is inexplicable, then, that waiting in lines seems to be a pastime relished by fans of the Star Wars saga.  Waiting in line is the great equalizer of Star Wars fandom: whether your interest is in costuming, creating works of art, gaming, droid building, collecting, or just socializing with other fans, you will find yourself waiting in line.

Star Wars fans wait in lines to get into the films, lining up months before a film opens.  Star Wars fans also wait in lines for hours on end at conventions, in order to buy collectibles, meet celebrities, revisit their favorite films for the upteenth time, and even queue up for the privilege of waiting in another line.  Star Wars fans will probably line up just for the nostalgia of all the other days they spent lining up, if you asked them to.

The roots of this compulsion seem to originate in early news footage showing long lines of people waiting to get into screenings of the original Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977.  back then there were no multiplexes, so theaters couldn’t screen hit movies every half hour like they do now.  Televised footage of the lines to see Star Wars made pop culture history  - the first of many times that George Lucas’s creations would have this distinction.  Widely thought of as the first blockbuster, and probably a key factor in the perceived need for multiplexes, the Star Wars films are still drawing lines that have not diminished a bit in the past 28 years.  So much for the usefulness and efficiency of the multiplex.

The media struck back in 1980 and returned like the Jedi 1983 to capture more footage of obsessed fans who could not wait one moment longer than necessary for their next glimpse into George Lucas’s universe.


By 1999, the fans had waited sixteen years for a new film, and - even more significantly - had not waited in a line in almost as long.  Sure, there was Disneyland, but those piddly lines, which last only a few hours at most, are nothing when compared to the days or even weeks that a Star Wars fan is prepared to wait in order to... well, to what?

See the film?

Consider yourself reminded: they show movies more than once.
And you can order tickets by phone, show up an hour before the film, and check it out without a wait of more than a half hour.

So, is it about having the best seat in the house?

Well, the seats off to the side of the tiny theaters in googolplexes are definitely a little skewed, and not an ideal position from which to watch a film, but is it really worth it to wait out on the sidewalk for two weeks like a homeless person just to have a better seat?

Try taking a Tuesday afternoon off, and going then: you’ll have the whole theater to yourself.  If you can take two weeks off to wait in line, you can take one Tuesday off and skip the hassle.

Perhaps it is about being able to say “I did it”.

Perhaps it is about the comradeship, the bond formed with your line-mates.

Perhaps there are better ways to make friends.

Well, no matter how misguided the motive, the lines to see Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2000), and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) have been ridiculously long - both in physical length and in duration.

Never mind that tickets for the first showing of The Phantom Menace in 1999 were still available on the day of the show.  The people who had waited in line for weeks had achieved whatever goal it was that they had set out to achieve. And never mind that the people who lined up in front of Gruman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood earlier this year were later informed that they lined up at the wrong theatre; they were in line, and that’s all that counted.

Whether the weather is a Tatooine-like heat wave, a Hothesque blizzard, or a pleasant Nabooish springtime, our intrepid moviegoers will be there on the sidewalk with their Star Wars card games and sleeping bags, awaiting the big day.

The lust for lines doesn’t stop there, however.  The queue quotient must be filled more often than once every three years.  The Star Wars Celebration III held in Indianapolis on April 21 to 24 of this year gave those needing their fix of standing around doing nothing all of the lines they could handle.

Just to get into the event there was a heavenly two hour wait, and that was for those who already had laminated admission badges.  Once inside, the wait to see one of the panels with celebrity guests  - ranging from film actors to special effects wizards to spinoff novelists to George Lucas himself - ranged from a disappointing hour for the novelists to a fabulous ten hours for Lucas... beginning the previous night at midnight, outdoors, in freezing rain.  Bliss.

The line for Lucas’s second and third appearances began after the line for his first sermon was capped (some time when the rest of us were sleeping), thus giving queue fanatics the opportunity to wait in a line to wait in a line.

The most orgasmic of all of the lines in Indianapolis, however, was the line to get into the Celebration III store, which was chock-full of exclusive merchandise only available at the convention (until the following week when it was available for order on-line).

That's ON line, not IN line.  Stop drooling.

The average wait for the store was seven hours, and that’s after the two hour wait to get into the show.

An investigation as to why it took so long to get everyone within grabbing distance of their ‘exclusive’ talking Darth Vader action figure yielded a simple answer: a complete lack of motivation on the part of the people working the stockroom behind the cash registers, filling the orders dictated by the cashiers.

Even after paying for merchandise, people were waiting twenty to thirty more minutes to get their stuff.
The seven hour ordeal could have literally been only half as long if the stockroom people moved their butts a little faster; the people at the registers were spending most of their time standing idly, unable to take more orders until previous ones were filled.

But then again, if the line had moved faster, it would have vanished, and then what would the fans have to look forward to?

Oh, yeah, the movie at the end of the line.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the film at the end of the line in the Star Wars saga, opens May 19.


Those of you feeling charitable may fork over $500 to skip the line entirely, see the film a week earlier than the liners-up, and help those in need: Children’s Memorial hospital have a charity screening this Thursday, May 12.  Details are at: http://www.childrensmemorial.org/

C.C. Banana writes:

"I did find a moment to read the hilarous "Lust for Lines" article  you passed along. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know,  but you are a great writer, James. I laughed out loud more than a dozen times while reading it. So many valid points about waiting in lines, so many clever takes on it. "Maybe there are better ways to make friends." Too funny! I'm hoping you actually make money from your writing, cuz it's dynamite. Well, you are clearly a success, if you are being invited to places like Atlanta to lecture about Easter Island, and Wisconsin to work on a rockabilly festival. Not that you'd necessarily be doing any writing at the latter, of course..."

No, I didn't pay him to gush like that, but I did send him a photo of himself posing with a gal in a Princess Leia as Jabba's Palace Dancer get-up.  Visit C.C. Banana here.


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