Veteran Star Wars buff braces new generation for craze

My parents are two of the most patient, tolerant people imaginable.

"I want that!" I used to scream at the television set every time an action figure commercial came on.

Every time my parents dragged me around on their shopping trips, I ran to the toy department of every store to drool over the R2-D2 action figure that was so distantly withheld from me by the plastic bubble package.

"I want that!" I would yell.

"For your birthday, or Hanukkah," my parents would decisively assert.

It was torture.

But I got my revenge. Because after a few years, when I was a little older and wiser in the art of parental manipulation, it was I who did the dragging around on shopping trips. When Return of the Jedi came out, I learned that Toys 'R' Us got action figure shipments every Tuesday.

I managed to talk my belovedly, indulgent mom into hauling me over to Toys 'R Us every week to get the first crack at the new stuff. And of course, every time they had something special, I had to go into debt again and take advances on my allowance to get it.

But running around looking for action figures was far from the extent of my obsession. When The Empire Strikes Back first opened up in movie theaters, I was six years old. Despite my young age, however, I already had a purpose in life. It was to see Empire opening day. I would settle for nothing less (yes, I was a spoiled brat).

And so my mother and I lined up outside the movie theater -- for five hours. We waited through two entire screenings before we finally got in. My grandmom, who was waiting for us at home, was on the verge of reporting us missing when we finally got home. The beauty of it is that I barely understood any of the plot, but I loved the movie all the same.

All I could get out of it was big, bad snow machines attack good guys on winter planet, good guys escape, Luke meets muppet and learns how to lift rocks with his mind, bad guys catch up with good guys on cloud planet, Luke gets hand chopped off and Han gets captured and frozen.

To tell the truth, that plot analysis is light years more sophisticated than my comprehension of Star Wars when I first saw it at age four. But it didn't matter that I had no clue what was going on in the story, because Chewbacca, R2-D2 and all the space battles looked so cool on the big screen.

But with Jedi, my insatiable Star Wars appetite got the better of me.

There was no hope of getting into the theater to see it in the first two weeks.

I lost my cool. This movie could not exist without my knowing what happened in it. It was like being addicted to a soap opera, not missing an episode for six years, and suddenly being denied access to the next installment.

At that point, I was a third-grader -- old enough to understand the details of the story and to appreciate it in a more mature light. I yearned to know what happened next.

So I read the book. I had no choice. I couldn't see the movie, so I bought the book and read it in one sitting. I ruined it for myself. When I finally did see the movie, it was rather anticlimactic.

And that's when I realized I had a problem. I was a junkie whose fixes weren't inducing the same high as they used to. I stood up, and shouted out loud, "My name is Jake Stuiver, and I'm a Star Wars-aholic!"

And all of a sudden, an apparition of the master Yoda appeared before me.

"Fear not, young fanatic," he said. "A new Star Wars movie for at least another 16 years, there won't be. By then, a college graduate you will be, and on your mind other concerns you'll have, like your 1,000+ record collection. And soon, manifest itself is your male aggression going to, and start playing with G.I. Joe toys you will."

He was right. I followed G.I. Joe for the next few years, and then the Transformers. I played the comic book scene for a while, and then I got into music. And that's where I've been ever since.

But there'll never be another Star Wars. For some reason, it's got just the right ingredients to concoct the perfect escapist fairy tale. That's why I'm glad it's back.

Parents, if you've got the wild-eyed three-year-old that I was, and you're taking him or her to see it for the first time, I hope you're as patient and understanding as mine. Be prepared to smile, nod and pretend to be interested for years as your children ramble the wonders found in their new universe.

For now, Star Wars is going to be the height of existence -- that is, until they bring back Pac-Man Fever.