Rerun of the Jedi Has Fans Back in Force

They turned out Friday in legions, these fanatic fans of the mythical “Star Wars” story, not just to celebrate a groundbreaking film, but to recapture a tiny part of their own lives long forgotten since the movie’s release a generation ago.

Across Southern California and the nation, they skipped school, ditched work and waited overnight for theater doors to open, most pulling a no-show on their everyday schedules in a rush to take part in the 20th anniversary and re-release of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” trilogy.

Consulting his Darth Vader watch during a long overnight vigil, Andrew Heinrich of Laguna Hills was among the faithful who camped out at the Edwards Big Newport Cinema to be among the first to grab center seats.

“ ‘Star Wars’ is the biggest thing in my life,” said Heinrich, decked out in a T-shirt and buttons that declared his fixation. “I’ve read all the books. My bedroom is a ‘Star Wars’ festival.”

The size of the Edwards screen, 80 by 30 feet, drew fans from as far away as Salt Lake City, and compelled 18-year-old Aaron Nayfack to skip a chemistry lecture at Stanford University and make the pilgrimage south from Palo Alto.

Sure, he could have seen it in San Francisco, he said. “But that’s not Newport,” he explained.

“It’s the biggest screen on the West Coast.”

Cris Phillips, a 32-year-old Circuit City manager who was disappointed to find two Friday evening shows sold out in Newport Beach, estimated he has seen the film 150 times on laser disc or video in his home.

“It’s good versus evil,” he said. “It’s a movie where you can identify with the characters. They become your friends. . . . I had mixed feelings about the re-release originally. It was like someone redoing ‘Gone With the Wind.’ ”

For this long-awaited reunion, die-hards from New York to Seattle dusted off old costumes of their favorite characters--Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Princess Leia--and brandished their light sabers, fathers introducing sons to the “Star Wars” spectacle, old friends gathering to once again enjoy a favorite film fantasy, this time as adults.

“The people at the job told me to take the day off--they knew I’d be hell to work with if I wasn’t here,” 27-year-old Chris Warnock said as he waited outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, wearing a galactic army helmet fashioned from old motorcycle crash gear.

“Everyone in this line remembers where they were when they first saw this film in 1977. It just brings back that feeling of innocence, of being a kid in a darkened movie theater with your mouth wide open,” said Warnock, who was on hand for the first showing at 9:30 a.m. “I cut school to see the first one. So it’s only right I miss work.”

For many “Star Wars” fans, this escapist adventure film of an interplanetary battle has become more than just a movie. As movie buffs, science fiction fans and popular culture followers look toward the next millennium, the film has risen to become a lesson of how good can eventually triumph over evil in any world.

And for others, seeing it again was like a high-speed rewind of their lives. When the opening credits rolled, it gave many a charge of youthful adrenalin.

“The return of this movie is flooring people because popular culture is a form of memory,” said Leo Braudy, a USC English professor who teaches classes on film and popular culture.

“Just in the same way they [associate] falling in love to certain songs, they date their own development to seeing big-event movies such as this,” Braudy said. “And it’s better than the Kennedy assassination because it’s more pleasurable.”

Outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre, Shirley Lester wore the same Darth Vader costume her mother bought her as a 10-year-old, a cheesy-looking get-up with a polyester robe and black plastic mask. But Lester wore it with beaming pride befitting a prom dress.

“Back then, all the other girls wanted to be Princess Leia. But not me,” said the 29-year-old radio deejay. “I was born to be bad. I’m still that way.”

Inside, as they waited for the curtain to rise, 1,400 fans cheered wildly at the credits and at previews for the soon-to-be-released installments of the trilogy, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.”

As the movie began, several adults stood to wave their glow-in-the-dark light sabers. In unity, the crowd shouted out favorite lines and roared at any new, added effects.

Fan Richard Plenger was beside himself. “I know more about the ‘Star Wars’ universe than the real world,” said the bespectacled 21-year-old, who bought his tickets two weeks ago. “And I know more galactic historical facts than I do American history.”

For most fans, “Star Wars” created a modern standard for science fiction special effects, a level of sophistication and energy by which films would be measured.

“We came to this movie 20 years ago at this very theater and had no idea what we were going to see,” said songwriter Wayne Moore. “Well, we went crazy, right from the opening shot where the spaceship flies over you from behind.”

His wife, Brenda, said: “First you hear the sound and then see this immense thing. We were like ‘Oh, my God!’ It was truly the first science fiction movie that took the genre seriously.”

At 34, Escott North relived his childhood: He brought along one of his two “Star Wars” lunch boxes, complete with its Princess Leia plastic thermos. “The movie had an impression on me,” said the commercial-maker.

“The special effects alone turned my life around, opened my eyes as to what was possible in a film,” North said.

As the day wore on, the lines lengthened at many theaters. The hard-core fans had been up all night at some locations to scoop up tickets to later shows.

In Westwood Village, a long line of Jedi master wannabes sprawled on lawn chairs under wide umbrellas, dozing in the afternoon sun.

Andrew Aranda, a 27-year-old UCLA senior, who explained why he waited overnight, said: “It was totally revolutionary at the time. Now, it’s Americana.”

James Edwards Sr., founder of the big Edwards movie chain, was also drifting into nostalgia as he watched the lines form from his Newport Beach office Friday afternoon.

“I remember I bid $10,000 to show ‘Star Wars’ 20 years ago and I was nervous,” he said. “We showed it for a year and two weeks and it made over $1 million. . . . In fact, the theater stopped being called Edwards Newport. People were calling it the ‘Star Wars’ theater.”

Fourteen-year-old Misha Madison was among the “Star Wars” faithful.

“I watch it every day,” said young Madison, who came to Mann’s Chinese Theatre early Friday with his dad and a friend.

Misha’s father, who bought tickets for the boys, recalled the original film.

“At the end of the Nixon era, a lot of people needed uplifting,” said 60-year-old Ron Madison of Los Alamitos. “It really gave people hope for the future.”

He handed the tickets to the boys, and Misha clasped his hands and smiled broadly.

“May the force be with you, Dad,” he said.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Geoff Boucher.