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BEN BOWMAN / ‘STAR WARS’ SUPERFAN

We have met the future of film fandom, wired into Internet “spoiler” sites (which reveal plot points) and chat rooms so they know everything about a movie before it premieres. Take Ben Bowman, 22, a public relations major at Western Michigan University, who knew every frame of “Phantom Menace” before the movie opened . . . and still saw it three times by noon opening day.

SPOILED, NOT ROTTEN: “I’m a spoiler junky, so I’d already read the book [of the film’s story] and read spoilers on the Internet. But I still needed the experience.”

THREE’S A CHARM: “First time was an adrenaline rush. Second time I tried to look at the whole picture. And the third I looked for detail, greater insights into the whole ‘Star Wars’ universe.”

YOUNG LUKE: “I was only 3 when [“The Empire Strikes Back”] came out, but I remember my father sitting on the couch asking if I wanted to know the secret of it. He said that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, and I remember not believing him at first. But that’s when I became a spoiler junky.”

SPOILING THE SPOILERS: “A lot of spoilers are false anyway. Some are planted [by the studios to throw people off]. It’s become very sophisticated. But true or not, the spoilers give me something to think about.”

THE DARK SIDE: “It’s difficult not to get hyped up about ‘Episode II’ already. There’s wild speculation that Leonardo DiCaprio will be Anakin. That raised the ire of a lot of fans. They have a vendetta against ‘Titanic’ for knocking ‘Star Wars’ off the [box-office] record. And they see it as a chick flick.”

PAGING MR. LUCAS: “In my opinion it should be a completely unknown actor so people could focus more on the performance than the person playing it. It should be Anakin Skywalker rather than Leonardo DiCaprio as Anakin Skywalker.”

SITE SIGHTS: “Aint-It-Cool-News.com is usually on the ball. Their focus is a little scattershot, but it’s interesting to get their take on everything. And TheForce.net is really good, though it provides strictly ‘Star Wars’ coverage.”

CRITICAL MASS: “A lot of critics are missing the larger picture, nit-picking about the angles of Lucas’ brush strokes rather than stepping back and appreciating the whole painting. Unless they’ve seen the others recently, they may miss a lot of things.”