It’s Not Just About Seeing a Film 1st for Lined-Up ‘Star Wars’ Fans

The last one was a bit of a disappointment--a lot of flash, but ultimately a little hollow. Not the movie--no, this group of fans would be pleased with any “Star Wars” experience. The feelings here, outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, all have to do with the line.

In this age of online ticket sales, digital downloads, multiplexes and 8,000-screen opening weekends, the act of standing in line for a movie--in this case “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones”--means more than being the first to see a new film.

For many in the group Lining Up, about 130 of the hard-core Force faithful camped out on Hollywood Boulevard, this is the second time around. Some have been here since the line’s official start on April 4, sitting, waiting and sometimes sleeping out on the street in anticipation of the film’s opening.

They all have tickets; those went on sale May 3. Now it’s just waiting. They work in shifts--each must put in at least 60 hours and raise a minimum $50 for charity--for nothing more than the chance to be at Grauman’s first screening of the day when “Attack of the Clones” opens on Thursday.

Last Wednesday night, more than a week before “Attack of the Clones” would open, 15 men and women were comfortably entrenched at Hollywood Boulevard and Orange Drive, just down the block from the Chinese.

They pooled $70 to buy equipment from Home Depot to construct replica light sabers, the weapons of choice for Jedi knights in the “Star Wars” movies. While a few work on that, others sit bundled up under the blue tarp that marks their base camp and watch a bootleg video of “Spider-Man” with Chinese subtitles.

They could probably be home doing the same thing with an Internet-downloaded version of “Attack of the Clones,” but the experience of camping out with their “Star Wars” fanatic brethren is more important.

The line is also raising money for Starlight Children’s Foundation, but it’s apparent that a communal love of George Lucas’ special-effects fantasies is what’s keeping the participants going night after night. “For me, really it’s about hanging out with your friends,” says Craig Haasis, the group’s charity organizer. “Some people have said, ‘You can do that anywhere. Why do you have to do this?’ Well, I don’t see them getting off their butts and doing anything while hanging out with their friends that helps kids and families of pretty ill kids.” They are quick to point out their charity work in order to deflect the image of being “geeks” or “nerds.”

If Haasis and others in line seem a tad defensive, integrity of purpose is an issue here in the line. It has to do with what happened last time.

Haasis and other Lining Up organizers met two years ago while camping in practically the same spot for “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.” That line was organized by a few guys who put up a fan Web site called Countingdown.com.

Countingdown.com organized the line and also raised money for charity, but it’s founders had a flair for self-promotion that irked the Lucas faithful. The first line “was pretty corporate,” Haasis explains. “And come to find out, the guys weren’t really ‘Star Wars’ fans. They were trying to get their name out and publicize their site.”

Shortly after the “Phantom Menace” debut, Countingdown.com was sold to Pop.com--a company funded by DreamWorks and Imagine Entertainment--for an undisclosed sum. “Clearly the intent was never to use anybody,” says Phillip Nakov, one of Countingdown.com’s founders and organizer of the ’99 line. “I’m sorry that they didn’t have the idea. They put themselves there.

“They weren’t being paid to be there. They weren’t being forced to be there.”

Some felt deceived, however, which forced a schism in the force. Members who were only interested in waiting for the movie took their belongings and moved to the other side of Hollywood Boulevard. Diplomacy finally brought the line back together, but many still harbored hard feelings.

As Countingdown.com and other movie fan sites have discovered since “Phantom Menace,” a big movie isn’t enough to get fans to line up for days, let alone weeks.

Earlier this month, Countingdown.com tried to organize a weeklong line outside the CineramaDome in Hollywood for “Spider-Man.” What went up the Friday before the movie’s opening was gone by Sunday night. Construction and low turnout were among the reasons blamed, but Nakov declined to discuss the problems in detail.

Anticipation for the movie has no bearing on the success or failure of a line. As Russell Schwartz, New Line Cinema’s president of domestic marketing points out, the popularity of online ticket sales and the sheer number of screens showing blockbuster films these days takes the rush out of camping out to see a film at a particular theater. “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” was a box-office success, but fan-organized lines fizzled.

Despite the high profile of the “Star Wars” lines, the studios shy away from creating their own lines as a marketing tool. “We did not think that would have been prudent for us to do as a studio,” Schwartz says. “Those things should just happen on their own.”

Lining Up didn’t need encouragement, even from those it’s helping. Between Los Angeles and San Francisco--which was organized by a different group--the ’99 lines generated $50,000 for charity by Nakov’s estimate, although Starlight Foundation’s vice president, John Mochitta Jr., puts the number at a more conservative $26,000.

That’s not much compared to Starlight’s other fund-raisers, but the charity doesn’t have to worry about organizing it at all.

“Other than us giving our moral support or occasionally bringing food down to the line, this is all them,” Mochitta says. “This is a wonderful opportunity for us. We would love for people to give us $5, $10, $15,000 every day.”

It’s too soon to say how much this year’s line will generate. Lining Up’s Web site organizer, Peter Genovese (www.liningup.net), says that the 130 people signed up are each expected to raise a minimum of $50, but many are doing more than that.

Self-promotion, though, is something the fans in line this time have little interest in. They did get a surprise phone call from Lucas himself, but they don’t expect much else except two more hours of on-screen fantasy. And time to bond with their “Star Wars” friends.

Midway through an interview with line member Josh Cottingham, another member, Steve Cote, appears at the line. Cote moved to Connecticut shortly after the ’99 line and hasn’t been in California in 18 months. He has arrived to join his friends for the last week of their wait.

As the group rushes to greet him, Cottingham drifts away from his interview.

“‘Scuse us,” says another line member. “This is a little more important.”