Anakin Dynamite

I admit it: I'm a big Star Wars geek. Bigger than any of you, I'm sure. Not that it's something to be enormously proud of, of course.

As a 50 year old banker, I really shouldn't be admitting any of this but as a twenty-three year old I saw Star Wars at a theater in downtown Tacoma. I had decided to see it mostly because the trailers made it look pretty fun, exciting and cool. I wasn't disappointed. To me it seemed like, for the first time, someone got a sci-fi movie right. I ended up seeing it 13 more times in theaters (mostly at the old Westgate in Beaverton, OR) - and a few zillion more on VHS and DVD. And then the Empire Strikes Back came along and I managed to only see it once the year it came out. By the time Return of the Jedi premiered I was obsessed and had to take the afternoon off of work to be in line for the first showing at the Elsinore Theater in Salem.

Six years ago (as a 44 year old) I slept in line overnight with a couple of friends, to get tickets to the first showing of the Phantom Menace at the Pilot Butte Cinema in Bend, where I now live. I took my (then) 12 and 15 year old sons (Jeremy and Jake) to the 12:01 AM showing. When Attack of the Clones came out, my oldest son, Jake, got our tickets and skipped school to stake a claim in line for the first show. This year it's time for my youngest son, Jeremy, to spend the day in line for the 12:05 AM showing of Revenge of the Sith. Jake is even coming home from college in Spokane to go with us.

My wife and daughter - well apparently they have more sense than we do - they'll be sleeping . . .

In the meantime, here is one of the funnier Star Wars fan films in recent memory. Check out AtomFilms - Anakin Dynamite.