Rockville, Maryland
IT IS 11:00 P.M. ON A SUNDAY NIGHT, and David Dyche is standing at the head of the line in front of Toys “R” Us. He seems to be the most normal Star Wars nut in America: Wearing khakis and a navy blue shirt, the blond-haired, 33-year-old Boeing computer analyst just happens to like George Lucas’s Star Wars trilogy. Then little details begin to slip out. He arrived on line at 9:00 P.M. Two years ago when Star Wars was reissued, he went to a multiplex and saw the movie eight times in one day. His Star Wars toy collection is worth over $ 10,000. And when asked which action figures and vehicles he plans to buy, he deadpans, “Well, at least two of everything.”
David isn’t alone. His neighbor in line, Jane McDermitt, is equally enthusiastic. “There’s nothing like Star Wars, because it really lets kids use their imagination when they play,” she explains. “Except Legos. Legos and Star Wars are the best toys.”
By 11:30, three television news crews are setting up, newspaper photographers are busily snapping away, and some 100 people are lined up behind David and Jane. Most of the crowd is between 25 and 40. They shift restlessly in place, constantly checking their watches and making two-minute calls on their cell phones.
Everyone has a theory about the Star Wars phenomenon. “We need something to believe in, we need role models,” says one goateed twentysomething. Two men who arrived on Harleys, Doug, 33, and his pal Danny, 29, are standing two-thirds of the way back in the line. Doug and Danny are in full biker regalia, with black leather jackets, gloves, and chaps. Doug pulls at his scraggly red goatee pensively and explains, “Star Wars is a paradigm that spoke of life and not just fantasy.” He stops to ponder what he just said and then nods approvingly, the four gold hoop earrings in his left ear jingling gently in the night air. Danny whispers, “Yeah man.”
All around, collectors are huddling in small groups to plan their shopping strategies. Doug doesn’t go in for any of that. He doesn’t have any children of his own, but his “girlfriend has a daughter from a previous marriage.” Are the toys for her? “Hell no,” he spits. “They’re for me to play with.”
Joel Estrada, a 21-year-old junior at American University, isn’t planning on playing with his toys. “I’m on a bit of a budget,” he says. “So I have to sift through and find which figures I think will be the rarest. Then I take them home and pack them away somewhere safe so that the packages won’t get damaged.” Joel estimates his collection is already worth about $ 6,000.
One of the pretty local-news talking-head reporters is interviewing random people in the line, chatting cordially with them and asking them why they love Star Wars. During a break, she and her cameraman head over to the news van and she mutters, “What a bunch of freaks.”
She doesn’t know the half of it. At 683 Toys “R” Us locations across America, the freaks are out en masse. In anticipation of the May 19 release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Toys “R” Us is staging “Midnight Madness” for the launch of the first wave of toys from the movie. Over the next 72 hours the company will sell over a million Star Wars action figures to legions of fans and collectors.
At 12:00 A.M., John Everitt, the store manager, opens the doors. People rush into the blocky strip-center store, barreling past a table set up with Oreos and Chips Ahoy! and coffee, past someone dressed up in a Wookiee suit who stands ignored, waving for lornly. They go straight to the toys. Two large bins are filled with action figures, and the shelves surrounding them are stocked with all things Star Wars, from Qui-Gon Jinn Spin Pops to Darth Vader parasail kites. Jane shrieks: They have Star Wars Legos.
For two hours people stream into the store while the employees struggle to keep the bins fully stocked with fresh loads of the $ 6.99 figures. Amidst the frenzy small acts of kindness abound. A confused elderly woman reading from a list asks aloud, “What’s a Darth Maul?” The man to her right taps her on the elbow and hands her an action figure of the dreaded villain from his own personal stash. “Here,” he says. “Have mine.”
Shoppers fill their arms with toys and then scurry off into secluded parts of the store to take stock of their potential purchases. The photographers continue snapping away, holding their cameras above the crowd of people. The plucky newswoman keeps waving her microphone around, snatching snippets of interviews and giving people her cheery, plastic smile.
It is almost 3:00 A.M. when David Dyche and Jane McDermitt hit the check-out aisle. He rings up an even $ 475 and she spends $ 616.40, not a little of which is for Star Wars Lego sets. They exchange e-mail addresses and wave good-bye to each other as they hustle out of the store. The TV reporter primps her hair, draws a deep breath, shakes her head, and hisses, “Don’t these people have lives?”
Jonathan V. Last is a reporter at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
