Am I a true Star Wars nerd?
Some back ground is needed, so here is comes.
My first Star Wars memory comes from visiting my aunt's house. My cousin Bobby was a year older than me and was probably responsible for getting me in to New Kids on The Block, Michael Jackson, Beach Boys, and playing Star Wars in the background on one visit.
The memory is very hazy, but I recall my cousin watching it on TV in the living room. I was in the dining room but there is an open floor plan meaning no walls separated us. I vaguely recall Han Solo and Darth Vader on the screen and that is about it.
I grew up on Star Trek. The Next Generation, specifically. I think I had always heard about Star Wars, but it was something that strangely was at an arm's distance to me. Then I encountered my gateway drug for cardboard crack in Magic The Gathering.
Playing Magic meant going to downtown Normal for Surge and good times at Gamer's Haven. It was in the basement of this store that I encountered my first general playing area for a game store, and it was a second home to me. Eventually Gamer's Haven joined up with a computer game store a few shops down called Cyberi@. They called themselves Cyberi@, the Gamer's Haven. It fit, and it allowed for card playing events.
Magic was big, but there were other games that rose up in popularity. I remember a Lord of the Rings game, and Legend of the Five Rings. Star Trek had a customizable card game similar to Magic, but it was the Star Wars game that really took me in.
The play mechanics were spectacular. Different enough from Magic but a good game in it's own right. It helped that my friend Nate was also big in to it as well. You could play as the light side or the dark side, and we would play test decks out with each other all the time.
For a while, packs of Star Wars were better than getting Magic cards, but I still played both games. I learned all the side characters and all the special quotes from the movies from this card game, and I still hadn't seen the movies. I knew the spoilers, I knew the general story, I had even gotten a bit in to the video games. The movies just never made it in to my vision.
That was, until, the Special Editions came out. I finally had a chance to see them in all their glory, and I had to see them before Episode 1 came out. When I finally did, I was hooked. A lot of the card game really started to show as I was able to quote the movie while I was watching it the first time. I think that was when I really learned that being spoiled to a movie will make it a better experience.
I was one of those who bought tons of the lightsaber toys when episode 1 came out. I was one of those who brought the lightsabers to the movie theater and fought a friend with them inside the theater while we waited in line. Fast forward to waiting in line for Episode 7 and the theater posting that people couldn't wear their costumes inside the theater because they could hide something in the robes. Bah to that nonsense.
So am I a true Star Wars nerd? I don't know. Is someone whose only exposure to certain comic book characters is from the movies a comics fan? What if they start reading the books, are they not a true fan then?
I've held the belief that you are a fan however you become one. It doesn't matter the journey that brought you to it, it is now a part of your world and you are enjoying it. Real fans, fake fans, there is no really way to measure the degree of fandom because we are talking about works of art, and art can be interpreted by everyone differently.
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