Then came May of 2002. The next Star Wars movie was due out, Attack of the Clones (AOTC). Due to the internet not being understood at the time, the fanfare from business was more lukewarm this time around than it was in May of ‘99. But remembering all the fun I had had the last movie release getting the toys with Dad at midnight caused me to find a 24-hour Walmart in Elk Grove that would be open for Star Wars toy purchasing the second the clock struck 12:01am.

Dad didn’t come along this time. Instead, I got Karl, Leah (Karl’s girlfriend at the time), and Jackie to come on an escapade to watch me buy a ridiculous amount of AOTC figures. This time, unlike with TPM, I bought at least 2 copies of each basic figure in the set of like 26. I was young had a job, money, and no rent, I could do it, so I did.

image 23 My toy haul from the new AOTC toys purchased at midnight in a Walmart in Elk Grove. (2002)

That was just the beginning of AOTC fun, and is one reason why I really like the movie. A couple weeks later while consuming mass quantities of sushi I decided I would like to see if there were tickets available for AOTC’s midnight showing. Since there wasn’t the same fanfare with this film as there was with the prior one three years before I thought there might be a chance to get tickets.

To my surprise when I went to the box office at the local theater, they still had tickets available, so I made some calls and purchased a ticket for myself, Karl, Leah, Jim, and Jackie. This time I would get in at 12:01am to see the film and with more than just one friend coming off a final exam.

The next week when it was time for the film to open a funny little thing happened. I had decided that since it was so easy to get tickets to the midnight showing that people must not care about the film very much. I figured we didn’t have to go line up until later that night, unlike with TPM where people were lining up for days. At some point though that day I was running some errands downtown and decided to drive by the theater to see if anyone was there at all. To my surprise a substantial line had already formed.

I quickly started making calls, the issue was that not everyone’s schedule was good with getting into line for the movie right then. Eventually Jim and I got together and walked over to get in line. There were three lines for three different 12:01 shows and all were quite long. It was now around 9pm and Karl and company were still on their way. Jim and I asked which line we needed to get into, and we were directed to look at the signs to see which screen lined up where.

We saw a printed piece of paper that had our showing that said to line up there and had an arrow pointing to the right of the pillar. This is where our 23/24 year old male brain kicked in. We decided to take it as stated and sat down unearth the arrow on the pillar where the sign was posted, in front of everyone else that was in line and who had been so for hours.

image 24 Jim being needlessly surely while cutting the line for AOTC at Holiday Cinema in Davis (2002)

Surprisingly this worked. Jim, who had to report to work for a few hours before he got special permission to come join us for the film later on left, but he also grabbed Karl and I some beer to imbue while waiting our couple hours for the movie on his way out. Luckily at this point in Davis one could openly drink in public without consequences, so Karl and I got, as the kids used to say, loadie.

Then around 11pm the theater employees came out informed us we would have to come inside and wait in our theater before the showing as to not have all those people outside at the witching hour. They stood us all up and told us to get ready to enter. It was at this point that the gentlemen that were at the front of the line finally said something to us. Get ready for it, here is what they said. “Hey, we’ve been waiting all day to get in, if it’s alright it’s really important to us to be the first ones in.” I told them “No problem, when they let us in go right ahead!”. So, we let the four of them pass through us as we went in, and then followed them like they were our best buddies and managed to circumvent the entire line system.

I actually have a picture of one of those guys from inside the theater. We got a few snapshots off before an usher asked us to not use the camera in the theater. Which is too bad because we had a drunken blast of a time before the movie trailers started. With an hour of just being wasted and having a lot of excited nerds around the same age in a college town the atmosphere was just joyous.

image 25 Me and Karl drunk as skunks waiting in the theater for AotC (2002)

                To be honest I was still pretty drunk for most of the movie and didn’t remember much of the plot the first time through, but the whole scene was fun and memorable. However, this wasn’t the end of AOTC. Nope, Karl, Jim and I went back to my “living room” where I sobered up and got ready for a drive down to Santa Maria to meet up with the Star Wars nerds from the website, for a group trip to see a special digital showing at one of the few properly equipped theaters to do so at the time. Karl and Jim weren’t going with me, but I think just wanted to stay up late. Oddly that night we spent hours watching the city propose an open container law, which meant the fun Karl and I had that night would soon not be okay anymore.

                Then that morning I would drive to Santa Maria, California, and would meet up with the nerd contingency that was there. There I would finally see the movie sober for the first time. One of the nerds, Tim, had flown in from Chicago, Illinois, to go on this adventure so I felt like I should go on every leg of this AOTC movie adventure too. From Santa Maria we drove to Los Angeles. Tim had rented a Daewoo car that wasn’t much bigger than a golf cart and I followed him and Rick to Glendale, which is where Rick lived, all through the winding hills on the 101.

                We would do Star Wars stuff then that weekend which culminated in the viewing on Saturday of the digital presentation of AOTC in Burbank, California. I believe we even picked up Jason, who I had been working on the websites with at that time, for that last little adventure in digital Star Wars. It actually had become a pretty good-sized group at that point.

                Then since that weekend was also Jackie’s birthday, I drove myself all the way back up for her party Sunday night. All in all, it was an entire four-day adventure just to see a movie and like I said, is one reason why I remember AOTC so fondly. The adventure added to the excitement of seeing the new chapter of a loved childhood tale and made a neat movie memorable.