What’s a Not-A-Fanboy Fan to do?
Commentary by Jody Reeves
One of our staffers boldly takes on the LucasFilm Marketing Leviathan with the shocking position that <gasp> maybe there's too much stuff!
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for bright, shiny objects. Anything with a glittery cover and the name "Star Wars" is guaranteed to catch my eye and cause me to reach for my credit card. But it seems that now, especially with the holiday season and the upcoming Episode I, there’s more goodies out there than ever - enough to stuff the stockings of an entire Wookiee village. All this causes me concern: Yes, I’m a big fan, but do I really need to own the $75.00 collector’s edition Anakin Skywalker 12" figure. I mean, where does it end?
Like any other kids growing up during the dying days of disco, my brother and I had our collection of classic figures and ships. Future prices for these items never entered our minds - my brother wore off Han Solo’s (Bespin outfit) face by "carbon-freezing" him all the time. This was accomplished by putting poor Han in a styrofoam cup full of water and into the freezer. We knew Han was ready when we heard my mom yell at us to get him out. Of course, Kenner eventually released the actual frozen Han figure with the ROTJ line, and the styrofoam cup method was retired. But so what? We had fun!
Now I see people buying two or three of each figure, one to play with and the others to ‘collect.’ AT-AT walkers and starships are ‘investments.’ The bookstores are awash with encyclopedias, dictionaries, comics, technical guides and novels. Now available for purchase at the National Air and Space Museum: t-shirts, Pez dispensers, computer games, action figures, soft-sculpture Ewoks, you name it. It made me wonder about what else the marketing whiz guys could come up with. Well, I saw the worst of it when walking past Suncoast Video - the Anakin Skywalker as Uncle Fester t-shirt. That’s right, Anakin in all his bald, scarred-head glory. The only thing worse would be an Ewok t-shirt. Please don’t tell me if there is one out there, I’d prefer not to know...
Hence, the dilemma - I’m a fan, but does it diminish my ‘fanness’ if I decide I don’t need the latest paperback anthology? I like to believe it doesn’t, I don’t have to prove myself to anyone by running out and getting the latest goodies. And yet, I find myself breaking down and buying things I know are useless. For example, last month I bought the Trivial Pursuit game. Granted, it’s in a nice, shiny box and is a collector’s item (which leads me to a point I’ll get to in a minute), but I have no one to play with! My roommate thinks I’m a fruitcake, and I really don’t want to lug the game to work to challenge the other Star Wars fan in my office. Some people, myself included at times, would think I just tossed away the $40.00. This game just sits on a shelf with the Monopoly game, some action figures and Taco Bell toys. Maybe I’ll put an ad in the Personals section of the Washington Post: "SWF ISO Star Wars trivia nuts to play with."
Now, who decides what makes something a ‘collector’s edition?’ I can picture the scene inside Hasbro’s board room: "Look, all we have to do is throw in a pewter figure, stamp a random number on the box, and voilá! We can now charge $15.00 more!" Some time ago, I was exploiting my position as a slave of the Imperial (aka US) Senate and attending a reception put on by the software publishers association. Among the exhibits was Hasbro Interactive, showing off the "Star Wars Monopoly" CD-Rom. I played for a while, made some goofy comments and let slyly drop that I write for Echo Station. Well, the representative was only too happy to present me with a complimentary copy of the CD. Lo and behold, not two weeks later, I’m at Kay-Bee Toys, fruitlessly pursuing the Ewok action figure hunt for my nephew. But instead of Wicket on a spit, I saw the "Star Wars Monopoly CD-Rom: Collector’s Edition!" What made this one different than the one I’d snagged? It had a pewter Anakin token! Oh, geez. Almost as bad as the Episode I trivia cards in the Trivial Pursuit Collector’s Edition...
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Despite being able, for the most part, to resist a base instinct to buy whatever says "Star Wars," I find that the only thing I’ve really become a hooked on is the books. I now have an impressive collection of $20.00 doorstops - novels that were horrible, the hardback Technical Guide which was inaccurate, etc. I try not to think about how I could have better spent that money at some of DC’s swankiest steakhouses, gossiping about this year’s elections. Did I really need to buy a signed copy of Shadows of the Empire from QVC? We all knew it was going to be a bad book, the advance word was hardly flattering. Not to mention that my tax dollars go to fund a perfectly decent county library. All I had to do was wait a few weeks, check out the book, read it, make a sour face, then return it. But nooooo...I had to have the book. I only wish I could do with the bad novels what I do with stale bread, break it into crumbs and feed them to the birds.
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A shelf in the corner of my bedroom shows off my meager collection of items - Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and all my Han Solo figures. I have the 12" and all six of the small action figures. The only thing missing is the Han Solo coffee table (i.e. Han in carbonite prop). I’ve managed convince myself that I’m happy with what I own, not to mention that my roommate would beat me up if a collection of Chris Bishop proportions started to take over our apartment. But no sooner do I think I’m content with what I have, I happen to pass B. Dalton’s and see the plethora of "Star Wars" related items. I counted: 1 collectable figure, 2 coffee-table books, and 2 calendars, and that’s from just strolling past the entrance of the store.
Now, if I were to go into Dalton’s and look more carefully, I’m sure there would be at least six more items for sale that I didn’t already have. But it’s hard to justify buying everything. So, I stand and linger, trying to quiet the rational voice in my head saying: "Oh, come on, Jody. Do really need a book that tells you what you learned from the CD-Rom you bought last week?"
(When not slaving away in America's own version of the Imperial Senate, Jody Reeves can be found avidly hunting down nude photos of Harrison Ford on the internet. Authenticity matters not.)