I like going out at night. I like meeting weird people, and I also just like staring at them. I can stare at an unknown girl passed out on someone else’s couch at a party for ten minutes at a time. I can also remain unfazed by displays of nudity, vomiting, and crack-smoking at parties. When I stayed in Brooklyn for the summer, I remember leaving the house to check out a band who I knew about because I heard their lead singer liked to urinate in his own mouth during their songs. But nothing is as shocking to me as how devoted Star Wars fans are.

I find their devotion shocking because it’s so unexpected. There are, on one hand, the people who revel in their passion full time. They are artists, or musicians, or writers, or bums. But Star Wars fans, especially adult fans, are complete closet cases. They’re bank tellers, school teachers, and the tech support at AOL. They’re your quiet downstairs neighbor who lives with his/her cat. But every couple years or so, they, full grown adults, dress up as characters from a science fiction movie and walk around in public, at a date that is almost never close to Halloween. That, to me, is crazy.

But, I love it, just as much as I love seeing any band, or going to any party. That’s why I skipped the usual nightly trip out of the apartment and downtown to wait four hours in line to see the new Star Wars film. I bought the tickets a few weeks earlier online, and had planned on the wait. I was excited. The truth is, I don’t think I’ve even seen Return of the Jedi, and I’ve probably only seen the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back maybe once each. The actual Star Wars films are irrelevant. I go to see the audience.

The audience at Revenge of the Sith was amazing. As a fan of film audiences, I’ve been to many midnight shows hoping to see costumed fans. Matrix II and III, Spiderman II, Lord of the Rings III, and Star Wars II, have all been favorite films of mine, not because the movies were particularly good, but because I have great memories of seeing people dressed up to go watch a movie. Revenge of the Sith, however, topped all of those screenings.

My boyfriend and I left at 8 p.m. for the 12:10 a.m. show. I had considered bringing my laptop so I could have something to do while waiting in line. I decided to bring a magazine instead, thinking it would be kind of nerdy to bring a laptop to a movie line. When we arrived, I realized that laptops were probably one of the least nerdy items you could bring to a film. Other people in line brought lawn furniture, DVD players, couch cushions, board games, and video games.

This was only the non-Star Wars gear. The fans in line were dressed in various levels of costume. While some came with only a plastic lightsaber clipped to their waist, or a cloak draped around their shoulders, others came in full Jedi regalia, complete with robes, headdresses, and boots. One guy wore a full Wookie costume. His friends held his place in line while he walked outside to make a few Wookie noises every 15 minutes or so. My boyfriend bummed a cigarette from a Jedi. For some reason this seemed so odd. Jedi shouldn’t smoke, should they?

Two hours into our wait, the theater staff let us in. There, kids passed around beach balls like they were at graduation. In fact, one person in the theater wore a black graduation gown, which was either because they couldn’t find a proper cape, or their just graduated. The nerdiest of the boys found a way to organize themselves into teams. They had one-on-one lightsaber battles at the front of the stage.

Two hours later, the theater lights finally went down. People began screaming when the familiar Star Wars theme blasted through the Lucas-patented THX sound. The movie had started, but the real show was over.