Rancho Obi-Wan (STAR WARS!!!)

Finally, the post you’ve been waiting for. One of the most exciting and anticipated days of my life.  I was fortunate enough to go to the world’s largest private collection of Star Wars Memorabilia. It’s located in Petaluma, CA (north of San Francisco), and it is called Rancho Obi-Wan. It’s owned/operated by Steve Sansweet.

 

 

Anyone that has followed Star Wars closely beyond the films should know his name. He is responsible for writing some of the most popular Star Wars books that have been printed. He is responsible for the 1.5 million word must-have (and I do have!) Star Wars Encyclopedia, three huge volumes! He was the Director of Specialty Marketing at Lucasfilm, and later called head of Fan Relations. Since retiring, he holds the title of Fan Relations Adviser.

 

He was a former Wall Street Journal writer and eventually worked for Lucasfilm during the last 90’s through the prequels before retiring. He travels to all of the conventions, and he’s in San Diego right now for Comic Con. Steve goes anywhere that Star Wars and its fans get together. Hands down, he is one of the greatest living ambassadors for Star Wars. Aside from George Lucas (obviously), John Williams, and the actors of the films, he is probably the most recognizable face of Star Wars to die-hard fans.  So, to have this opportunity to have a personal guided tour of his collection was very exciting to me. In my mind, he is a huge A-list celebrity to me.

Leading up to this experience, I was so excited. Very rarely am I around people that I can talk about Star Wars on a deeper level than simply the films. There’s a lot of conversations that I have daily/weekly about Star Wars at school or with friends, but it usually only goes deep enough to cover the movies. I’m constantly having to pull back what I talk about because they wouldn’t understand, or they’d be unfamiliar with the information that I’m sharing as I’m citing the Expanded Universe novels and comics (now referred to as “Legacy” and has just been disavowed as FACT in the Star Wars mythos due to the upcoming films coming out next year). I was very excited to talk to Steve and ask questions concerning the Star Wars universe that I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time. Story lines that I’ve never spoke to with anyone because I don’t know anyone personally that has read the books that I’ve read. I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t found them yet. So, if you’re reading this and you know me, I’d love to chat sometime about the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and what you thought about it, the fate of Darth Bane and his books, or the X-wing series…or the New Republic novels with the New Jedi Order….things like that.

 

 Along for the ride on this journey is my friend Collin. Collin is the director of Animals, the film that I made a cameo in as a narcotics officer last fall. It was an official selection in the major film festival this spring, South By Southwest (SXSW), and in fact, they’re getting extremely close to signing a distribution deal to get it out to the public in theaters and online, so that’s cool for him. Collin has been a savior for me during my trip out here, and to reward him, I wanted to take him along on this journey as he’s a massive Star Wars fan too. His schedule was clear, so we did an up-and-back to Petaluma (7 hours) this past Saturday. I took a quick break from Second City to make the trip, but if I was gone longer, I’d miss more improv workshops, and I didn’t want to do that. They are/were too valuable to me, so we made a very, very long day out of it…but man, it was spectacular.

We left at 5:30 in the morning, and we had to get there by 2 p.m. for the tour. The collection is a private collection, so it’s at his house. So, it is a private residence in a residential neighborhood. They didn’t want us showing up early, hanging out in neighbor’s driveways, staking out their house, etc. “Show up right at two o’clock for the tour” is what the email said, so Collin and I followed it. The drive went unbelievably fast. We talked about nothing but movies for the entire drive up, and man, that time flew by. We got there about an hour early, no traffic, which was nice. So, we hung out at Taco Bell (naturally) until it was time to head over. We had already done a drive-by of the house so that we knew what we were looking for when we returned. We pulled into their driveway at 1:59. And they said, “Look for the white gate with Obi-Wan on it.” Well, it definitely stood out.

 

As we pulled up to the gate, we saw several people standing around already inside. Someone didn’t follow the directions on the email, but we did. So, we were let in, we were given out name badges, and the tour began.  A very nice lady named Anne started the tour off, and it threw me for a curve. I got the sinking suspicion that she was going to lead the whole tour, and I was disappointed as it was advertised that Steve was going to do it. About ten minutes into it, she took us to the official starting point on the tour, and that’s where Steve was standing and greeting everyone by name as he shook our hands.  The time had come!

The tour began with us shoe-horned into a tiny corridor, or hallway with one door at the end, and two doors (one on each side of the hallway). We were cramped, but we were reassured that the tour would “open up” and we’d have more room once we got started. Think of the hallway scene in Willy Wonka before he opens the door to the candy room. It was like that. So, Steve welcomed us, and said hello, but he said someone else would like to great us properly.  He clicked a button, and an illuminated 3-foot bust of Obi-Wan Kenobi suddenly illuminated and an audio recording began. It was Obi-Wan’s voice…it was a pre-recorded 2-3 minute audio clip welcoming us and it was sprinkled with movie line references, etc. It sounded like Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan, but it was James Arnold Taylor…the animated Obi-Wan from the Clone Wars show and video games. I guess when you’re Steve Sansweet you have connections in the Star Wars world.
 

During the recording, I was watching Steve’s face, and he had a smile on his face and was almost conducting to the background music of the recording, which was obviously the Star Wars score by John Williams. He was enjoying this so much. I can’t imagine how good it would feel to be walking people around my possessions and these people paid to come and see my stuff. And then I get to talk about my passion, Star Wars, and they eat it all up.  It would be a cool feeling. 

When it concluded, he gave us a little information about where we were standing. The hallway was lined with posters, original posters from the movies when they were released. In addition to hundreds of action figures that were on display, which included their identification numbers and labeling. He said they researched that there were 2000+ action figures in all that were made, and they only have about half on display, but the rest are in boxes ready to be displayed…they just have to find the room. He said they were going to line the hallway we were standing in, but I don’t see how that will work. You’ll have to almost shimmy your way down the halls then, but I’m sure they’ll find a place eventually. 

 

I asked if he had “Yak Face.” Some people looked at me weird, but even though I didn’t collect them religiously when I grew up, I knew that Yak Face was one of the most sought after action figures from the early eighties. He was a character in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi, and he was never released in the U.S. for whatever reason. Steve obviously had one in his collection.

 

After the action figures, he showed us a bathroom loaded with Star Wars stuff, a lot of it I’d seen before like the Darth Maul soap dispenser. I loved that thing. The painted toilet seat was amazing as it depicts Boba Fett fighting his way out of the Sarlacc Pit, which is  a stark contradiction to the film. This is where the Expanded Universe is fun. Boba Fett was arguably one of the most famous characters from the early trilogy of films, and his total screen time probably equated to less than a minute in total length. He was such a mysterious character that people latched onto him. Many hated the way he died, or supposedly died, in Return of the Jedi. His jet pack is accidentally ignited by a near-blind Han Solo, and it sends him soaring into the side of Jabba’s sail barge, where he crashes and falls down onto a sand dune ultimately rolling right into the maw of the sarlacc. Not a very glorious/glamorous death for a fan favorite, and for me, it ranks right up there with Darth Maul’s death. Not very exciting, and far too quick. The Expanded Universe has since resurrected Darth Maul too, so that’s been fun to see more stories with both of these fan favorites.

After the bathroom visit, we went to the library. I felt as excited by this stop as I’m sure Belle was when the beast showed her his library. It was awesome, though I didn’t have nearly the room Belle did when the camera twirled around her as she spun around. I did my own spinning…in my head. It was glorious. All of the Star Wars books in print were located in this room, and several different languages were represented too. There were figurines…not action figures…but figurines, or statues.  Several three-foot tall pewter statues of Vader and Boba Fett. Steve told us that George Lucas doesn’t have many Star Wars trinkets in his office, but he does have the pewter Vader. Sweet.

 

After leaving the library, we were smashed into the hallway again, and Steve activated a little electronic remote. All of a sudden, the Star Wars fanfare began, and he opened up the mysterious door at the end of the hallway…the door that looked like it led into a closet. We all suddenly realized what was happening...we were going into the warehouse.

 

After walking in and soaking it all in, he began talking about the cantina band from the first movie (The Modal Nodes, the all-Bith band…for you Star Wars nerds, like myself). He pushed a button, and they grooved to the music as if they were alive. Mildly cheesy, but the effect was pretty cool.

 

 

We spent the next hour making our way down the long, long room of memorabilia as Steve stopped and addressed the trinkets on all of the shelves. He had stories for everything, though he didn’t talk about everything. He spoke about whatever he was in the mood for…and there were always stories. Stories about counterfeit items, stories about rare artifacts, etc. The time flew.

 

 

 

 

 At the far end of the room, there were life-size LEGO statues of Darth Vader, R2-D2, and Boba Fett alongside a glass casing of dozens of replica lightsabers. Almost all of the lightsabers had autographs by the actors (or voice artists) that portrayed that character on film. It was pretty sweet. It reminded me of the rows and rows of Batman cowls that I put in my Warner Brothers Tour post awhile back.

 

Next to the lightsabers was a room that he called the “treasure room.” In it houses his most expensive artifacts up to this point in the tour. Models of the finest detail were found in this room, many of which were donated by Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). These weren’t chintzy, they were top of the line. One of a kind. Awesome stuff.

 

  

Well, at this point, the tour was wrapping down. You could feel the momentum waning, and we were about two hours into the tour at this point. Then he walked over to a curtained wall, and he hit another button. The curtain pulled back…and oh, my, god…we were looking at the Tantive IV’s hallway. The hallway of Princess Leia’s ship in the original movie, the hallway that the stormtroopers cut through and a shootout commenced, and ultimately, we see Darth Vader for the first time emerge from that cut doorway. A very iconic moment in Hollywood history, not just Star Wars history. Darth Vader was recently voted as the #1 villain of all-time by the American Film Institute (AFI).

 

We went up the stairs to the door, and then Steve opened the door…oh, my, god…the tour wasn’t over! There was a whole other building that we had to walk through. It kept going! In fact, my favorite part of the tour was commencing.  More life-size statues, more costumes from the movie…but what I loved was all of the fan art. I’m enamored by the creativity of the Star Wars art that I’ve seen throughout the years, and this stuff blew me away!

 

 

After several minutes of walking around this additional warehouse. He flipped on a light switch, and the arcade turned on in a back corner of the warehouse. Over a dozen arcade games from the ‘80s-‘90s suddenly came to life and the kids on the tour ran over and started playing all of the games for free.  I took this opportunity to chat up Steve without the kids around, and boy did he open up.

I asked him how he insured his collection, how could he possibly put a price, or estimate, on the items. The time, energy, upkeep, maintenance, security, etc. He went into an elaborate explanation that I won’t go into detail here, but if something happened, he’d be covered monetarily, though it would be impossible to replicate the collection. Some of the items are so rare, or are one-of-a-kind in nature, they’re priceless.

 

I asked him about the recent news that the George Lucas museum isn’t going to be in San Francisco where’s he’s been for his whole film career, but rather, it’s going to be in Chicago between McCormick Place and Soldier Field right on the water. Very openly, Steve told me about how the city council was leading George around and around and dragging their feet, and he finally had enough, and his wife has connections to Chicago, so he’s going to invest his billion dollars into constructing a museum along the lakefront in Chicago. San Francisco’s loss for sure.

 

This was probably my favorite part of the tour, in fact, I had so much fun talking to him that on the drive home, Collin and I were talking about how much fun it would be to sit and pick his brain. I said, “We should’ve invited him to pizza, or something.” Something tells me that he would’ve accepted. What a missed opportunity. I wish I could go back and ask him. He genuinely liked Collin and I as you could tell by his body language and bluntness (including language not suitable for kids) in his answering of my questions.

 

Oh, and on a side note, there was a family of four that asked me where I was from at the start of the tour, and I said, “Indiana.” “No way, so are we,” they responded.  Then at the same time, we both said, “Fort Wayne.” Unbelievable! Out here in the hills and country north of San Francisco, in a tour of 15 people, we find some Fort Wayne people. I told them that I’m a teacher at Carroll, and he says that he taught for twelve years at Canterbury High School. I drop a few names of people that I know work there and he says that he knows them well.  What a small world after all.

 

 

  

 

 

 

That day will stay with me forever, and I hope to take my family back there some day. I think even at their current ages they’d enjoy it, but give them a few more years to immerse themselves in the world of Star Wars (especially with the films that will start kicking out pretty regularly in the next two years), and I think they’ll enjoy it almost as much as I did. Who am I kidding? They’ll never enjoy it like I did.

 

What a glorious day!

 

 

Here's a little bonus nugget for those that made it to the end of the blog. Someone actually recorded most of the tour and edited it together for Youtube...so skim through it, or watch it whole in it's entirety (like I did). You'll get a sense of what it was like for us. Some of the stories are almost word-for-word the same, and some of the props/stories are different from what he showed us. Really a neat experience, and you don't have to travel to California to experience it....though seeing it in person was marvelous!