Celebrating the stuff of 'Star Wars'

The Baltimore Sun

Thirty years have passed since America was given a new hope, then watched an empire strike back and a Jedi return, but an exhibit at Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore serves as a reminder that the Force is still with us.

Filled with just a sampling of a local collection, the museum's Special Edition Gallery features glass display cabinets are chock-full of Star Wars paraphernalia: a box of Queen Amidala bandages, giant PEZ dispensers with Darth Vader and C-3PO heads, and gobs of R2-D2, Chewbacca and storm trooper action figures. A large replica of Han Solo's Millennium Falcon hangs from the ceiling.

Thomas Atkinson, whose collection made "The Force is With Us: 30 Years of Star Wars" possible, said the display is a sample of his memorabilia. The Linthicum collector, who makes toys, games and math-based puzzles for a Pasadena company, has catalogued at least 12,000 items in his possession, some of which he exhibits in his home.

"It was the movie I'd been waiting my entire life to see," Atkinson said of Star Wars, which he said he saw sometime around his 13th birthday. As a child, Atkinson said he was fascinated by the future and outer space, robots and aliens.

"When Star Wars came along, there was this universe up on that screen that was clearly and obviously lived in and populated by people who were just going about their daily lives ... and it wasn't all clean and white and shiny," Atkinson said. "There was such a sense of reality to it, to a degree that I'd never seen before in movie or television science fiction."

It was a world that also caught the fancy of Hilda Yankelov of Randallstown who, with her husband, Louis, was walking down the museum's Star Wars memory lane yesterday before heading to the Orioles' game against the Los Angeles Angels. Yankelov said she remembered taking lunch and her children and sitting through the movie twice.

Louis Yankelov said the spirit of Star Wars and earlier science fiction television shows he grew up with seemed part of a bygone era.

"We had all this, and we believed in fantasy," he said. Kids "don't have that heart for fantasy anymore."

Atkinson said his collection spans the 30 years since Luke Skywalker's and the rebels' battle against the Empire first inspired a generation of moviegoers. Some of the toys he's gathered are from his own childhood; others are from a regular habit of keeping his eyes open for new items at toy stores and other places. What started as a Star Wars room in his home spilled into the hall, and then another room.

"Unlike so many collectors that I've met and unlike so many of my contemporaries, I never got rid of any of the stuff, and I never stopped collecting," Atkinson said. "It's been kind of a constant obsession for me."

arin.gencer@baltsun.com

The Geppi's exhibit runs through mid-September. For those Star Wars fans interested in seeing additional memorabilia, Atkinson's Star Toys Museum has a Web site: www.startoysmus eum.org. Tours are arranged by appointment.

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