Why the Elvises, why the

Why the Elvises, why the Spocks, why the guys who paint their bellies at football games? Why the Harleys buzzing toward Sturgis, why the Civil War reenactors?

In the case of "Star Wars," the why starts when you're about 8 years old, and you are sitting in one of those long-ago demolished twin cinemas that used to be in old shopping malls, and it is 1977, and your head has just been blown off. (...)

In one darkened convention room, a endless video loop shows old Kenner "Star Wars" toy commercials, which seem grainy and ancient -- little boys with John Denver haircuts, wearing turtlenecks and corduroys, dash across the back yards of some other era and play joyously with action figures and spaceships. There is something wistful in it, watching these commercials with a roomful of men who were those boys, and realizing that "Star Wars," like any drug, eventually leaves you bottomed out.