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Brandon Eastman knew the end of the movie before it started.
Years ago, the 20-year-old could have told you that in the final installment of the “Star Wars” epic – actually the third episode in the six-part series – young Jedi Anakin Skywalker would be driven to evil, his wife would die, and his children, Luke and Leia, would be born. It would be the darkest film in the series. So the story goes.
But Eastman, hands in pockets and shifting his weight between his feet, stood in a line of at least 60 moviegoers at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday to get choice seats for “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” at the Bangor Mall 10 cinemas. He needed – NEEDED – to see exactly how George Lucas illustrates that allegorical fall from grace.
The Bangor Mall cinemas, Spotlight Cinemas in Orono, Belfast’s Colonial Theatre and many other theaters across the nation offered midnight showings of Lucas’ much-awaited final installment, which links the newer Star Wars prequels, “Episode I – The Phantom Menace” and “Episode II – Attack of the Clones,” with the original three movies released between 1977 and 1983. “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” officially opened in cinemas Thursday.
Episode III, Eastman said, is “the bridge between the new and the old. It ties it all together. You have to be here.”
The UMaine sophomore, who is majoring in new media, has curly, red hair and wore a T-shirt that read, “I’m really excited to be here.” He got flustered – as if starting hundreds of sentences at once – when he tried to explain his excitement while waiting with friends from Old Town High School. Eastman and the other Old Town High friends used to play “Star Wars” trivia during study halls.
Among Eastman’s friends, one sucked from a straw stuck in a giant Pepsi. Another was ready to smuggle two pounds of Skittles in his trench coat pockets into the theater. Another, Bryce Robichaud, had called Eastman at about 8 that morning and left a message of heavy breathing a la Darth Vader to pump them both up for the premiere.
In plain clothes, Robichaud, 21, declared, “The people who come here tomorrow aren’t true fans,” looking down the line that steadily grew from 60 or so at 9:30 p.m. and to more than 150 by 11 p.m., just before general seating began.
About 20 people down the line, Dana Romano, 37, moved gingerly next to her husband, Ra, 33. Perhaps she didn’t want to disrupt the red “head tails” made out of pipe insulation that looked like mammoth braids hanging from her scalp to her stomach. Or maybe it was because the black leather cat suit she wore underneath a red bodice and flowing, black cloak was too hot. Or she didn’t want to smudge the face-paint and eyeliner that covered every inch of her visible skin in a red-and-black maze.
Coming down from East Millinocket, Romano put together the Sith costume – arguably the most elaborate of all the Princess Leias and Darth Vaders and Obi-Wan Kenobis that lined up Wednesday night – in about two hours before she and her husband got in line at 9:30 p.m.
Graham Fitch, 18, had a similar idea. Standing near the back of the line with a group of five fellow Bangor High School students, Fitch wore a black-and-white patterned sheet as a parka. He held a wooden stick and pronounced, “I’m an Ewok.” But he didn’t look like one of the short, teddy-bearlike creatures featured in “Return of the Jedi” until he pulled up the hood of his parka, to which he had sewn the furry face of a gutted stuffed animal. He tugged the furry mask over his face, and his friends cheered in approval.
Chris Pierce of Corinth, wore a subtler costume: black Vader cloak, hidden light saber. He stood at the head of the line, earning the coveted spot by showing up at 6 p.m. He remembers his first time watching one of the “Star Wars” series. He was 3 years old, and his parents took him to a drive-in screening of “Return of the Jedi” when it was released in 1983.
“Everybody else got ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’ We got Luke Skywalker from Tatooine,” he recalled. Back then, Pierce and his friends played with toy light sabers before they were made to light up. He was itching to see how Lucas portrayed the ominous character General Grievous. He already had tickets in hand to watch the film again at noon Thursday.
Also near the front of the line, Grant Aylward of Hampden was up past his bedtime. The 13-year-old, masquerading as Anakin Skywalker in a cloak his mother sewed for him the night before, said his parents understood the gravity of this premiere.
“Well, yeah! It’s ‘Star Wars,'” said the boy whose haircut may have been a shorter version of Anakin’s curly cut in “Episode III” and whose eyes were urgent and wide. “And it’s the final one.”
And how will he feel in a couple of hours, after the movie’s credits are running?
Without hesitation: “Complete.”
By 11:30 p.m., ticket takers had let in Aylward and the snaking line that followed him all the way from the entrance of the theaters and almost out the door of the building. Aylward and his friend, Gerald Cushing, 14, swung their feet from their stadium seats and slurped two straws from a big cup of soda.
“I bet this will be my favorite,” Aylward said.
And what happens tomorrow?
“We’re gonna have to find something new to obsess over,” said Dan Wheaton, 17, a student at Old Town High School. “Geez, what are we going to obsess over?”
Tracy Collins can be reached at collinstb@gmail.com.
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