“There’s something about a whole bunch of people in uniform that looks threatening … intimidating … Awe-inspiring”

LVW: So, why are there no good guys here?

Damien: Well, here's the deal. The 501st Stormtrooper Legion is a group of costumers who do screen quality Star Wars bad guys. It's an international organization that, as of a week-and-a-half ago, hit 3,000 members worldwide. We are the Neon City Garrison. We are the Southern Nevada branch of the 501st, and we are the bad guys. Well, in George Lucas' actual words at Celebration III

¹
last week, "The Stormtroopers are not actually bad guys; they just take their orders from a very bad man." And that's quote-unquote from George, so ... But technically, we are the bad guys.

LVW: I think a lot of people would be amazed to hear that George Lucas' people contacted you to help him with the ShoWest

²
convention here in March.

Ray: It says a lot for the quality of our costumes.

Damien: It does.

Barry: [George Lucas' people] are friends with their fans, unlike other, um [Dramatically clears his throat] ... franchises ...

[Throat clearing around the room.]

LVW: ... OK ...

Tim: Yeah, we met George Lucas during ShoWest. He looked at everyone's armor and he was really impressed. He even picked up some of the peoples' helmets.

Damien: I arranged to give him a plaque to induct him as an honorary member of the 501st. Recently I have become Lucasfilm's best friend, because they keep bringing all kinds of stuff to Vegas. We were the first fan group to be able to even approach George Lucas at ShoWest. [Fig. 1] Over the last six months I've had Lucasfilm contacts calling my house, and that's just indescribable, dealing directly with Lucasfilm. Having them request our presence to help them out with corporate events like Pepsi conventions, Burger King conventions ... is awesome. Absolutely awesome. Being privy to a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff ... I went out to dinner with Peter Mayhew, the actor who plays Chewbacca, and his wife. And I'm on a first name basis with a lot of stars. Great people, great people. I got an invite to the ranch because of the volunteer work I did at Celebration III.

LVW: Why is the Stormtrooper costume so popular?

Everyone: Because it's so cool!

Damien: As a matter of fact, at Celebration III last week we had a group picture with 430 members of the 501st. Approximately 350 of them were Stormtroopers. This picture was just bloody enormous. Including 15 Darth Vaders, which is why I wasn't Darth Vader.

Phil: Not to take away from it, but it's almost like an entry-level costume. It's relatively easy to get. You don't have to know a lot about prop-making to build one; it comes with very good instructions most of the time. And almost everyone in the community has gotten one before, so there's plenty of help.

Damien: You instantly belong to a group. The minute you put it on, you're one of them.

LVW: Is there anyone here who hasn't had a Stormtrooper outfit?

Damien [To the group]: Show of hands of people who do not own—do not own—a Stormtrooper costume? [Surveys the room and laughs] Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

[Not one person has raised his hand.]

Mark: I do own one but I don't use it. There's a proper body style, and I don't really fit into the Stormtrooper body style.

Phil: I would say my screen-accurate Stormtrooper costume I aquired pretty well assembled. I bought it for about $900 assembled. And I sold it for $2,700.

Damien: Getting ahold of a [Stormtrooper costume] kit, an average price is like $400 to $600. You pick them up on eBay, you pick them up from a friend of a friend of a friend of ... whatever. You end up adding a black body suit, black gloves, white boots–which are a pain in the butt to get ahold of. There's two places we know of that always have them, but they're $60 to $80 for a pair of miserable ankle boots.

LVW: On the phone yesterday you referred to the costumers who dress as good guys as the "Bathrobe Brigade."

Damien: Being a member of the other group, known as the Rebel Legion—which quite a few of the people here are; they're members of both groups—just about anything goes. There's no real costuming standard whatsoever. And the majority of the group becomes Jedis simply because it's so easy to do a costume. Throw on a robe, grab a broomstick and boom!, you're a Jedi! That, versus the $5,000 I've got in my Vader costume. Dieter has about $1,200 in his Jango Fett. Tim's Darth Maul is a thousand dollars. You can't just order these. Every one of the Stormtroopers is put together by the person who buys it; it's parts.

LVW: I noticed at the Wal-Mart tent sale

³
you guys attended that only the bad guys got attention from the crowd. The good guys just stood there in the parking lot trying to keep warm, pretty much.

Damien: OK, you have a guy in a bathrobe with a stick, and you have a guy with, like, a thousand dollars worth of armor on, and a gun. [Laughs] But that is a big, big problem. The other guys aren't necessarily recognizable. Stormtroopers and Darth Vader are instantly recognizable. Everybody knows who they are. Even if they don't know who they are, most people would get the hell out of the way of anyone who's dressed in body armor walking around with a submachine gun. Actually, out in the car at the moment I have a decommissioned British Sterling, which was the basis for the Stormtrooper E-11 blasters [Fig. 2] from the Star Wars films. I have a real one that's been filled with lead, et cetera, et cetera. And they're heavy as hell. But going through the airport with that? Hell no, you'd better have God and the president with you if want to try to go through the airport with that thing.

Dieter: The hardware store is a costumer's best friend. When we go to Home Depot we don't say, "Oh, toilets, plumbing ..." or whatever. We say, "Ah! A lightsaber! Ah! Blaster!

Damien: The wife says, "Honey, look, a garbage can!" You turn around and think, Hey, that's a Gonk Droid! [Fig. 3]

Dieter: You see a lot of personalized modifications that people do. Like, we have this one guy called Techno Trooper. He got this helmet—

Damien: You start with a normal Stormtrooper helmet that weighs about half a pound. He's got about 14 pounds of electronics in his—radio, microphone, fans.

Tim: He's even talking about putting an LCD screen in there.

Barry: I was just thinking last night, and an epiphany occurred to me. It's not even so much the Star Wars; it's the creativity aspect that's going on. It's making something and going, "This is freakin' awesome. Wait till they see this. They will never guess what this is."

Damien: I make trips to the LA area frequently to participate in events that the 501st groups down there have. Because there's like three or four garrisons in California. And I'm going down there in a week for the charity premiere. So actually you'll see me as [Jedi Knight] Qui-Gon Jinn—most likely on national television.

LVW: In a bathrobe with a broomstick?

[Everyone laughs.]

Damien: No, no, no! Actually, my costume is made out of raw silk and has screen-accurate pouches, belts, greeblies

⁴
... the whole nine yards. And I make my own lightsabers in neon, which are visible from five miles. Nothing can touch that. You turn that on and—

Ray: Planes go off course.

Damien: One of the biggest problems with doing costumes from the Star Wars films is, their budgets kept getting bigger, so they kept changing things. So you'll look at one film and go, "We're gonna do that! OK, well, not enough pictures, so let's go to the next film and ... What the hell is that? It doesn't go near the last movie! What is that?"

LVW: What collecting do you guys do?

Tim: I personally collect artwork, like lithos, posters. Stuff like that. Right now I have four lithos in my den, and each one of them is signed by the artist. Two of them are signed by actors in the movie.

Damien: Harder-to-get-ahold-of stuff is what I'm into. Some of the promotional materials, the big things.

Barry: I just got a Darth Tater. [Fig. 4]

Damien: I still have to get one of those! They're out of the chrome Darth Vader Pez dispensers. My mom went looking for one; she thought it was cool. But I don't know [To the group]–am I the only here who owns an actual screen prop?

EVERYONE: Probably.

Damien: I've got one of Qui-Gon's lightsabers.

LVW: How'd you get that?

Damien: "Friends in the industry" ...

LVW: ... OK ... I notice that you guys like to be ambiguous. Like when you all coughed to avoid naming the Star Trek franchise.

[Everyone laughs.]

Barry: "You said it, not us!"

Damien: When these guys in suits come to your front door and say, "We read an article, and you're going away now. We're going to find your friends and family and goldfish and you're all going to disappear." [Laughs] We don't want that to happen! We have to drop that one.

LVW: So you guys really draw the line between Star Wars and Star Trek.

Damien: OK, this one's my forte, unfortunately. I am the president of Nevada's oldest Star Trek fan club and have been for the past ... 11 years? Ten years. Feels like 11 years. Feels like 100 years. I'm also the executive officer of the Neon City Garrison. So I've got my fingers in a few pies.

Barry: You're a well-rounded geek. [Laughs] Just try getting a bunch of Star Trek fans in a group photo of 430. Try even getting them all to look the same. The thing I like about the Stormtrooper costumes, and the Vaders and the Boba Fetts is, they're screen-quality. They all look the same. And there's something about a whole bunch of people in uniform that looks threatening ... Intimidating ... Awe-inspiring. And, you've got to fit in the costume.

[Everyone laughs.]

LVW: You guys have mentioned a couple times about how you "fit" in your costumes. But the last time we profiled you guys, we ran a photo of a plus-sized Jango Fett with no head. [Fig. 5]

[Everyone laughs.]

Damien: Yes, well, there's Jango Fatt and Queen Blob-idala. But 95 to 98 percent attempt to put on a costume that fits their body type. Whereas Star Trek, it doesn't seem to matter. Spandex is not a right. And at a Star Wars convention you're never going to hear someone say, "Captain, I'm sensing the snack bar."

LVW: So they're nerdier than the Star Wars guys.

Tim: Did you ever see Trekkies? I've noticed that a lot of super hard-core fans live Star Trek. Whereas the real hard-core Star Wars fans can separate it.

LVW: Former CityLife writer Saab Lofton referenced Star Trek philosophies in nearly every weekly column he wrote.

Damien: He actually came to one of the USS Columbia meetings—the Star Trek meetings—and, um ... It was interesting ...

LVW: You guys mentioned earlier the different stores and movie theaters inviting you to stop by in costume. It occurs to me that you're in a way becoming Store Santas, since you obviously attract customers and photo opportunities.

Damien: Planet Hollywood, FAO Schwarz—they love us. They love us to death.

LVW: So is this release of the final Star Wars film in a way going to feel like your last Christmas?

Damien: Originally it did. However—George Lucas dropped a couple of lovely bombs on everybody. Like the fact that he's going to have a live-action [Star Wars] TV series. And the fact that he's going to be releasing all six films, in order—one per year—in 3-D. So we've got at least another six or seven years to play around.

LVW: Some people must see you in your costumes and assume you're creepy or weird.

Damien: No, we don't have any people who live in basements and peek out.

LVW: Is that because there are no basements here in Vegas, or ...

Ray: If you look at us, we're just everyday people with a wonderful hobby. The one thing I have to tell you is, more than once, whether you're a Stormtrooper or Vader, you find yourself taking pictures with children, or with their parents. And you're smiling. They can't see you smiling, but you're smiling. It's just so much fun.

Tim: Before there was the Neon CIty Garrison, before we even had a name, there were three of us that made an appearance at FAO Schwarz. They called Metro on us. They said, "There are guys in suits of armor here with rifles! You need to come down here before they shoot somebody!" Metro came down there, and the second they saw us it was, "Cool! Stormtroopers! Can you pose on the car? Let's take pictures!" So now there's a picture down at the Metropolitan Police with a couple of the police officers, Darth Maul, Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper.

Damien: It's funny. Security people love us to death.