Sunday, December 20, 2015
By Jordan Cohen
WARREN
They did not need to awaken the Force to get into “Star Wars” on Saturday at the Warren-Trumbull Public Library. All they needed were bingo cards, pseudo light-sabers and even Darth Vader himself, much less villainous than he is in the films.
Taking advantage of the box-office record-setter, the library drew more than 60 very young and not-so-young people, none of them in costume, who clearly enjoyed getting into the act with “Star Wars”-themed activities.
The bingo cards, consisting of 16 pictures of characters from the movies were created by Sarah Amazing of Warren. “Yes, that really is my name,” she said. Amazing said she downloaded characters’ pictures from the Internet and transferred the pictures to different cards. Bingo winners won packages of candies.
“I don’t know who some of these characters are,” said Ed Politsky of Howland, who brought his wife and grandson Colin Brown, 6, to the festivities. Colin won one of the games.
“My daughter and son-in-law have seen the movie, and they wouldn’t tell me about it,” Politsky said. “They don’t want to spoil it for me.”
Amazing made certain that wouldn’t happen during the hourlong activities. “This is a no-spoiler event,” she said.
Heather Fellows of Warren smiled as her 8-year old son Tristan Fellows-Bryant identified most of the pictures on his card. Many of the characters were in the first films made decades before he was born.
“That’s Boba Fett [the bounty hunter for those unfamiliar with the cult-like figure], there’s the wookie [Chewbacca] and that’s Jar-Jar Binks,” he said, correctly identifying perhaps the most detested and panned “Star Wars” character.
But it was the light-saber competition that got the crowd moving. The weapons – actually 3-foot-long pool noodles with duct tape around their bases – were to be used to keep balloons aloft. That did not necessarily stop some of the young people from conducting their own saber fights as popping noises filled the library’s community room.
“You can keep your light-sabers forever,” Amazing said to the cheers of the children and relative silence from the grown-ups. “You’re welcome, parents,” Amazing joked.
Even though the competitors were mostly children, some of the adults got into it, especially Alex Walter of Warren, accompanied by her 7-year-old son Malachi. Walter kept her balloon from falling to the floor throughout the games and was clearly enjoying the game as much as those years younger.
“I love this library, and we come to all the activities,” she said. “Sometimes I take out 30 books for him to read.”
This being the library, there had to be a book reading performed by no less than Darth Vader, actually Scott Ronghi of the circulation department. Vader’s particularly appropriate book: “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Millennium Falcon.” The children cheered as Vader read how the pigeon’s effort to take control of Han Solo’s ship failed.
Ronghi/Vader stayed in character to the end even after finishing the book and thanking the audience.
“I have to go crush a rebellion,” he said to applause from the kids and laughter from the adults.