Trip to central Calif. ranch worth it for ‘Star Wars’ fans

PETALUMA, Calif. — My descriptive powers fail utterly to convey the depth, breadth and sheer vertiginous volume of “Star Wars” ephemera on display at a converted chicken farm known as Rancho Obi-Wan in the rolling Sonoma County hills.

What say I just list a few of the more than 500,000 items — and growing with 2,000 cubic feet of boxes yet to be sorted — belonging to uber-“Star Wars” fanatic Steve Sansweet, and leave the rest to you? Mind you, this will not even be the rare or especially valuable memorabilia, merely a glimpse (the deep cuts, as it were) into a collection seemingly as vast as a galaxy far, far, etc., etc.

Cue the soaring John Williams score, and here we go …

• Darth Vader toaster.

• Lock of Chewbacca’s hair.

• Yoda toilet paper, with the instruction: “Wipe, you will.”

• Action figure of Carrie Fisher’s bulldog, Gary.

• Wookie IPA, craft beer, from Denmark.

• Cream of Jawa soup can.

• R-2 Mr. T-2, replete with Mohawk and heavy gold rope chain.

• Beavis & Butt-Head stormtroopers.

• CoverGirl “The Force Awakens” lipstick, in colors such as Droid and Dark Apprentice.

• Unintentionally phallic Jar Jar Binks Candy Lollipop.

• Never-released (due to safety and liability issues) Rocket-Firing Boba Fett Action Figure.

• A pregnant George Lucas cast in carbonite.

I’m thinking that this list, brow-raising as it is, still doesn’t do Rancho Obi-Wan justice.

Doesn’t begin to depict the meticulousness care, the reverence and irreverence, afforded to the “Star Wars” franchise through these trinkets. Barely sheds any light, actually, on the psycho-social influence the movies have wrought, which comes through loud and clear at a three-hour Rancho pilgrimage. Fails to fully capture the effect, deep and visceral and spiritual, these sacred celluloid objects have on visitors willing — nay, eager — to shell out $100 (mandatory $40 member fee, then $60 for a tour) for viewings that take place maybe four times a month.

Trust me when I say that, when Rancho Obi-Wan adherents first laid eyes on General (nee, Princess) Leia’s costume, or point their smartphones at the animatronic band Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes from the Mos Eisley Cantina, or nearly genuflect at the taller-than-life-size mannequin of Darth Vader (codpiece copped from the original costume) with red light saber aglow, the joy is palpable.

The entire complex is nothing less than a labor of love brought to life by Sansweet, a Wall Street Journal reporter when the franchise began in 1977, but soon so “Star Wars” struck that he parlayed his passion into a job at Lucasfilm, first as head of “fan relations,” later adding licensing to his ken.

And he hordishly retained everything “Star Wars”-related, nothing too trivial, scavenged the sets for discards and trash cans for castoff ephemera, even down to the lower leg cast — signed by the actors — that stunt man Paul Weston wore after breaking his leg jumping into the Sarlacc pit filming “Return of the Jedi.”

General manager Anne Neumann, who has the Sisyphean task of cataloging all that stuff, said Sansweet moved to Petaluma in 1998 for the express purpose of sharing his vast collection with fellow “Star Wars” appreciators. That, and he needed to be close to Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio.