A sense of awe usually washes over every nerd and geek who steps forth into Ryan Johnson’s man cave — Jedi Temple, perhaps? —to see a shrine dedicated to the greatest science fiction franchise ever created: Star Wars.
Walking into Johnson’s home, the casual or hardcore fan is led into the living room and kitchen and through another door before entering the hallowed space that contains thousands of action figures, toys, playsets, vehicles, Legos, books, role-playing games, computer games, board games, card games, helmets, a gaming table, and home theatre system.
Canada’s largest collector
Johnson — not to be confused with Hollywood’s Rian Johnson, who directed Episode VIII: The Last Jedi — was four years old in 1978 when he received a stormtrooper figure as his first Star Wars toy. His collection hobby then took flight, to the point where he now owns 50,000 Star Wars items, with 30,500 of those pieces being unique non-duplicate one-offs.
Only about 20 per cent of his collection is on display, while the rest is stored offsite. Some of his more precious pieces are kept in a safe.
Johnson is Canada’s largest known collector of Star Wars toys. However, his collection pales in comparison to Steve Sansweet, former head of Lucasfilm’s Fan Relations Department. Sansweet — whose collection has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records — owns an estimated 300,000 pieces that are kept in a former chicken barn 840 square metres (9,000 square feet) in size and managed by three full-time staff.
“When I bought this house, I decided I was going to put an addition on for the man cave Star Wars collection,” Johnson explained, joking that he wished he had built the structure two storeys tall. “I designed it so I would be able to display all the action figures that came out, which was the primary focus of it.”
Look up, waaay up
Pointing up at the northeast corner of the room and then slowly rotating clockwise, Johnson runs through all the action figures he has collected since 1978.
He lists off facts about each line of figures, such as how they have improved and some of the unique ones issued for anniversaries, and even characters from the comics, books and video games. He keeps the valuable packages up high since he doesn’t want them damaged if his kids play in the room.
Johnson then talks about the playsets, Lego sets, vehicles and other non-figurine toys he has. He has not collected as many toys since 2015 when Disney bought Lucasfilm. If he does buy anything, “it has to be really cool or an original thing in better shape” than what he has.
“If I win the $60 million, guaranteed I’d have a museum,” he laughed.
Johnson possesses databases that catalogue everything he has and that tell him where he stores items or how many he has of each figure. The database is in print and digital formats, while he also has another that lists everything he still wants to collect.
“I’ll only trade my dupes,” said Johnson, who noted 10 per cent of his collection is unique and valuable. “I won’t want to trade my original stuff because to me that’s just wrong.”
A fan of the Empire
Johnson’s favourite action figures are stormtroopers, followed by Boba Fett and then Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Expanded Universe books.
He still has the stormtrooper figure his mother gave him as a four-year-old, which is stored in his safe. Laughing, he said while it’s not worth anything, in a fire he would grab that, along with a rocket-firing Boba Fett figure, a rare plastic-caped Jawa, his paper binder database, and other items with interesting collection backstories.
“I think to me (collecting is) a lot of the nostalgia now,” he said. “If you go to Walmart and you see the new figures but on the old cards … that’s the feeling I remember as a kid. Some of that brings it back,” he said.
“This is my insane hobby. I just love it too much.”
Protecting the collection
Johnson wouldn’t say how much money he’s spent on this during the last 41 years. However, he pointed out he has no other hobbies and he isn’t spending as much anymore since he’s run out of space. He also received plenty of criticism when he first announced in 2015 that he had this collection.
“The problem is getting insurance on it (since it) is extremely expensive. Nobody wants to touch it but Lloyd’s, and Lloyd’s wants their premiums (that) are stupidly high,” he laughed.
He built the room to be fireproof and reinforced for security. The space is energy efficient, while it helps cuts down on dust and ensures his items will be preserved.
“There are some people who live and breathe (Star Wars). But I still have a 9 to 5 job I have to do and I have a family, so I have to balance all these things,” he said. “I’m more of a collector than the biggest fan, but I’m definitely a huge fan.”
Let’s watch the movies
Johnson saw his first Star Wars movie in 1980, when he was taken to a theatre in Regina that was showing both The Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope.
Johnson admitted that director George Lucas’ Star Wars is better than Disney’s sequels. He believes the original trilogy is the best, the prequels were “OK” and Disney’s movies are “not as good” since they are too commercialized.
“Lucas, I fully expect, if he could buy it back for $4.5 billion, I think he wouldn’t even hesitate to write a cheque. He’s probably pretty pissed over what’s happened,” said Johnson. “He was willing to come in to bail out (Episode) IX, but I heard all those scenes were cut.”
Johnson rates the movies from best to worst as: The Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, Attack of the Clones, The Phantom Menace, The Holiday Special, the Ewok movies, and The Last Jedi.
He enjoyed Rogue One and Solo since he thought they were fun movies. He didn’t like The Last Jedi since, among other things, it portrayed Luke as a sulking coward who ran away from his mistakes.
Johnson believes director J.J. Abrams can salvage Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker and hopes to be “pleasantly surprised” when it comes out Dec. 19. He and his friends will dress up and see the new movie on opening night.
The other Disney material Johnson finds awesome is the TV series The Mandalorian. This series, he said, is what Star Wars used to be: fun, exciting, entertaining, a service to fans, and similar to old cowboy spaghetti westerns.
If more Star Wars movies are ever made, Johnson would like to see either The Old Republic era, set 25,000 years before A New Hope, or jump 200 years beyond The Rise of Skywalker to focus on Expanded Universe book characters. Anything in those eras, he added, as long as Lucasfilm stays away from the core timeline of the nine-part Skywalker saga.
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