The Force is Strong With Matt Greene…

Anyone that knows me understands that I am one of the biggest Star Wars geeks on the planet.

My girlfriend will often come up with obscure trivia questions about the franchise just so that I will expound upon the topic allowing her to say, “Yoooou’re a neeerd!” One of the regular queries is, “Who is that little guy who sits with Jabba the Hut?” Of course I quickly shout out, “Salacious B. Crumb!” It is moments like that and my love of the franchise that makes me want to have a beer with the Los Angeles Kings’ Matt Greene!

Greene recently did an interview with www.starwars.com about his love of the franchise, his favorite Star Wars toys growing up and the fact that he would love to play with Darth Vader.

Here are couple of the highlights…

Greene, not unlike myself or any other male Star Wars fan for that matter, loved Boba Fett growing up. He claims that it was his favorite toy and that he and his brother would sort of battle for the figure. He also mentioned the jealousy he would feel for his brother that stemmed from their respective Star Wars toys. Something that many of us fan boys felt in our youths while seeing friends get that Millennium Falcon that never seemed to end up in our grubby mitts!

“Boba Fett was my favorite toy. A lot of that stems from my older brother. My mom likes to tell the story about how the only way they could get my brother to take naps when he was a kid was that he had to go get a Star Wars toy for him to lay down with.

“But I was jealous of him. So when it came time for me to get toys, I always tried to get that Boba Fett too. So Boba was probably my favorite toy because he was always off-limits at my house.”

The Kings D-man tells us that his favorite movie in the original trilogy was The Empire Strikes Back, another thing that dovetails nicely with my Star Wars tastes. Personally, I liked that the bad guys won that one. It is a rare occurrence in film to allow the “dark side” to actually come out on top and though that victory celebration was short lived, it was certainly sweet!

Greene liked it for slightly different reasons.

“The Empire Strikes Back is awesome. I loved the Imperial Walkers! They are my favorite vehicles in the movies. I like that Empire is the middle of the story, and you get to see your favorite characters come back.”

Ah, the Walkers… another great toy that never found its way to me! Rats…

His favorite character? Bad boy Han Solo. Which just so happens to be one of my favorites.

“Han Solo. He’s the man! He thinks he knows everything with what’s going on but he doesn’t. He’s always getting into trouble. He has a history. He thinks he’s a lot smoother than he is, and I like that about him.”

I don’t think that I could have summed Han up any better. He was always kind of a King Cool type, while at the same time coming across as clumsy…but in a “I’m wooing Leia” kind of way.

This interview with www.starwars.com was a joy to read for this Star Wars fan. The league has gotten so young, that you sort of lose sight of the fact that there could be some fans of the “Force” lurking out there. Greene was clearly caught in the tractor beam of the second wave of Star Wars mania that started in the mid 1990’s, but that is just fine by me. As I said…if he is up for it… I am buying at the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Read the full interview with Matt Greene here… he discusses letting Wookies win, playing with Darth Vader, how he wishes that George Lucas will just break down make a Boba Fett movie and much more…