But now everyone -- from those who grew up with 'Return of the Jedi' lunchboxes to a new generation of fans who plaster their desktops with Star Wars themes' -- has a tool to communicate and share their passions: The Internet.

Very few Star Wars fans were online in the early 80s, on Usenet or sci-fi message boards. But now, the official Star Wars site, TheForce.net and Jedinet.com attract millions of visitors.

Fans were thronging forums, chat rooms, Usenet newsgroups, and IRC channels, hungry for every tidbit of Star Wars news, months before the release of the prequel.

Joshua Griffin, a staffer at TheForce.net, one of the most popular destinations, says: "Earlier you'd get a newsletter or magazine every other month, but now we serve 25 updates almost daily."

He adds: "Right now, we're seeing approximately 75,000 unique visitors a day, and the traffic is steadily growing with the promotions, trailers and the release of the movie."

In the weeks preceding the release, there have been more than a million downloads of AOTC trailers from the official Star Wars site and others like TrailersWorld, Clipstream.com and PocketMovies. Besides trailers, there were even reports of bootlegs of the movie being available online a week before its release.

Spoiler reviews are so rampant that the Jedi Council boards have separate forums for posts with spoilers and those without!

But the 'cyber spotlight' is on rumours and spy reports, along with sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes photos of the sets where the prequels were shot. Fans are lapping it up and debating them on many forums including 'bastions of geekdom' like Slashdot.

"The Internet has become extremely powerful as far as the Star Wars 'fandom' is concerned," says Devanshu Mehta who got hooked on to Star Wars ever since he saw 'The Return of the Jedi' when he was three. The man who manages GalaxyFarAway, a Star Wars fan site, says, "Rumours fly faster than the speed of light for the entire three years between prequels, and it's hard to confirm what's true. But I guess that's part of the game in the anticipation of upcoming prequels."

Devanshu, now based in the US, recalls waiting for the release of Episode I, and logging on to the Star Wars Countingdown from a slow dial up connection in Baroda.

Prasad Shankar, creator of TheJediplanet.com, another fan site says: "I think the Internet has not only brought AOTC to the fans via rumours and spy reports, but has also united them."

Sites like Fanforce have forums for many countries, and sections where fans can connect with others from their part of the world. "There is now a network of us Star Wars 'nuts'. It's almost like a support group for the anticipation we feel. We communicate and share stories," says Prasad. "It's a great feeling when someone from Ohio talks to someone from The Netherlands about Star Wars."

Prasad attributes the explosion of the online fan community to the time when Episode One was released in 1998. In the year before its release, several sites sprung up paying homage to everyone and everything in the Star Wars universe - from Yoda to the Millennium Falcon.

It was in this year that both Devanshu and Prasad set up their sites. Prasad set up his Star Wars page on Geocities in October 1998: "It was merely a biography of Yoda. I revamped it around a year later and on January 17, 2000, TheJediPlanet.com was launched. It gets around 150-200 hits a day."

Devanshu's made an appearance on a free-hosting service but within six months -- and by the time Episode I was released -- it generated so much traffic that the site warranted a move to its own domain. Since then, GalaxyFaraway has kept growing and now occupies almost 200 MB of space. "We've had over 250,000 page views this May," says Devanshu.

He says that maintaining the site is no substitute for a full time job: "The Internet slump made it impossible for the site to even cover its own expenses, let alone profit." He maintains the site with a little help from a couple of other fans, all for the love of Star Wars.

Though there are more fans online now, Devanshu feels the level of anticipation will never match that of Episode I. He remembers seeing the first trailer: "It sent a chill down my spine and brought tears to my eyes - those were the first new Star Wars images in 15 years. You have to understand that was the most anticipated and looked-forward-to film of all time. Nothing can match it - not for a long, long time."

Joshua agrees that all those years without Star Wars generated huge hype around Episode I, but says that this time around the numbers are similar, and over 18,000 individual messages have been posted to JediCouncil message boards.

However, Prasad says: "This time I think we're starting to see the 'true die-hard fans' -- the bandwagon has definitely lightened!"

Even after AOTC's release, the action is far from over online. "The fans at my site and others are just going back to watch it a 3rd, 4th and 5th time," says Prasad. "Currently we're just taking it in and letting it become a part of our collective knowledge of Star Wars. The general consensus has been delight, though there will always be those who have bad things to say."

Not everyone is raving about the new movie. But scathing reviews are met with angry posts and letters.

Devanshu feels that critics and cynics have lost sight of why Star Wars holds such importance: "It's not about the story, characters or action. It's about the wonder that it brought to me when I first saw it. I wanted to wave my lightsaber in the air, levitate my spaceship and blow up the Death Star."

He adds: "It is an intriguing and rich galaxy we can escape to; and we don't have to be children to do so."

Even as AOTC hits movie screens worldwide, the speculation and the buzz about Episode III has already begun. Sites like Episode-X already have fans speculating what the last prequel is going to hold.



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