As a kid growing up in a small Kentucky town, Star Wars memories seem to saturate Sparks' childhood. The characters and scenes from the Star Wars films always sparked his imagination. "I remember when I first discovered how the blaster noise was made from the films when I was 10 years old," Sparks says. "I was walking to a friend's house -- which was six miles away from my home -- and big heavy flakes of snow were hitting the phone lines making this cool blaster sound really quietly. I stopped dead in my tracks when I recognized the sound. I then walked over to the side of the road and picked up a big stick and I slammed it across the support wire to make the sound! I was so excited. As a true fan I risked possible electrocution just to make that blaster noise over and over again."
"I also recall one afternoon building an entire landscape of Hoth with a crashed snowspeeder, my Millennium Falcon landing on it and all the Star Wars characters running around a tauntaun that had fallen on its side," Sparks continues. "I used all the baking soda in the house to make the snow -- four boxes worth. So when my mom came home to make cookies for a church function and discovered I used a key ingredient to do it, I obviously got into some trouble over that. But it was worth it because it looked awesome."
It's more than apparent that Sparks was the type of kid who avidly played with Star Wars toys. "My favorite toy growing up was my AT-AT walker," Sparks says. "When I got an AT-AT walker I thought I was the king! Not only did I have a massive toy with moveable parts, but it holds a lot of my other toys as well. But I would never mix up my Star Wars toys with other types of toys like Transformers or G.I. Joes. That's sacrilege! I have trouble just mixing the 12-inch figures with the normal-size figures. That would freak me out."
Unfortunately not all of his toys remained in mint condition. "I had a huge fight where my mom had to have an intervention when my sister chewed off the small end of my Luke Skywalker lightsaber that came out of his wrist in the original action figure," Sparks remembers. "She also chewed off her Barbie's feet. It was kind of a nervous habit."
Even today, Sparks still has a sizeable collection. "I have a big crate at my mom's house that's full of Star Wars toys including my AT-AT walker, my Millennium Falcon, X-wing fighter, TIE fighter and Y-wing fighter," Sparks says. "I have the 12-inch dolls of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Luke's lightsaber was a clear piece of plastic with a really well-crafted handle. When I was a kid, I basically bought that Luke doll just for the lightsaber because it was 20 percent closer to real size. I kept hoping one day they would make a real-size lightsaber. It's kind of funny because as a grownup you feel stupid being jealous of kids. But the Star Wars toys they have now are so much better. If I had a full-sized lightsaber that made noises and lit up when I was a kid, I would have killed someone! So it's probably for the best. My friend Larry still collects a ton of Star Wars stuff and his apartment looks like a sideways toy store. Everything is stored side to side because there's just no room for everything else. And I go over there and secretly envy his collection."
"Currently, my pride and joy item is the R2-D2 glue stick that I use in my office, and my R2-D2 phone, but I've always wanted a full-size R2-D2," Sparks adds. "I know they have the R2-D2 coolers where you can unscrew his head, and I need to get one of those. I suppose even though Han was my identifying character, R2-D2 was the coolest part of Star Wars for me. But I never understood how everyone knew what R2-D2 was saying all the time. No one had a Babel fish in their ear like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's just a bunch of bells and whistles and everyone's saying, 'You're telling me, Artoo!' I mean it's a little different with Lassie. She'd bark and then you'd follow her. But with Artoo, he just sits there and beeps. C-3PO obviously speaks the language because he's a protocol droid and speaks multiple languages. But how come Luke knows it? Is it because he works on the droids?"
R2-D2's linguistics isn't the only topic Sparks regularly ponders. "I've never bought that George Lucas had the whole story arc planned out from the beginning; especially when you look at the original Star Wars poster and see Princess Leia is clinging to Luke's leg. You'd think if George thought this through all the way to Jedi he would have brought that up in the marketing meeting, and say something like, 'You know that's his sister, right?' They probably would have had to take some of the kissing out too."
