I'm sitting here watching Return of the Jedi on TV, the day after finishing Confederates in the Attic, and all these dork things start circling around my head. As  I'm watching, there's some tugging themes so reminiscent of the Civil War, and I'm sitting there on the couch as little cannons chase little millenium falcons around my noggin, and I can suddenly totally see why there is all this overlap in CW and Sci-Fi dorkdom. 

As Horwitz put it in his book, the Civil War is the first war we have tangible relatable images (photographs) of, and the last real War that hinged  on erratic and epic figures. As he says, "where a single individual really could affect the whole outcome of the war."  and-gahhhh I am actually feeling every ounce of coolness I worked so hard to collect in Junior High leaving my body-I get this real tangible sense of why these movies were so epic to us in the seventies, and have been ever since. With thousands of boys who died anonymously in Vietnam and World War Two, with the sexual revolution and all our roles feeling out of our hands- here was this movie that was futuristic and imaginative, but clearly a piece of the past. Where charismatic rebels took on the vast and impersonal villians of the galaxy. All the themes of good and evil (but that are not black and white), where bold people made decisions for whole galaxies and refused to settle for oppression and evil.  Unexpected, unsung, fallen and finally redeemed heroes. It's all at the heart of our dorkiness.

That's why reenactors and sci fi conventioners are all that same sort of person. Yes they are weird. Yes they may take it too far. Yes, they might even suffer from major issues in terms of distance from reality and responsibility. 

But you have to admit, these boys got soul.