Josh Paton has always been known as a Star Wars guy. When he ran treasured local restaurant and concert bar Epic Pizza, it was common to see him tossing dough in a different Star Wars T-shirt, practically every night—and, in fact, he said he owns close to 90 of these shirts.
“It’s getting out of hand,” he told What’s Up Yukon. “People just give them to me for birthdays, Christmas, whatever. I could wear a different one every day for a few months and not have to do laundry!”
It wasn’t just his clothing that identified Paton as a Star Wars fanatic, though. Among Epic Pizza’s decor was several pieces of Star Wars-related art and merchandise from Paton’s personal collection.
“It gave me an opportunity to show and share my love of Star Wars and the cool stuff I’ve gotten over the years,” he said. “There’s definitely a lot of really neat things.”
It was a trip to the now-closed Storm Crow Alehouse, in Vancouver, that struck Paton with the inspiration to move items from his own vast Star Wars merchandise collection—which includes everything from posters to coasters, and even a Death Star waffle maker—to put on display in his own business place.
Paton was born five years after the original Star Wars movie came out, and he first saw it on the sci-fi channel outside of Dawson City, where he lived at the time.
“We had a twelve-foot big black satellite dish in our yard, and that’s how we got our TV,” he remembered. “We had kind of a haphazard selection of channels, but one of the ones we did have was the sci-fi channel.”
One day, the channel aired back-to-back-to-back showings of the three movies in the original trilogy, and a young Paton watched them all, straight through, except for the commercial breaks, in amazement.
“I used the extended play format and recorded all three Star Wars movies onto one cassette,” he said. “I just loved it, right from the start.”
As an adult, Paton began to connect more with the spiritual components of the Force, which he sees as a useful metaphor for living life. He’s even found the lessons in groundedness that he takes from Star Wars have helped him as a parent. Another thing Star Wars has done is to create something for Paton’s family to bond over, as he has been able to introduce his kids to the movies that came out when he was a kid, and to enjoy the new movies and shows with them.
“We’ve all been family-watching The Mandolorian and the Boba Fett show,” he said. “The last few movies that have come out have been big events for us.”
When The Force Awakens came out, the Patons and their entourage essentially took up three entire rows at the Qwanlin Cinema Centre. At least one of Paton’s kids also seems to be on his same path to superfandom, as his eldest daughter memorized the opening sequences to the movies before she could even read.
“It really showed her interest in something I was interested in,” he said. “My kids have always been good about that. They usually are willing to enjoy some of the same things as me.”
Though he has more Star Wars merchandise than most people would ever want, there is one item Paton has always had an eye on—a coffee table made to look like Han Solo frozen in carbonite.
You can take a look at it here: https://regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars/custom-starwars-furniture/han-solo-carbonite-coffee-table/
“It’s maybe not the most-realistic thing to have,” he said. “Look how hard it was for them to haul Han Solo around in that carbonite.”
