Walking into David Dziurzynski’s Star Wars room in his Bend home is like walking into a toy store.

The back wall is filled almost floor to ceiling with Star Wars figurines sealed in their boxes. More shelves around the room feature other toys and figurines, both vintage and new, and other pieces of memorabilia — a Darth Vader helmet replica signed by most of the cast and crew of the first six Star Wars films; life-size replicas of Yoda and Salacious Crumb (Jabba the Hutt’s cackling sidekick from “Return of the Jedi”). Replica lightsabers sit propped against a wall by the door; a giant Millennium Falcon toy commands space just in front of the flatscreen TV.

And according to Dziurzynski, who moved from Virginia to Bend in 2013, the memorabilia filling this room isn’t even close to half of the collection he once had.

“It got to the point where we were storing more than displaying, and what’s the point of having it if you can’t have it out?” he said. “So we ended up putting a couple auctions on eBay and ended up selling to a guy in Philadelphia who was opening up a comic book shop, and we were his inventory. So it was pretty crazy. Yeah, it was nuts.”

The first Star Wars film in a decade, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” officially opened in theaters with early screenings Thursday. And like most obsessive Star Wars fans, Dziurzynski is excited. He purchased two tickets online to the Thursday opening at Regal Old Mill Stadium 16 & IMAX.

Eric Ozrelic, 35, of Bend, likewise purchased his opening-day tickets online. Although not a collector of memorabilia, Ozrelic is a lifelong Star Wars fan, and is looking forward to seeing the new film — a direct sequel and first in a new trilogy of films set 30 years after the events of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.”

“I got three tickets, so me and two of my friends are gonna go see it,” Ozrelic said.

“We’ve been debating a lot; there’s all this Internet speculation as to, where’s Luke Skywalker?”

With ticket presales selling out across the country, local fans and theaters are preparing for what could end up being the biggest movie of the year — if not ever.

“I feel like it’s already received more attention than the previous episodes,” Redmond Cinemas manager Alaina Vandergust said.

Ticket sales do not seem to be as brisk in Central Oregon. As of Dec. 11, presale tickets could still be purchased at fandango.com for opening day showings at Regal. The theater would not comment, referring questions to Regal Cinemas’ corporate offices in Knoxville, Tennessee; multiple phone calls were not returned by deadline.

Vandergust said Redmond Cinemas began presales for the film Oct. 19. As of two weeks ago, the theater had sold about 20 tickets.

“People just in general don’t anticipate we’ll sell out,” Vandergust said. “I know Bend does, and sometimes we get mostly the overflow for Bend. That’s how it worked for ‘The Hunger Games’ in the last couple weeks.”

Lauren Schindel, general manager of Sisters Movie House, said she anticipated opening day would sell out. The theater screened the film in two of its four theaters.

“We definitely anticipate a crowd,” she said.

A primer for anyone who’s been lost in the deserts of Tattooine for the last half-century: The original “Star Wars” film, written and directed by George Lucas, was released in 1977. That film and its two sequels, 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back” and 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” followed the story of young farmboy Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, space pirate Han Solo and others in their fight against the evil Galactic Empire and its villainous officers, chief among them the black-helmeted, wheezing, James Earl Jones-voiced Darth Vader. Along the way, Skywalker learns about a mystical power known as the Force, eventually becoming a Jedi knight (part of the monastic order that defended the old Galactic Republic).

The original story ended with “Jedi,” but the fandom was just beginning. Comic books and novels helped fill in the story after “Jedi” in the years that followed, and toys and other merchandise made a comeback in the 1990s after a fallow period following “Jedi” from about 1986 until about 1993 — what Dziurzynski and other Star Wars fans consider “the dark times.”

“There were some books that had come out that was just something for us, but there was no merchandise, nothing,” Dziurzynski said. “And then in ’92, ’93 they came out with the Star Wars Bend-Ems, and then in ’94, ’95 they came out with the figures again, the red-carded figures. And that, just for me, I was working at — I managed a KB Toys, so for me I was getting this awesome discount, and these toys were coming in. I was just in my glory.”

In 1997, Lucas made the first of what would become many digital edits to the original trilogy. And in 1999, the first film of Lucas’ much-derided prequel trilogy, “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” was released, followed by “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” in 2002 and “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” in 2005. (The original films were numbered Episodes IV-VI, with the original “Star Wars” later taking on the subtitle “A New Hope.”)

Though criticized for their pacing and dialogue (among many, many other complaints), the prequel films brought Star Wars mania back into the public consciousness in a big way. Duncan McGeary, owner of Pegasus Books in downtown Bend, has noticed interest in Star Wars merchandise and comics steadily increasing in recent years, and even more so now with a new set of films coming out.

“I think it’s interesting; it’s not like it used to be, I don’t think, in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s just become more of a broader thing that’s everywhere now.”

In 2012, Lucas sold his production company Lucasfilm — including the rights to Star Wars — to Disney for more than $4 billion. The upcoming sequel trilogy, as well as a series of “anthology” films focused on characters and stories in the Star Wars universe, will be released by Disney.

Jon Hall, 29, of La Pine, said he’s been a Star wars fan for “as long as (he) can think back.” He became a fan when, as a little kid, he stumbled onto the original “Star Wars” playing on his grandmother’s TV.

“First thing I can remember was probably the fight with Obi-Wan (Kenobi) and Darth Vader in the first movie, and the thing that caught me off guard was the lightsabers, because I came into it like halfway into it,” he said. “My grandma was watching it, I came through halfway in, and all of a sudden they’re fighting with laser swords. It’s like, ooh, you have my attention.”

Dziurzynski has passed his fandom on to his 4-year-old son. He keeps two of every Star Wars piece he owns — one for display, one for his son (or himself) to play with. They even have a rule about when to watch “Empire,” started when Dziurzynski was in middle school.

“You can watch ‘Empire’ if there’s more than two inches of snow the first snow of the year, but you can’t watch it — from like April on you can’t watch it, but the first snow of the year, we’re only allowed to watch it during the winter,” he said. “… And it’s like, my wife knows. She’s like, ‘Ah, it snowed, but it didn’t snow two inches so he’s not gonna be watching ‘Star Wars’ today.’ So of course we had the snow, and my son and I were in here just nerding out. We’ve got the Tauntaun sleeping bag, that’s a Wampa rug. So we’ll be all decked out. My wife’s just like, (sighs).”

The new films are poised to bring yet another new generation into the world of Star Wars. Dziurzynski said he doesn’t see the fandom going away anytime soon.

“You know, it’s just a classic story,” he said. “(Lucas) did so much when he wrote those to make them last forever. It’s something you’ll always relate to. It just kind of takes you away — all the stuff going on in the world, and you can always go back into Star Wars and things are good.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com