That time I fell asleep in the theater watching ‘Empire Strikes Back’

In my defense, no one should have to start a 2+ hour movie at 1 a.m., no matter how exciting it is.

This was back in 1997, when I was probably sleep-deprived to begin with because of my starring role as a college student. My cousin, Louellen, and her friends were “Star Wars” fans. I wasn’t, really.

Sure, I watched the first “Star Wars” over and over on VHS as a kid, mainly because it came on TV once and we recorded it. And I may have even had one of the toys at one point. But it never took over any part of my life. I was more of a “Princess Bride”/Weird Al Yankovic kid.

Even so, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see “Empire Strikes Back” on the big screen when Louellen invited me to a late showing at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Except that late actually meant after midnight because the line was so long that we couldn’t get into the earlier showings. This also meant that I had to wait in line with Louellen and her friends to get the tickets and then get into the movie.

Which, for “Star Wars” fans, is no big deal. I’m told that frenzied diehards were willing to wait in line to get tickets to the new episode coming out next month, “Star Wars: A New Dawn of Hope and Empire,” or whatever it’s called.

I’ll catch it later on Netflix.

On the other hand, I know other fans who will never forgive the franchise for Jar Jar Binks, so there’s that.

But for me, waiting in line for anything for an extended period of time requires all my Jedi powers.

And when we finally got into the theater around 1 a.m. to sit down for the main event, my eyes succumbed to the Dark Side.

Yoda shakes his head. Chewbacca groans.

Now I have kids of my own, one of whom dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween without ever having seen any of the movies and without me ever even talking with him about the movies. One of these weekends, we’re going to have to watch the original for a movie night, because I don’t want to be the only dad on the block with a kid who hasn’t seen “Star Wars.”

I’ll try not to let the Dark Side take over this time.