We feel like we should be broadcasting this news via a crawl of yellow letters on a starry background, slowly vanishing into the distance. That’s because San Francisco could be the new home of a Star Wars museum, if fundraising works right and there are no disturbances in the Force. San Francisco, you’re our only hope.
The potential museum would merge four big collections of Star Wars memorabilia, including Steve Sansweet’s Rancho Obi-Wan Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia in Petaluma, the largest such collection on the planet as certified by the Guinness World Book of Records.
The other three collections are Gus Lopez’s Bobacabana (Lopez is an author of several Star Wars books and the collection includes original art, toys, awards and screen-used movie memorabilia), Duncan Jenkins’s adorably named Sithsonian (Jenkins is also an author of books on Star Wars collectibles; this trove focuses on international and unique memorabilia) and Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz’s Imperial Archives (modern toys and high-end limited edition collectibles from Stevens, who was one-time president of the Star Wars Fan Club and the Star Wars brand manager at Wizards of the Coast, and Wertz, former associate editor of Star Wars Insider).
Altogether, these four collections would fold more than 1.5 million objects into one public nonprofit museum, which would be called the Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia. The four standalone collections will continue to operate until a site for the new museum is decided. That’s where San Francisco comes in as a logical contender for the space—after all, the Lucasfilm headquarters are in the Presidio (where Lucas himself had proposed his now-bound-for-L.A. art museum), and Skywalker Ranch is just north of the city in Marin. BART’s Transbay Tube and the Caldecott Tunnel across the bay were both filming sites for Lucas’s Star Wars precursor THX 1138, among several Star Wars sets in the Bay Area, as well. The Saga Museum organizers are looking at cities around the country, but a representative tells Time Out that they’ve already received interest from several sites in San Francisco.
The galaxy is willing, and we have a model of the Death Star and Princess Leia’s actual metal bikini, what more do we need? Credits, of course. So the Saga Museum has started a $2 million campaign to fund the two-year planning phase, which is how the museum’s city will be decided upon. Curated collections will tour the U.S. via pop-up exhibitions to get energy moving. An architectural firm will be hired to make renderings and a capital campaign will then launch to fund construction. You can pledge your financial support here or purchase swag like a T-shirt and poster for the Saga.
Plans for the Saga are ambitious: a 200,000-square-foot space, a store, event and conference spaces, restaurant, research center, rotating exhibits as well as the permanent collections, a 300-seat theater and an educational academy. It will also take advantage of good weather (fingers crossed, San Francisco) to include outdoor and rooftop gathering spaces. As Yoda might say about it, “Fun it is to plan a museum.”