Filmmaker Alejandro Cabrera finds that non-Texans tend to have some particular perceptions of the Lone Star State.
“We all ride horses, and everybody’s racist and conservative,” says Cabrera, adding, “There's this idea that Texas is not a place for creativity or innovation.”
Cabrera has spent the last eight years traveling all over Texas, working on his latest documentary and meeting people who disprove such negative stereotypes. He’s met people who are kind and open, creative and passionate. And they all have one thing in common: They all love Star Wars.
On Saturday, January 27, at 6 p.m., Houstonians will get a peek at an hour-and-a-half of Cabrera’s five-part documentary, In the Lone Star Wars State, when Cabrera stops by the Houston Toy Museum for an exclusive screening of the film, followed by a Q&A.
The complete documentary will be released online in 2025.
Cabrera dates his relationship with Star Wars back to the summer of 1996. He recalls Sundays as the day he and his fraternal twin sister spent the most time with their mother, a dentist busy with her practice during the week.
“Sundays were our days with her,” says Cabrera.
One such Sunday, following brunch, they stopped at a video store where she purchased a VHS box set of Star Wars.
“I remember she was playing it and she turns to me and she says, ‘Oh look, that's Luke Skywalker. He has a twin sister like you. Her name is Leia.’ And then, of course, Darth Vader comes up and she says, ‘Oh look, that’s Darth Vader – kind of like your father.’”
Low-key dig aside – “My father was nothing like Darth Vader,” Cabrera assures, “he's a wonderful person” – the experience marked his introduction to Star Wars. And with the release of the prequels while Cabrera was in elementary school, he soon found himself amidst a renaissance of the original trilogy.
Despite Star Wars being a pillar of comic book convention culture, Cabrera says he didn't understand comic cons or comic book subculture, which led him to make his first documentary, Syfytonians, about San Antonio’s Alamo City Comic Con.
“I decided to cover it because it was out of my comfort zone, and I fell in love with the whole community,” says Cabrera. “I understood the psychology of it, the importance of it, and what it meant to people.”
As fate would have it, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens was just on the horizon when Syfytonians wrapped in the summer of 2015. Cabrera recognized that the film’s release, the first Star Wars film in ten years, would mark a historical moment: the birth of a new era of Star Wars fandom.
“Every generation has a Star Wars film or a Star Wars franchise that has defined them, and that whole year revolved around the release of The Force Awakens,” says Cabrera.
During the eight years it’s taken to complete his documentary, the scope expanded, going from a “loose follow-up” to Syfytonians (focused on San Antonio and the release of The Force Awakens) to exploring why properties like Star Wars are so important, and needed, in our society.
Despite the film’s evolution, one thing remained consistent: “Even though it's obviously about Star Wars fandom in Texas, my focus was on telling a human story.”
Specifically, Cabrera was interested in dispelling the common stereotypes about Star Wars fans – that they live in their mother’s basement, have no life, and are unsuccessful.
“My goal was always finding those subjects that you would see in the street and never assume that at home they have this big collection or that they have Star Wars costumes,” says Cabrera.
“If you saw them on the street you would never assume they’re Star Wars fans,” says Cabrera. “In high school, they would have probably been the cheerleader and the football captain.”
The couple with movie-star good looks met at a convention, and you can find them today still attending comic cons with a gender-swapped flair: Tanner dresses as Princess Leia and Melissa dresses up as Han Solo.
“He's military. He looks very masculine, and yet, he's going out there with his muscular body dressing up as Princess Leia and she's his Han Solo,” says Cabrera, adding that with the issues currently facing the LGBTQ+ community and the wave of drag bans in 2023, the Kings’ cosplay speaks to the fact that you can have fun in this world. “I thought it was very refreshing seeing someone like that being able to poke fun at themself and have a good time.”
There’s also Chris Kelley, who had to make the 30-minute move from Austin to Dripping Springs because his Star Wars collection grew too big to fit in his two-story suburban home.
“He's what we call a Star Wars hoarder, and even in his country home, everywhere you walk there are toys… Every Star Wars line that ever came out, he has it in his home,” says Cabrera. “It was like my fantasy as a '90s kid because I always fantasized about having a sleepover at Toys R Us.”
Cabrera says that when he showed clips of Kelley’s toy collection to people, they tended to ask if he was married. The answer is yes; Kelley’s been married to his wife since 1995 and they have five children.
Cabrera also meets Lance Hathaway, who’s built a from-scratch, Star Wars-inspired home theater and arcade in Orange, Texas. (It’s actually been rebuilt since Hathaway started the project in 2017, as his house flooded twice once during Hurricane Harvey.) And teacher Heather Trupia, who works at a Title I school outside of Austin and has brought her love of Star Wars into the classroom.
“A Title I school is basically a low-socioeconomic school,” explains Cabrera, noting the challenges facing children in a post-pandemic world where education budgets are often cut. “To have a teacher like Heather who started using Star Wars as a way to promote literacy, as a way to promote education, as a way to connect with her students – that was something that was very powerful.”
On a more emotional note, Cabrera also speaks with Ashley Fleetwood. In 2015, her late husband, Daniel Fleetwood, was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma. After doctors told him he wouldn’t make it to The Force Awakens’ December release date, Ashley initiated an online campaign (#ForceForDaniel) to fulfill Daniel’s last wish of seeing the film.
The inspirational campaign went viral, and the film’s director, J.J. Abrams, visited the couple’s Spring, Texas, home with a four-hour cut of the film. Less than a week later, Daniel passed away.
In the documentary, we see Ashley at the time, and Cabrera speaks with her several years later. Ashley, who now goes by the last name Stanley, went on to remarry and have two children.
“We talk about grief, and when's the right time to move on and how do you move on…How do you mourn now that you're a public person,” says Cabrera. “How do you deal with being reminded? Every day you're trying to mourn, you're trying to move on and Star Wars is everywhere you go.”
Stanley’s journey – particularly in light of how many people have been touched by loss over the last few years – highlights something that Cabrera says he loves so much about documentary filmmaking: The fact that it's real people with real stories.
“Seeing someone real go through something – if you're going through that and you see them going through that, you see how they get through it,” says Cabrera. “I think oftentimes that can serve as a blueprint, or it can inspire you to move forward or move on. It's almost like a DIY video on YouTube. It takes you through the steps and then you make it your own.”
Cabrera says that though some people dismiss Star Wars films as camp, nerdy and without value, the reality is that they offer a lot of value, particularly in their broad appeal.
“The most powerful part of this journey was finding out that this thing unites people from all walks of life,” says Cabrera. “Regardless of what I believed, what you believed, what generation you were, Star Wars was the unifying factor.”
In the Lone Star Wars State is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday, January 27, at the Houston Toy Museum, 321 West 19th (Suite C). For more information, call 281-305-8828 or visit houstontoymuseum.com. $16.
