Alonso Vilches has been a Star Wars fan and collector in Mexico since 1978, when he first saw Star Wars during one of its premiere engagements in Mexico City that year. His collecting began with the large Lili Ledy R2-D2 figure that was exclusive to Mexico, having added several more figures from this elusive set in the years since.
Alonso's healthy passion for all things Star Wars followed him into the mid-'90s when he founded the first Star Wars Fan Club in Mexico City, beginning a long relationship with Lucasfilm, Star Wars licensees in Mexico, and fans across the country. He has since been involved with organizing many of the Mexican Star Wars fan conventions and events since the late '90s, participating as a speaker at many of them.
These days, between his full-time job as a PhD biologist researching diabetes at the National University of Mexico and curating his personal collection of Star Wars memorabilia, Alonso has drafted a book proposal about the history of Star Wars in Mexico as explained through its merchandising and fandom -- a book he hopes to have published one day soon.
I asked Alonso a few questions about the history of Star Wars in Mexico, his collection, and what he hopes to accomplish with his book, tentatively titled "La Guerra de las Galaxias Coleccionables Mexicanos: La Historia de Star Wars en México":
What are your earliest memories of the first time you saw Star Wars in Mexico?
I was too young to read the first subtitled version, so my parents helped me understand what I immediately saw as a space fairy tale from the moment they read out the memorable "A long time ago". I was impacted with the first scene -- I'd never seen a starship so huge. I really believed that Artoo and Threepio were real droids, and Darth Vader became the ultimate villain of my childhood. As any other kid, I played a lot with the first plastic lightsaber, in the role of Luke Skywalker, along with the original soundtrack vinyl record.
Can you share some highlights of the first years Star Wars was shown in Mexico, and the impact it had on your country?
La Guerra de las Galaxias was a very strong name for a movie, but marketing started very weak. The movie was released in Mexico almost seven months after the US, on December 23, 1977, just before Christmas. T-shirts, trading cards, Coca-Cola caps and toys from Lili Ledy appeared in late March the following year, around the same time Star Wars was nominated in the Academy Awards. After this, Mexican movie theaters played the movie until June of 1978.
It's worth mentioning that even though the first movie's release was somewhat obscured by the news of Charles Chaplin's death, the public responded very positively to the announcement of the movie considered in the US as the most successful in 1977. Tickets were sold out during the first week in all theaters and, after a few weeks, everyone had adopted the characters. Cowboys and Indians were replaced by stormtroopers and Jedi Knights. Taking advantage of theater's one-price-for-all-day scheme, many people stayed after the movie to watch it several times in a day.
What would you say makes Mexican Star Wars collecting so interesting/challenging?
Many aspects are involved in collecting Mexican Star Wars items. In those years there was no collecting culture in Mexico, and nobody could yet imagine that Star Wars would become such a world-wide phenomenon. Many products were produced in very limited quantities, and only a few articles have survived in good condition. On the other hand, many collectors know little about the Star Wars collectibles produced in Mexico, even Mexican fans!
Perusing the rough draft of your book proposal, it appears you've been able to locate a lot of the Mexican history of Star Wars from newspapers, catalogs, etc. How have you gone about collecting these items?
The idea for the book of Mexican Star Wars collectibles started from a conference that I have given in many conventions in Mexico since 2006. I know the history of Star Wars in Mexico because I lived it as fan and a collector since 1978, but I realized that I had missed a lot of information. Thanks to other collectors, library research, and interviews with early licensees, I have solved many mysteries and discovered some interesting stories. It has been a hard challenge, but I've had a lot of fun.
I imagine collecting some of the early Mexican Star Wars materials must be extremely difficult -- at least it has been that way in my experience. Why do you think Mexican Star Wars collectibles and information has been so hard to come by?
There are three main reasons. First, in those early years, nobody in Mexico expected that Star Wars products would become collectibles, so after each movie, almost all the material was destroyed. Second, Twentieth Century Fox represented Lucasfilm in Mexico but they do not have complete information about their official merchandise. Third, in the mid-'80s, many companies had to shut down due to the economical crisis in Mexico. Also, many records and data were lost with the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City.
Was the amount of merchandise produced for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi equal to or greater than that produced for the first movie?
For Empire, different products were made, but in the same amount as that for Star Wars. For Jedi, Lucasfilm and Fox authorized many more products, but the main merchandising was driven by the growing toy line of Lili Ledy, Kenner's representative in Mexico.
What is your collecting focus? Have you continued to collect items in Mexico from the prequels?
I like to collect a large variety of Star Wars items, but my favorite ones are action figures, posters and food promotionals. I'm currently very interested in official Mexican collectibles, vintage and modern. I've never stopped collecting, and since the Special Editions, I've acquired many exclusive items that have been produced for Mexico only.
What's your favorite piece in your collection, and what are you still hoping to find?
The Style "C" movie poster of La Guerra de las Galaxias (right). It was the only Star Wars collectible that I saw just before and after the first movie, and I looked for it for many years. Some years ago, my fiancée Isela gave it to me as a gift before we married. There are many items that I'm looking for to complete many areas of my collection, but the most difficult is the Style "B" movie poster for The Empire Strikes Back. Twentieth Century Fox had used the Tom Jung Empire artwork for lobby cards and newspaper ads with the slogan "La Epopeya de la Guerra de las Galaxias Continua" in Mexico, but I have only seen this slogan used on posters in Spain and Argentina -- I'm still hoping to find a Mexican one.
Mexican Star Wars collectibles represent a vast unknown to many collectors abroad. What do you wish to accomplish with the book you're hoping to publish?
When Steve Sansweet published the first edition of Tomart's Star Wars Price Guide book in 1994, I contacted him because I realized that many Mexican collectibles were missing. Even in the new Gus and Duncan's Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles, there are some items not mentioned yet. I'm not pretending to publish the most complete guide ever, but rather the history of Star Wars in Mexico through its collectibles and fandom.
For more Cinco de Mayo-related coverage, see this story here.
