Truant The Rest Of Vancouver Was

The Force was not strong at eight sharp on Sunday night. The Vancouver Art Gallery square, on Georgia Street, should have been the setting for ten minutes of utter zaniness, with a flashmob of Star Wars fanatics gracefully slashing away at each other with fake lightsabers. Regrettably, the flashmob event, organized by Aaron Morris (photographed in grey), brought out only five lightsaber wielding participants, which included himself.

The small scene did get some glances from onlookers but it didn't provide much for elegantly choreographed lightsaber-to-lightsaber battle sequences. However, the evening did provide an answer on the reason behind the faux clash. "I want to do a Guiness Book of World Record's biggest lightsaber battle," explained Morris, a pious 34-year-old fan and Vancouverite. His replica Darth Maul lightsaber oozed the smell of collector.

After all the artificial lightsabers were extinguished, no blood was lost and all warriors politely shook hands after the battle royal was complete. "I hope to do another one," Morris assured me. Hopefully next time, the flashmob event will get Morris and a horde of wanna-be Jedi Knights into Guinness or at least into a good donnybrook, like in Toronto. The conflict of light clocked in at around two minutes and a half, and a thank-you goes out to the 2010 Olympic countdown clock for helping keep track of time.

Post guest written by Kris Perta. Photographs by Duran Cheung.