American Jedi

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(skateboard scraping)

(gentle ambient music)

- [Interviewer] Could you

ever be a Jedi, do you think?

- I mean, I know what it is,

Star Wars, the idea of it,

but what is it practically?

What do you actually do?

- I feel that it is

a good belief system,

but I do not personally believe

that it could be a religion.

- Jedi is anti-Christ.

- Like, it's not just a

fandom, it's this unique,

amazing pop culture thing that

has been going since 1977.

- Is it silly?

We're in the middle of Comic-Con

with more people dressed up

in Star Wars outfits than

I've ever seen in my life.

- Most of us have tried the

Jedi mind trick at least once.

- If Jediism became a lot like

Catholicism, Christianity,

or anything else, I think

I'd be a little worried.

- I think the whole idea

of a Jedi as religion

is rather weird.

- Jedi as a religion,

I think is great.

If people wanna believe

in that, go ahead.

- I can see where

people get into it

as a much deeper sense of being.

- Are you worshiping someone?

Are you following a Jedi master?

How do you become a Jedi master?

Is there a Yoda level person?

- There ain't no Darth

Vader in the Bible.

- I think people turn away

from organized religion

because it's too structured.

- With Star Wars, you

have people that have

watched the movie 50, 60 times.

They haven't read the Bible

twice and yet they'll tell me

I'm fanatical because

I believe my Bible.

I say they're the real fanatics.

- I think that

Jediism as a world

religion would be awesome.

- It could happen, I can

see people becoming Jedis.

I mean, look at

Harry Potter, and

people play Quidditch all the

time like it's a real sport.

- Hey, it's for them,

good cause to pursue.

- Questions, I have

so many questions.

Maybe I might be a follower.

- I don't think any reasonable

human being could be a Jedi.

- I would love to be a Jedi.

(dramatic ambient music)

- [Narrator] A 2001

census recognized Jediism

as an official religion.

620 Serbs identify as Jedi.

15,000 people from

the Czech Republic,

21,000 Canadians,

70,000 Australians.

In the United Kingdom

over 400,000 people

declare themselves Jedi,

making it the fourth largest

religion in the country.

No such census has

been taken in America,

but Jediism continues to grow.

- When people come to

the Jedi community,

it's not about who they

are when they join us.

It's about who

they aspire to be.

- And we're gonna

ask some very deep,

probing, internal questions.

And we wanna see

what's their reaction.

- What do you have to give and

what do you have to give up?

- [Narrator] This is

the story of three Jedi

on their path to knighthood.

- I'm Opie Macleod

and I'm a Jedi.

The dishes are still

in the sink, huh?

Big surprise, good job.

Way to stay on top of it, Jedi.

That's a pretty good

impression of my mom, too,

just so you know.

- [Opie's Mom] Opie is my son.

His real name is

Kevin, I call him Kev,

but to everybody else he's

Opie, always has been.

As a matter of fact,

he used to ask me

to go pay to change his

name to Kevin Macleod.

At church, he asked the

minister, when he got up there,

"Don't call me by my name."

So when Larry read off his

name, Kevin Trout, he's...

"I told you not

to call me that!"

But he got teased so

much about the Trout

that he wanted to change

his name to Macleod,

because he liked the Highlander.

But now he's just Opie Macleod.

- You know, a Jedi

eats with dishes,

they gotta clean the dishes.

Yeah, Luke Skywalker, I guess,

had C-3PO to handle his dishes.

I don't have C-3PO.

Han Solo was always cool

but I just wanted to be

in that swamp with Yoda.

That was awesome.

I love the teaching.

I love...

I loved how Yoda's introduced

as a crazy old hermit,

and I love the idea of that

someone can be so

confident in themselves,

so assured of their

abilities and their knowledge

that they can act the

complete fool and not care.

That grabbed me when I was

a kid and it's always stuck.

- [Opie's Mother] He used to

get in trouble quite often

because he would always

go and help other kids,

even if a kid was

on the bad side.

He thought by befriending him,

he could turn his life

into the good side.

Except for a time

when he was trying to

change the wrong people and

those people changed him.

(somber ambient music)

- I was thinking

about getting a tattoo

to signify the first

stages, because it...

One, it was signifying kinda

how all Jedi start out,

with that fictional idea,

that fictional inspiration,

the idea that you wanna

be wielding the lightsaber

and you wanna be moving

things with your mind,

you wanna be battling the

dark forces of the galaxy

and saving the day.

(tattoo needle buzzing)

- [Opie's Mother]

What's that say, Jedi?

- Jedi Knight.

- Jedi Knight?

- [Opie] Yes, Knight.

It goes all the way around.

- [Interviewer] What do

you think of the tattoo?

- I'm not much on tattoos.

(laughs)

Firstly, I hate needles.

He basically

dropped out of church,

'cause he used to go

to church every Sunday.

- It did become kind of

that negative view of God.

God, I believe in God.

I don't like him.

- [Interviewer] What's your

main reason for hating God?

- Seeing friends get hurt,

seeing innocent people get hurt,

innocent animals,

for no reason, like,

it didn't make sense

to me why a good person

or someone who's doing

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