Could this be New Zealand's biggest Star Wars fan?

In a shed far far away, a collection of Star Wars memorabilia is waiting — waiting for visitors.

The shed is in rural Te Puke and the collection — over 6000 items — belongs to Jason Greene who traces his love of Star Wars right back to the release of the original movie in 1977.

"As a seven-year-old, I saw the movie and my parents bought me the action figures. I had a mate who was into them and we just spent weekends together and makeup all our space battles. I had most of the figures by the time the [original trilogy] was over."

He's almost certain his first character was Luke Skywalker because "you've always got to have the hero".

The Return of the Jedi was released in 1983 and then there were Ewok and Droid cartoon series that both had related toy characters.

"Then they brought out the special editions in 1995 and they put out all the figures again and I just got back into it."

Since then the interest surrounding Star Wars — and cynics might say shameless marketing — has spawned hundreds of collections — some featuring less obvious links.

There is, for example, a series featuring Donald Duck as a Stormtrooper and a Princess Leia Minnie Mouse and an M and M collection.

"It's amazing what you get — it even got into Hotwheels which was something new since Disney got into it — they took the figures and turned them into cars."

Jason has been known to say he has enough but is still buying.

"I don't buy at retail prices, but when they are on special I go, 'Okay I'm going to get that set'."

"But what I am more trying to do is fill in the gaps in the sets that I haven't finished. It means you don't have to spend as much on it, but you are still dealing with Star Wars, still talking to people about it."

He says most of the figures he needs will come from Australia or, more likely, the US.

"I don't struggle to get hold of anything — I struggle to be able to afford it."

One of the all-time must-haves is, in all probability, out of reach.

"The classic figure is the prototype Boba Fett with a rocket firing out of his back. They only made about 1000 of them. They weren't released to the public because they saw it as a safety risk back in 1977, and they go for US$45,000. To have one of those in my collection would be really awesome but the practical side of it is I'm never going to own one."

Nevertheless, the collection is worth a fair amount.

"I think my collection is unique in that you can see the original figures form 1977, you can see the same figure when they redesigned it in 1995 and so on and so on — there might be 10 of the same figure."

"And it's hands-on — you can pick them up and look at them, other than the vintage figures because I don't want the weapons lost.

"I've been told by someone in the pop culture industry that it's probably one of the 10 biggest collections in the Southern Hemisphere. And when I give up farming and want to move onto town it will probably be sold and will go a fair way to buying me a house."
Jason's favourite figures are his ArtFX models of Mara Jade and Jaina Solo.

"They are from the expanded universe and when JJ Abrams and Disney decided to remake the Star Wars movies they said this expanded universe does not exist any more."

He says that killed off Star Wars for a time, but with Disney getting on board, the franchise has been revived.

"Disney make good movies. People rubbish them, but it's Star Wars — it's good.
He has seen the latest — Solo: A Star Wars Story — and says it was awesome.

"Mind you, I think they could make a crap Star Wars movie and I'd enjoy it because I'm a true diehard fan."