It's summer 1981, and Ernest Terry - like most boys his age - is obsessing over George Lucas's Star Wars saga. In the woods outside Ernest's neighborhood, capture-the-flag contests escalate into sprawling Jedi battles, with bright yellow Wiffle ball bats substituting for lightsabers. But when a bully snaps Ernest's already-damaged "weapon" in half, our hero and his friends accept a mission: Follow a nearby stream to the town mall, buy a new bat and return home before their parents realize they're missing. Awkward pre-teen characters wrestle with small crushes, big imaginations and equivalent coming-of-age obstacles on a lazy summer afternoon.