Star Wars toys defined my childhood. They were almost more important to me than the movies themselves, and it's only right - to me - that Lucasfilm is sticking to a Christmas release schedule for the new films. You see, Christmas was the only time I'd be guaranteed fresh toys and figures to play with.
Rogue One is out today, and it's as good a time as any to get some stuff off my chest. I've been bottling this up for decades, and I need to let it go. And it is this: some of the Star Wars figures were really bad.
And these are the worst of the worst: figures so wretched that I couldn't even suspend my disbelief to play with them.
Rogue One is out today, and it's as good a time as any to get some stuff off my chest. I've been bottling this up for decades, and I need to let it go. And it is this: some of the Star Wars figures were really bad.
And these are the worst of the worst: figures so wretched that I couldn't even suspend my disbelief to play with them.
HAN SOLO IN CARBONITE
Prior to this grotesque being released, I had sold all my Star Wars toys to a boy who probably never appreciated them as much as I did. Frankly, I doubt he was capable of cherishing them on anything like the deep and profound level that I could. I bet he didn't even know all the characters' names, or motivations, or even what species Greedo was (er... hello? He's a Rodian...).
Certainly, by the time I bought them all back off him, a decade later - in my early-20s, when he'd grown out of them - most of them were damaged due to his gross mistreatment, and many of the guns were missing. What a terrible, terrible boy. A horrible little monster.
Nevertheless, I was happy to have turned my back on playing with toys, if the above is the sort of rubbish Kenner was prepared to put out in the years following Return of the Jedi. There had been a perfectly good Han in Carbonite bundled with Boba Fett's Slave-1 ship circa The Empire Strikes Back, but this version allowed you to put a figure of Han into a plastic Carbonite block.
Also: as you can see... it recreates the scene from the movies where he tries to swallow a bucket of sand to impress Chewbacca, and the bucket gets stuck in his throat.
Certainly, by the time I bought them all back off him, a decade later - in my early-20s, when he'd grown out of them - most of them were damaged due to his gross mistreatment, and many of the guns were missing. What a terrible, terrible boy. A horrible little monster.
Nevertheless, I was happy to have turned my back on playing with toys, if the above is the sort of rubbish Kenner was prepared to put out in the years following Return of the Jedi. There had been a perfectly good Han in Carbonite bundled with Boba Fett's Slave-1 ship circa The Empire Strikes Back, but this version allowed you to put a figure of Han into a plastic Carbonite block.
Also: as you can see... it recreates the scene from the movies where he tries to swallow a bucket of sand to impress Chewbacca, and the bucket gets stuck in his throat.
LUKE SKYWALKER
When Hasbro resurrected Star Wars action figures in the mid-90s, they erroneously thought they should try and compete with the then-trend of making action figures all muscular and that. Hence; the first run of figures put the core Star Wars characters through a sort of Masters of the Universe filter - all steroidal physiques and tight clothing.
Did they know nothing about Star Wars fans? It had been over a decade since a new Star Wars movie, so the only people remotely interested in their toys were grown men who would always be profoundly bothered by the inaccuracy of depicting Luke Skywalker with a distressingly sculpted chest. Also: a pig's face.
It's just as well they gravitated to more movie-accurate designs before they started making toys of the tertiary characters. Nobody needs to see Aunt Beru's rippling abs.
Did they know nothing about Star Wars fans? It had been over a decade since a new Star Wars movie, so the only people remotely interested in their toys were grown men who would always be profoundly bothered by the inaccuracy of depicting Luke Skywalker with a distressingly sculpted chest. Also: a pig's face.
It's just as well they gravitated to more movie-accurate designs before they started making toys of the tertiary characters. Nobody needs to see Aunt Beru's rippling abs.
PRINCESS LEIA
From the same mid-90s run of toys as Beefy Luke, evidently nobody in Hasbro's design team had ever seen a photograph of a young Princess Leia. Presumably, the only reference they had to hand was a picture of a monkey wrapped in a shroud.
Look at those hands: perfect for grasping space bananas. Which, if her latest memoir is anything to go by, Carrie Fisher spent a good deal of her time doing while filming Star Wars.
Look at those hands: perfect for grasping space bananas. Which, if her latest memoir is anything to go by, Carrie Fisher spent a good deal of her time doing while filming Star Wars.
R2-D2
This figure always bothered me - and I'm not talking about the lack of a third leg. What was the deal with R2-D2's face? It looked nothing like his face in the films, and yet Kenner stuck with that design throughout the original run of Star Wars toys.
They released slightly updated versions - such as one with a pop-up "sensorscope" - but stuck with that weird metallic blue disc and those other two bobbly bits. They could've at least made it square. God, it feels good to be unloading this. It has been stewing inside me for almost 40 years.
They released slightly updated versions - such as one with a pop-up "sensorscope" - but stuck with that weird metallic blue disc and those other two bobbly bits. They could've at least made it square. God, it feels good to be unloading this. It has been stewing inside me for almost 40 years.
WALRUS MAN
Face-wise, this wasn't a bad recreation of the Tatooine cantina patron later known as Ponda Baba - he is after all just a melon with a baby's arse sticking out of it. But what the hell did Kenner dress him in? Some weird scuba driver gear, and an orange unitard? There's only one orange unitard round here... and it's whichever idiot designed this action figure.
POWER DROID
Otherwise known as the "Gonk droid" for the noise it makes, this looks nothing like the on-screen version. Not only that, but I was convinced that mine was broken. The legs sort of clicked when you moved them back and forth, and I had the utter convinction that there was meant to be something more to it.
I showed the toy to my grandad, who inspected it and concluded that - yes - the legs were indeed meant to move by themselves, in a sort of walking action. Something must've snapped off. I only realised as an adult that we were both wrong.
This belief, as wrong-headed as it turned out to be, nevertheless ruined this toy for me. I mean... utterly ruined. I rarely even got it out of the box.
I showed the toy to my grandad, who inspected it and concluded that - yes - the legs were indeed meant to move by themselves, in a sort of walking action. Something must've snapped off. I only realised as an adult that we were both wrong.
This belief, as wrong-headed as it turned out to be, nevertheless ruined this toy for me. I mean... utterly ruined. I rarely even got it out of the box.
LUKE SKYWALKER (BESPIN FATIGUES)
Costume-wise this wasn't bad, and at least Kenner had stopped the practice of giving force-wielding characters a telescoping lightsabre, which couldn't be removed. But what was going on with the hair there? Why is it the same colour as his lightsabre - neither of which are bright yellow in the films?!
Also, for some reason this version of Luke had a face which always remineded me of Playmobil figures. You know: toys for stupid little babies.
Also, for some reason this version of Luke had a face which always remineded me of Playmobil figures. You know: toys for stupid little babies.
BEN (OBI-WAN) KENOBI
A reasonable face likeness, though everything is sort of wrong about the costume. Ben Kenobi had a cream coloured smock, and he certainly didn't wear a pair of flares, even if this was the 70s. And his lightsabre hilt wasn't brown. Also: he died two thirds of the way through Star Wars, which meant that including him in the further adventures of the characters would've deviated from the on-screen canon, which I wasn't prepared to do.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER
This is more what Ben Kenobi's costume was meant to look like, but - c'mon... really? What are you meant to do with this? He appears on screen for about five seconds in this outfit, and he's a ghost. Also, aren't his arms a little short for a human being?
JAWA
Here's my number one issue with 3.75" action figures: when they dress them in fabric clothing. It never hangs right on the characters, and it's usually a completely different material to the rest of the figure. And usually other characters in the range have clothing that is made from moulded plastic.
Admittedly, the Jawa's original vinyl plastic cape was less accurate to the actual costume, and in Kenner's mind such a diminutive figure could be seen as less value than the rest of the range (which is why they released an updated version with the cloth cape), but at least it was consistent with the materials used on the rest of the toy. For pity's sake. What were they thinking?!
Admittedly, the Jawa's original vinyl plastic cape was less accurate to the actual costume, and in Kenner's mind such a diminutive figure could be seen as less value than the rest of the range (which is why they released an updated version with the cloth cape), but at least it was consistent with the materials used on the rest of the toy. For pity's sake. What were they thinking?!
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