Man, I need to get myself into a Star Wars flick someday.
That way, even if I show up for about ten frames of film, I’m almost guaranteed to have an action figure. Need proof? Check out one of the most recent Star Wars Episode I Cinema Scene box sets, “Watto’s Box.” Specifically, Watto’s Box refers to his box seat at the Boonta Eve pod race, which he shared with some really odd company.
In 1994, it was clear that Star Trek: The Next Generation was on its way to syndication heaven, as the series was due to be retired and promoted to movie duty. Playmates had diversified its line of Star Trek figures in anticipation of this, branching out to create ranges of Deep Space Nine and Classic Trek figures. But Playmates wasn’t about to quit trying to cash in on Next Generation’s success just yet.
In late 2001, after years of it being a budget video title with a strong cult following, Tron was suddenly embraced by Disney as if it were the next big thing; a new special edition DVD was prepared, a long-overdue soundtrack CD was released, and quietly, behind the scenes, Japanese toy manufacturer Neca picked up the license to reproduce the cool toys that were originally produced by Tomy in 1982.
I’ve been going out of my way to not go out of my way to learn too much about Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. I have seen the trailers, but I’ve been staying right away from the spoiler-heavy fan sites. This time, I want to find out in the theater.
Once again, however, I have succumbed to the urge to buy Hasbro’s “sneak preview” figures. Whereas last time we got Mace Windu in the mail with an appropriate number of proofs of purchase and receipts, this time we get four new characters slyly released on the current “Power Of The Jedi” packaging (though those actual words are conspicuous by their absence) in retail stores everywhere.
By the way, if you’re trying not to be spoiled about anything, best to hit the back button now.
It was 1999 before the third wave of Exclusive Premiere’s Babylon 5 collection hit the shelves, and by that time, it was also obvious that this toy line was in trouble. With more than enough first and second wave figures still taking up shelf space, Toys R Us stores declined to carry the third wave, which now became a Diamond Comics exclusive. Diamond Comics carriers had been the only place to find the earlier waves’ variant figures; now they were the only place to find any of the new figures at all.
Ahhhh, the Power of the Jedi. As awkward and out-of-place as was the name of Hasbro’s oft-maligned range of Star Wars figures with no specific movie in mind, I think it’s sometimes shortchanged by the fans and collectors who are overlooking the unique and eagerly-awaited characters it brought to our toy shelves.
The first wave of action figures from Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones is so big, it really needs to be broken up into different groups – and the biggest group represented in the first 27 figures happens to be the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, the Jedi Knights. As you may or may not have seen or heard by now, Episode II features a Jedi gathering that takes place in a much more hostile environment than that of the council chambers on Coruscant, and this first wave includes plenty of figures designed expressly to recreate that scene.
Following much later in 1999 than Exclusive Premiere’s third series of Babylon 5 action figures, the fourth wave was no longer standard toy store fare, or even standard comics chain fare. The fourth wave was into serious collectors’ territory – distributed primarily in England.
Reflecting the recent fifth season, the fourth wave puts Captain Lochley in plastic, as well as year five frequent flier Bester (though it’s not as good a likeness of Walter Koenig as, say, the Chekov figure from the Playmates Classic Star Trek collector’s set) and the previously unnamed Drazi and Gaim ambassadors.
Following the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s sensationally successful final year on the air, Playmates began making plans to draw that toy line to a close, after which a new “generic” range of Star Trek toys would include characters from Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and even the movies.
The fifth wave was a very minor supplement to the fourth wave, adding the long-awaited Tasha Yar figure (as she appeared in her first season uniform; an incredibly rare Yesterday’s Enterprise uniform variation was released a year or so later), and the only toy ever created of the late Mark Lenard’s trademark Vulcan character Sarek.
19 years ago, a video game arrived in the arcades which was supposed to rewrite the history books for video gaming. And in some unexpected ways, Dragon’s Lair did just that. But at the time, all we knew was that it was an insanely cool game using a laserdisc to run specific sequences of gorgeous Don Bluth (The Secret Of NIMH, Xanadu) animation. Which sequences it ran depended on your actions – more often than not it turned out to be the death of your alter-ego, dim-witted knight Dirk The Daring.
The most difficult Babylon 5 figure to locate – and the most expensive to find in the current collectors’ market – the Shadow Sentient is a strikingly intricate representation of Babylon 5’s ancient evil. It’s also possibly the best shot anyone has of figuring out the creatures’ shape, which was always kept rather indistinct on screen.
Technically, the Shadow Sentient figure belongs to the third wave of Babylon 5 figures, but it was seldom if ever distributed on its own; the Shadow Sentient was an exclusive pack-in figure with the first release run of the Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game. Still on its card, the Shadow Sentient commonly fetches prices of $100 or more. (I specifically sought a loose figure just because I wanted to be able to examine it outside of its blister bubble without devaluing it – and because it’d be cheaper, though I discovered not by much.)
Anyone who’s read Toybox for any significant amount of time knows that I’ve got a thing for droids. Be they R2 units or Daleks, there’s something fascinating about little plastic robot replicas. And this wave of Star Wars Episode II figures certainly fits my droid collecting bill.
Of course, you can’t kick off a new range of toys for a new Star Wars movie without R2-D2 and C-3PO, and this line of figures is no exception.
One of the most consistent Walt Disney World attractions since the late 1980s, Star Tours is a motion simulator ride based on the Star Wars universe. Set in a strangely cheerful (and decidedly unofficial) storyline parallel to Return Of The Jedi, Star Tours takes a “spaceship” full of passengers on a sightseeing tour of the third moon of Endor – or at least that’s the idea. There’s just one problem – the droids driving that ship aren’t quite the professional pilots you’d like if you happened to be a paying passenger on that ship, and when you add to that the fact that the Empire seems to have built a second Death Star at Endor and is now engaged in a decisive battle with the Rebel Alliance in the space above the moon, well, naturally mayhem ensues.
An amazing blast of Tron nostalgia from Japan, these “Kubrick” playsets – a popular variety of novelty toys that resemble nothing so much as Lego men on steroids – offer the first miniature models of any Tron vehicles other than the light cycles. And that said, the light cycles kick butt too.
Each playset comes in a massive box adorned with authentic Tron artwork (right down to attributing the figures to being actual ENCOM products), and a fold-up lid held in place by velcro. When opened, the lid offers a window view of the items in that individual set.
In previous ToyBox columns, I have complained long and hard about how Playmates failed to produce action figures of some of the more popular latter-day Star Trek characters. This is very, very true. However, it was brought to my attention that I was wrong on one count – and it was also brought to my attention that Playmates isn’t the only source of the occasional new Trek character in plastic.
The first wave of toys to hit the store shelves after the release of The Empire Strikes Back, the second wave of Empire toys was able to reveal the vitally important character of Yoda (which was also the smallest of the original Kenner Star Wars figures, smaller than even R2-D2, Wicket, or the Jawas). Technically, Yoda was released in the first wave of figures, but was not promoted heavily to preserve the surprise of the character’s nature in the film.
Anticipation mounted over the first four months of 1983 as what was supposedly the final sequel to Star Wars was being completed. Even without the Internet, rumors abounded: Jabba the Hutt would be seen at last, Luke and Darth Vader would engage in one final battle (and Yoda and Obi-Wan might help), and there would be a second Death Star.
The movie was, of course, Revenge Of The Jedi.
The second wave of figures from the last new Star Wars film for nearly two decades was thick with Ewoks. Little furry dudes were crawlin’ all over this line of figures. But if, like me (and remember, I also think Jar Jar is pretty cool), you were enthralled by those tree-dwelling, AT-ST-toppling teddy bears from Endor, that meant this was the coolest wave of Star Wars figures ever.
Judging from the product shots, it looks like the most recent Star Wars Jedi Council three-packs contain repackaged figures. It’s a pity (but, in the current economy, probably a cost-cutting, inventory-clearing necessity), because the first two three-packs in this line were so refreshingly new.
Not really sticking to any one time frame, these Hasbro three-packs consist of two seats (with two seated characters and a third standing) from the movies’ Jedi Council scenes, dividing the circular Council room contingent into pie slices. One could, in theory, collect ’em all and wind up with the whole circle. (I’m sure that’s what Hasbro would like collectors to do, at any rate.)
I’ll admit it. The Black Hole is less of a guilty cinematic pleasure for me, and probably more along the lines of a harmless obsession. When I saw this then-shocking PG-rated Disney movie at the age of seven, the thought of Maximillian drilling folks to death terrified me – this wasn’t make-believe stuff here like Star Wars, because my dad had a drill in his workshop! But I also knew that, if it came to that big red behemoth chasing me, VINCENT and Old BOB wouldn’t let me down. They’d have me covered. They’d know what to do. Because they were the two coolest movie robots to come down the pike since R2-D2. I later outgrew my abject fears about the movie’s most violent scene, but found that my affinity for its two robotic heroes never quite waned. Most accounts of the making of the movie have pinpointed these two hovering robots as the source of countless production difficulties, since the props were heavy enough to require piano wire to suspend them, and the piano wire then had to be optically hidden in as many shots as possible – back in the day when you couldn’t just “run it through the computer” to accomplish that. Ever notice how many opportunities the director took to get close enough that you couldn’t really see the robots floating in mid-air?
The first item released in Character Option’s lineup of Doctor Who action figures during the show’s first season back on the air in 2005, the RC Dalek Battle Pack consisted of two Daleks, their respective color-coded radio controllers, and an action figure of either the ninth Doctor or Rose. (Though almost identical to the individually-released figures – the Doctor sports a burgundy-colored sweater, and both figures have a slightly less detailed paint job – these figures beat the individual carded figures to the stores by several months.) The Daleks are the real stars of this box set, and as much as I loved Dapol’s endless fleet of Dalek figures, the attention to detail on these Daleks puts them in a whole different league.
As has been mentioned before, the size and scale of the Millennium Falcon as a toy vehicle made Kenner reinvent the wheel where character-based action toys for boys were concerned. To keep the price of the Falcon down, both for the company making it and for the people buying it, the figures were scaled down to 3 3/4″, whereas the previous industry standard had been set by foot-tall G.I. Joe figures with more points of articulation, interchangeable costumes and accessories, and so on – basically the boys’ equivalent of Barbie dolls, at roughly the same size (and price point).
What could be better than a dozen action figures from the Star Wars universe, such as it was in 1978? Nothing could be better than almost a dozen new figures in 1979, and what made this possibly the best second wave of any range of action figures ever was the fact that only one of the new figures was a differently-costumed version of a character from the first wave.
What fascinated most of us about Star Wars back in 1978? Two things: aliens ‘n’ droids. The second wave of the original Kenner Star Wars line focused on these, with a few other pleasant surprises thrown in too.
While Kenner may have been the first company to hit paydirt with “mini-action figures” in the 3 3/4″ scale (a scale determined by the size needed to make the accompanying Millennium Falcon toy affordable to both manufacturer and consumers), Mego that ball and ran with it at full speed, producing numerous figures in an identical scale. Formerly known for its large-scale Star Trek figures in the early 1970s – a line which coincided not with the series’ original broadcast, but with its syndication success and the animated series – Mego cleverly decided to try to siphon off some of Kenner’s (and Star Wars‘) market share by creating both licensed and original characters in that scale. The die-cast metal Micronauts led the way, though when Mego won the licenses for TV shows such as Buck Rogers, and movies like Disney’s The Black Hole, those figures were produced in a similar 3 3/4″ scale.
Two words come to mind when you first see the new line of Indiana Jones action figures from Hasbro: Star Wars. And that’s a good thing. Either in an act of synergy or luck of them winning the likely bidding war, by choosing Hasbro, Lucasfilm practically guaranteed that these figures would be of the classic 3 3/4″ variety and not the increasingly common 5″ or 6″ sizes. And, frankly, as they have shown with their mostly excellent new “Anniversary” line of G.I. Joe figures, this is a great time for Hasbro to relaunch a figure line of this size, thanks to years of development of the Star Wars and pre-Sigma 6 Joes. The Indiana Jones line, encompassing original film (Indiana Jones and the) Raiders of the Lost Ark and the new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, takes some inspiration from both Star Wars and G. I. Joe, but leans more heavily on the somewhat less articulate Star Wars line. (More on that later.)
Character Options doesn’t seem to have consciously built collections around these specific episodes of Doctor Who, but by coincidence, as their much-loved action figure range grows, the earlier seasons and episodes have been revisited enough that one can put together episode-specific subsets. In the coming weeks we’ll more or less randomly sample some mini-collections from the first two seasons of the new Doctor Who that have emerged.
We’re doing something a little bit different in this ToyBox review of Doctor Who goodies; rather than focus on a specific season or product wave, we’re focusing on figures from the stories written by Doctor Who’s future show-runner (and record-breaking three-time consecutive Hugo winner) Steven Moffat. With his uncanny knack for bringing real watch-from-behind-the-sofa psychological horror into the Doctor’s family-hour comfort zone, with an economy of post-production trickery, Moffat has more than earned his new gig. Since his first episodes as executive producer don’t begin until 2010, now seemed like a good time to pause and look at the collectible characters that have emerged from his scripts.
It’s only slightly less likely that an actual time-space rift forming in Cardiff that the first wave of Torchwood figures not only exists, but is compatible – more or less – with the Doctor Who action figures. Two different companies handle the two different ranges of products, and the audience is wildly different: Character Options’ Doctor Who figures aim for playability first and collectability second, while Scificollector.co.uk was clearly aiming at the collector’s market with Torchwood: neither the show nor its gun-toting toys are really meant for the kids, but rather for adult collectors who want the characters from their other favorite show to grace the same shelf space as their Doctor Who toys.
Officially billed as an “Electronic TARDIS” with a figure of the first Doctor, this two-figure set breaks down another barrier between the new series and classic series toy lines by offering the first vehicle from the original Doctor Who. Some might consider this a bit of a yawner, since we’ve already had two different Flight Control TARDIS vehicles from new Who (and isn’t a Police Box just a Police Box?), but it’s a bit of a big deal to anyone who’s been around long enough to be a longtime fan of the classic series.
Though introduced seven years into the lengthy run of the original Doctor Who, few characters had as much of an impact on the show as The Master. The Doctor had proven to have a different morality than that held dear by the human race by urging UNIT to ask questions first and shoot later, but here was an enemy with whom there was no reckoning. The Master constantly used Earth as a playing piece in a larger game. By maneuvering it and its occupants into danger, he could throw his lifelong mortal enemy, the Doctor, off his stride. At least initially, the Master had no hatred of Earth whatsoever; inviting a steady stream of alien menaces to invade the planet was a ploy to distract the Doctor – preferably enough that the Master could finally have his revenge on his rival Time Lord.