USA Today has
an article this morning comparing the toy lines of the original
Star Wars trilogy with the toy lines for the new
Star Wars trilogy. Being a young 'un at at the time the first
Star Wars movie came out, I had a good collection of
Star Wars toys, which were well played with. I know that I had a Millenium Falcon toy that I think took approximately 17 days to put together and weighted approximately 70 pounds. It was also pretty much two times the size of the Tie Fighter and X-Wing toys I had, thus making the space battles I'd imagine in my head a little unfair.
I had a whole assortment of action figures. I know for a fact that first two I got were C3-PO and R2-D2. I remember them having a lot of adventures out in the backyard, a lot of them involving going down the slide on the swingset. I also had a wide variety of what I call the "background characters" from the films--basically the guys who weren't Luke, Han, Leia, Darth Vader, etc. The cantina scene in the original Star Wars was just great for this and I still get a bit of an excited rush when I see a guy lurking around the background of the scene that I had as an action figure way back when.
Of course, not that it really mattered after a while. At the peak of my
Star Wars action figure mania, I lived in Hawaii. Now, if you've lived in Hawaii, you know that the red dirt there can stain. Well, while living on base, they dug a ditch in our neighborhood. Let me just tell you, that a ditch was a great place for
Star Wars action figures to have tons of adventures. But it also led to a lot of them getting stained with red dirt and after a while, you I just took on faith that I had Luke Skywalker and not Darth Vader when I was making up my adventures for them on the desert planet Red Dirt Ditch. (I am sure I made up some more elaborate name, but I can't recall what it is right now). And just to be cool, I kept all my
Stars Wars figures in an old metal
Star Wars lunchbox. (I had several, but would get a new one each year).
Of course, now I realize that if I'd kept all my
Star Wars guys in better condition (as in never played with them), I could sell them all for a good sized chunk of change. But then I remember that part of the point of toys is to play with them. And honestly, I would rather have the fond memories of red-dirt stained
Star Wars toys than having a pristene collection of them today that I could sell for a ton of money.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 6/17/2005 07:53:00 AM |
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