The POP-EXPOSE ‘Star Wars 40th Anniversary’ by Mitchell Smith!

Star Wars just celebrated it’s 40th Anniversary. Lately I’ve been watching lots of classic movies from the 50’s, 60’S and 70’s and I’ve been saying to myself – that sounds so Star Wars, but wait Star Wars wasn’t around back then. So then I thought these movies must have been a huge influence on Lucas and his crew writing and developing Star Wars. One thing Star Wars has though that most of these films do not have are a line of merchandise most importantly a line of action figures. Some fans may argue that the prequels were sub par and one might even argue the original movies were as well. I completely disagree, I think both trilogies were great and especially the line of figures that came from the movies. The original figures for the time were very cool.

Vader and Ben had light sabers that you could push up and recreate their famous battle. There were a good number of figures that still look good to today’s standard and any collector is sure to have a good number of original figures in their collection. The 12 inch figures are cool as well. Sideshows has made a number of characters that are very realistic and you can’t beat the realistic clothing and gear. The 6 inch Black series is also another great line for collectors, but I want to focus on the 3-3/4 inch style. Like I said the originals were so cool and this size figure has been a staple to the franchise since day 1. The early turn of the millennium showed a great new style of figure and by 2010 the figures had been perfected to a beautifully proportion and likeliness of the movie character. I love all the Mos Eisley Cantina Characters that were put out, as well as Jabba and his Palace cronies. A good many of those characters were part of the build a droid series which were awesome as well, who says you can have to many Astromech droids.

I remember looking at the 3 ROTJ Luke’s, the body, uniform, and head were the same, but one had a good hand, one had a damaged hand, and one had a gloved hand, but I still wanted all 3. The miniatures were so good that you almost thought Han was sitting next to you especially his 2012 Bespin version. Princess Leia had a number of figures and one of her best was the 2010 Hoth figure. There were many other great figures right up to when the franchise was sold to Disney. Disney just doesn’t know how to market to collectors. Kids they can sell stuff all day, but collectors need that figure to jump out at them. They might wonder why so many are peg warmers. If you are going to sell a pc of plastic for $13.00, that thing better make the buyer believe it is actually talking to them. I am glad that Lucas finished strong and released nearly all the background figures and really brought his world into your home.

So in conclusion now that we have reached 40 and the franchise is in full gear, I hope that Disney gets it together and gets some nice figures going for some of their new ventures such as Rebels and Rogue One. I guess what Id like to see is something at downtown Disney like the Lego Land, but action figure land. Not only with Star Wars but other franchises as well, but set up in a diorama style. Maybe they will do it one day who knows. For now I just hope that they bring some nice figures down the road.