What could Kenner have done better ?

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Pomse2001 said:
Survival kit Chris said:
Pomse2001 said:
But in ROTJ they changed the Y-Wing pilot uniforms :?

latest?cb=20120113223351.jpg
Is that an a wing pilot ?

No Y-Wing pilot, A-Wing pilot is here
51UstiiQQpL.jpg


Y-wing uniform looks grey :?
Never knew a y wing pilot existed until now . Seriously though , I wouldn't change a dam thing about the toy line . Kenner nailed it big time with what they did . I compare vintage to modern and I realise just how good they was , don't criticise classics it brings bad karma.
 

Pulsar

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SublevelStudios said:
Make the sodding figures hold their weapons properly for a start.

LUKE BESPIN
LUKE JEDI
TIE PILOT
LEIA BESPIN
AT AT COMMANDER
LUKE ENDOR
LANDO GENERAL...

the list goes on.

Also, whilst watching Jedi again it occured to me what a mistake it was taking a bright gold droid and a bright white one on a covert mission in dense forest...everyone else was camo'd up but not the droids - they missed a trick here and could have done a CAMO THREEPIO and R2 figure.

Camo droids is an excellent idea.
Yep, I'm another one who always wanted Tantive IV Rebel Troopers but i always desired the full array of the Lars homestead Jawa sale droids.

Also disagree with some, i loved the DSC and had a few 8)
 

Pomse2001

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SublevelStudios said:
Make the sodding figures hold their weapons properly for a start.

LUKE BESPIN
LUKE JEDI
TIE PILOT
LEIA BESPIN
AT AT COMMANDER
LUKE ENDOR
LANDO GENERAL...

the list goes on.

Also, whilst watching Jedi again it occured to me what a mistake it was taking a bright gold droid and a bright white one on a covert mission in dense forest...everyone else was camo'd up but not the droids - they missed a trick here and could have done a CAMO THREEPIO and R2 figure.

I agree the hands on some figures could 100% be better, lando general is one of the worst :roll:
 

Pomse2001

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TK-7785 said:
They could have done better by not stopping the line in '85. :D

Seriously though, one thing that always bugged me was the wrong weapons with some figures. Han Bespin not having the smuggler blaster, Luke Hoth not having a saber, Luke Endor not having a saber etc.

I wish they'd made an Endor bunker playset too. :)

Yes stopping the line in 85 was bad, I wish they had started the production of the 2nd series droids and ewoks figures.

I also agree that some figures had wrong weapons, farmer luke and luke bespin yellow saber :roll:

Oh yes an endor bunker playset could have been cool 8)
 

Pomse2001

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Survival kit Chris said:
Pomse2001 said:
Survival kit Chris said:
Is that an a wing pilot ?

No Y-Wing pilot, A-Wing pilot is here
51UstiiQQpL.jpg


Y-wing uniform looks grey :?
Never knew a y wing pilot existed until now . Seriously though , I wouldn't change a dam thing about the toy line . Kenner nailed it big time with what they did . I compare vintage to modern and I realise just how good they was , don't criticise classics it brings bad karma.

In SW the Y-wing pilots used the x-wing uniforms, but for rotj they used a new uniform for the y-wing pilots.

I agree that the new star wars toy has many more errors and the old is much better, but there is also some new cool figures :D
 

Pomse2001

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Update

So guys now we have

Vehicles that should have been made earlier:

Y-Wing Fighter should have been made for SW

Figures that should have been made earlier:

Tie Fighter Pilot should have been made for SW
Imperial officer should have been made for SW

Better weapons:

DT sabers should have been made better.
telescoping sabers should have been made better.

Errors on figures:

Death Squad Commander should have black uniform
Fat head han
To many ewoks
LUKE BESPIN better hands for weapons
LUKE JEDI better hands for weapons
TIE PILOT better hands for weapons
LEIA BESPIN better hands for weapons
AT AT COMMANDER better hands for weapons
LUKE ENDOR better hands for weapons
LANDO GENERAL better hands for weapons
Han Bespin not having the smuggler blaster
Luke Hoth not having a saber
Luke Endor not having a saber

New Figures:

Y-Wing pilot
Grand Moff Tarkin
Rebel generals and officers for SW
Rebel Fleet Trooper
More Droids
different wookies
Vader without his helmet
Stormtrooper disguise' Han
slave Leia
CAMO THREEPIO and R2 figure

New Playsets:

Tantive playset
mos eisley
the hoth bunker
the lars homestead
jabbas palace
sections of the death star
Endor bunker playset
full array of the Lars homestead Jawa sale droids

New vehicles:

tie bomber

New Creatures:

Banthas

Other Things:

More accessory packs
A better Kenner Logo
not stopping the line in '85
 

Pomse2001

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Things I think could have been better was farmer luke and luke bespin, they should have had blue sabers.

I also missed desert stormtroopers for tatooine, also a huge error maybe they could have sold many of them just like hoth stormies and stormies.

Why make Walrus Man when they did not make dr. evazan :? so they should have made dr. evazan.

Have any of you thought about Boba Fett he was made for a new hope but he was not in the movie if I remember correct ?
 

Pomse2001

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Robstyley said:
Pomse2001 said:
Robstyley said:
Not got the license to make Star Wars toys :lol:

:shock: I guess you wanted the license ? :lol:

No, more just that we'd all have more time, more money and more space in our houses :)

I agree, I would also love to have more time, more money and more space. As I say to my girlfriend if I was rich and did not have to work then I would have the time that I need for collecting star wars :lol:
 

Pomse2001

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Have any of you thought about Boba Fett he was made for a new hope but we first saw him in esb in the old movies before lucus updated the movies :?

Did any of you think about that when you bought the figure in the late 70s ? :?
 

Snaketibe

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Pomse2001 said:
Have any of you thought about Boba Fett he was made for a new hope but we first saw him in esb in the old movies before lucus updated the movies :?

Did any of you think about that when you bought the figure in the late 70s ? :?
Well, the US had Boba Fett released on a Star Wars card, but I don't believe the rest of the world did. I do sometimes wonder what Americans buying him back in 1979 before Empire came out, thought about the character.

However, my biggest problem with Kenner's Boba Fett is not when he was released, but rather the lousy colour scheme and poor sculpt! He really is a prime candidate for this thread as let's be honest, cool though the figure undoubtedly is, Kenner really didn't try very hard to make him remotely movie-accurate! For starters, since when was Boba's helmet the same colour as his jump suit? His permanently moulded 'down' and shortened range finder isn't great either, and the less said about his backpack and the non-firing bright scarlet rocket, the better (and yes, I'm well aware of the whole history of the rocket and how it came to be the way it was, but that still doesn't make it look anything like it was in the films)!
 

Mini99

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I always thought that the Fett figure was different to the film character because Kenner must have been working from pre production photo's, because as mentioned the figure was out well before the film?
If so then maybe you can understand how the errors slipped in.
 

Snaketibe

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Mini99 said:
I always thought that the Fett figure was different to the film character because Kenner must have been working from pre production photo's, because as mentioned the figure was out well before the film?
If so then maybe you can understand how the errors slipped in.
There may well of course be some truth in what you say. However the history / evolution of Boba Fett's costume is fairly well known. Lucas knew well in advance that he wanted the character in ESB, and hence a lot of work went into designing his costume very early on (which of course explains how something incredibly close to the final film design was present on the 1979 cardback art for the figure a full year ahead of Empire's release).

The character first of course appeared in the gloriously terrible Holiday Special in 1978 when he looked like this:

Holiday Special.jpg

However due to the very early development of the costume, it rapidly became essentially the finished article in terms of design, if not colour, and that included the rocket Kenner had so many problems with ;-):

Prototype.JPG

And here it is again, this time with Star Wars Sound Designer Ben Burtt (all pictures shamelessly stolen from Google images). This shot is from 1978:

Ben And Boba.jpg

And the colour scheme seems to have been swiftly finalised after that, with just a few tweaks left to change it into the final version for Empire. The early colour prototype helmet with the eyes is well known:

Helmets.jpg

My point is, as with (let's face it!) an awful lot of our beloved vintage line, Kenner's faithfulness in reproducing the uniforms and costumes seen on screen into their 4 inch figure line was hardly perfect! Why is Luke's saber yellow for both the Farmboy and Bespin versions? Why does the Ugnaught have a blue smock? Why is Han Hoth's jacket blue? Why is Ben Kenobi all brown with a black undershirt? What the hell are the Cantina aliens wearing?, etc., etc. :)

I suspect that Boba's final look was more to do with the general 'stylized' look Kenner often gave their figures (Han Bespin's boots being the same brown as his legs, etc.) as a cost-cutting measure, rather than falling foul of basing the figure's paint scheme off pre-production materials. After all, the second wave of figures (Greedo, Walrus Man, etc.) wasn't even planned until after Star Wars was already out and taking box offices by storm globally, and yet even though the reference materials were right there and available, Kenner still famously cocked up not just Snaggletooth's size and colour (they eventually based him off his look in the Holiday Special, of course!), but also managed to concoct dayglow clothes for Hammerhead, Walrus Man and Greedo, none of which were even close to accurate.

Anyway, much more importantly, why was this version of Boba Fett not in any of the films?

Lady Fett.jpg

;-)
 

Mini99

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Thanks, very interesting read, didn't know a lot of that !
With regards the Cantina aliens I suspect that the colours were used to appeal to kids, i.e. colourful rather than screen accurate.
Remember these were cheap toys!
As for the paint choices on other figures these choices must have been influenced by costs, as Kenner were all about extacting maximin proft as we see in other playsets etc.
Kenner could have done so many things different if they thought for one minute that anyone would be asking these questions in 40 years time. To them this was a toy line linked to a movie and these type of lines were normally very short lived back then and for that matter even now.
 

Snaketibe

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"Remember these were cheap toys"?! Outrageous! :-D

I bet the design team at Kenner would have laughed in your face if you'd tried to convince them back when they were designing the toys, that collectors would one day spend thousands and thousands buying second-hand examples of them! :lol:
 

Mini99

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Snaketibe said:
"Remember these were cheap toys"?! Outrageous! :-D

I bet the design team at Kenner would have laughed in your face if you'd tried to convince them back when they were designing the toys, that collectors would one day spend thousands and thousands buying second-hand examples of them! :lol:
Absolutely, you've hit the nail on the head!
 
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