Your Best and Worst

[Snaketibe]

There are a great many things I like about the Vintage line, but also some that I don't. I know it's easy to forget when Kenner started planning the original line back in 1977, they were trying to make popular toys, not high-end collectibles or ultra-realistic sculpts. Even so, there are some things that have always irked me about the line, and others that remain a delight. I thought I would share my picks for the best and worst design features in the Vintage line, plus my favourite and least favourite Vintage toys, which are not necessarily the same things!

I invite others to offer their own choices, and it would be interesting to hear your reasons.

Here are mine:

Worst Design Feature

For me that's easy; the original telescoping lightsabers. Whoever thought the double-telescoping sabers would be a good idea needed their head examining. Fantastically flimsy and prone to breaking if you so much as look at them, the first issue double-telescoping sabers were doomed to failure from the start. They were quite rightly dispensed with rapidly, but what amazes me more is that they left us with the single-telescoping design which is almost as bad! That saber tip was just asking to snap off! Even as a child playing with these in the 70's I knew this was a poor design! I guess the tooling costs for changing the mould from the double to the single telescoping version probably played a big part in Kenner's decision, but my god it made for a poor toy!

Best Design Feature

Three and three-quarter inch scale with 5 points of articulation! As toys, the figures needed to be functional playthings. Previous dolls of the time had generally been in a larger scale, so the decision to produce Star Wars figures at a 4 inch scale whilst retaining 5 points of articulation was a masterstroke. Simple, yet highly effective, it gave kids action figures they could easily hold and play with, which were poseable and fun, and moved them away from being simple statues. The scale also allowed Kenner to craft ships, vehicles and playsets at a reasonable size and at an affordable price.

Least Favourite Toy

I generally don't like Star Wars toys which aren't in the films. For that reason, I've never got on with the Mini-rigs. I understand completely why Kenner made them; they were cheaper alternatives to the bigger ships and vehicles, and in that regard they were of course successful. Not every family or kid could afford an AT-AT or a Slave 1, but a PDT-8 or an MTV-7 was much more within financial reach. I don't object to their existence, and of course many collectors and kids love them, but for me they were always a distraction and an irrelevance. I didn't own any as a child, and I've never bought any as an adult collector. I simply don't like them.

Most Favourite Toy

Easy. The Palitoy Death Star. A truly inspired, ingenious, simple, low cost, high play value, folding/collapsible playset which is large when fully assembled, yet small when packed away. It has a moving trash compactor wall, escape chute, opening doors, walkways, a gun turret, super art work and is tremendous fun to play with! In truth, this is actually my favourite toy of all time, not just in the Vintage line as I believe it ticks so many boxes. I truly don't understand why Hasbro never copied the idea in the modern line, as it seems a no-brainer for making a cheap, but highly effective playset.

Anyway, those are my choices. What are yours?


(All pictures above taken from completed eBay auctions)

 

[Richard_H]

Cool topic:

Worst Toy:

Has to be the 12" range. Love them now as collecting items but they were not good toys.

Best Toy:

So many! I've avoided the obvious MF and At-At so I'm going with the white Tie Fighter.

Awesome colour, dramatic flashing light, pop off wings, but most importantly it was light and fit in your hands when you were playing. Awesome toy.

Worst Design:

Sonic controlled devices. Naff. Totally naff.


Best Design:

The sheer simplicity of the cog system on the Star Wars Action Figure Display stand. Genius.

 

[tobedesu]

I won't nominate my worst SW toys but I couldn't play with any figure with fabric clothing.
My little dog would run off with them and hold onto them. Hence the reason my figures like ERG, Squid Head, Klaatu, etc are all in mint condition because I had to leave them in a box.
Figures like Leia poncho and Luke Jedi, Jawa, etc could all have clothing removed and the dog didn't touch them
I did find some of the clothing got in the way at the time but I appreciate them now.
Vinyl capes ripped and just weren't strong enough.

I found the Falcon a bit on the big size to really enjoy playing with.
Looked cool, but huge and the top would move around on occasions.
Jabba's "dungeon" was an odd one having to remove Jabba every time to cast a figure in there.

Favourite vehicle was the Imperial Troop Transporter. One of my all-time favourite toys.

It's obvious that playing or displaying are too completely different things.

 

[Pomse2001]

Worst Design is Anakin Skywalker, very boring figure

Best Design Palitoy Death Star, I think the design is fantastic and the details on it is some of the best 8)

Least Favourite Toy

Droid Factory, I do not like it and I think it does not have much to do with star wars

Most Favourrite toy

The AT-AT walker, huge toy with light and sound and you can move the legs and head 8)

 

[SAVORY100]

Worst Design Feature
Hands that didn't hold their weapon: Too many to list but there are a bunch of figures in the 3.75 line that simply don't hold their weapon at all. There were of course some that couldn't drop theirs like Greedo which really highlight how much better some figures could've been with a moments more development

Best Design Feature
Something that I know a lot of folk hated was the exploding Speeder Bike, as a kid though I loved it.. zooming around the garden, imagining it was shot at and BOOM! Ultimate play value and ultimate cool! 8)

Least Favourite Toy
Controversial… For me it was the Millennium Falcon!!! I never owned one and never wanted one either; today I'm still no fan. It always annoyed me that the figures couldn't stand up in the cabin and that there was no way to go between the cockpit and the cabin either… haha! :lol:

Favourite Toy
I'm clearly very weird… I'm tied between a fairly obvious one and.. well let's say an odd one… :?
1) X-Wing; that thing never left my side.. everyone flew it and everyone was a pilot for the rebellion. Wings that could pop into attack formation, loved the landing gear front leg too.
2) CAP-2; can't explain it, maybe I was from the poorer end of the scale as a kid.. well no maybe about it, I was)… I loved it, grabbing, shooting, mechanism on the rear. I didn't and to this day couldn't give two tosses that the Mini-Rigs weren't in the films. To me then and now it's totally irrelevant… but I do understand why some have issue with them of course. To my mind, half the figure line were 3 film cell wonders, so who's to say these things were never there either... they sparked my imagination and were to my mind faithful to the SW aesthetic too

 

[x-pack]

Best design for me is the speeder bike. It's so clever. The only improvement would be the flaps that fall off. But still, it is an ingenious bit of design.

Worst design I reckon is the AtAt. While this looks so cool it's just not a great functional toy. The legs used to really bug me. Feels very fragile when posing those clicky legs.

Best toy is probably the x-wing. Awesome playability, tough as old boots and does what it does in the film

Worst toy is easily the maintenance energiser. Seriously, what the **** does it do? I had one as a child and just lost all the bits. Useless

 

[SublevelStudios]

Best Design:

Landpeeder 'floating' mechanism. I loved that vehicle, it was one of the things I really wanted BITD but never had. A friend had one though and I have to say the shifting the little lever to drop the wheels and float along the floor was inspired design. Palitoy box is also the best in the whole line for me.

Worst Design

I'll agree with Steve on this; hands that fail to keep hold of their weapons. Luke Bespin could have been a great figure if only he could hold his ****ing lightsabre or gun. No excuses - just poor sculpture.

Best Toy

Palitoy Death Star - a masterclass in how to make an affordable toy with tonnes of play value.

Worst Toy

Has to be the Star Destroyer Playset. Who the hell greenlit production on this set? It's awful. Could have been really great, maybe a cardboard set up like the Death Star. But no, we had the front end with nowhere to really place figures. Dreadful.

 

[lejackal]

Mine have all been decided based on what I owned as a child and would likely be different from a collecting point of view with more thought towards aesthetics.
Worst Design Feature
I've got two;
(i) Speederbike, and before anyone thinks I've gone completely mental I don't mean the exploding mechanism, I mean those stupid, awful legs. Great now for display but as a child I cut them off because they didn't have them in the film.
(ii) Now I loved my Ugnaught but come on Kenner, who wants a bloody handbag with an action figure :roll:

Best Design Feature
Three for this one I'm afraid from my two favourite toys;
(i) X-Wing well er wings - bloody brilliant
(ii) Y-Wing bomb
(iii) Y-Wing top gun
All fantastic features and great playability

Least Favourite Toy
Leia Bespin - pretty sure this was the only Leia I owned and let's be honest as a five-nine year old boy who wants a doll?

Favourite Toy
Back to indecision for this one...
On Saturdays we would travel to Leicester on the bus to visit my grandparents so obviously couldn't cart around a Y-Wing, X-Wing and Interceptor but could easily manage CAP-2, MTV-7 and a Speederbike.
Because of this I'm somewhat torn, the three rigs saw a lot more action whilst I was religiously watching the films an my nans house but how can you compare to a glorious X-Wing with Luke at the helm?
Mmm....X-Wing....no Y-Wing....both?

 

[Robstyley]

Best toy was and still is the Millenium Falcon - great playability, loads of features and different bits, looks awesome and you can put your Han and Chewy in the cockpit and fly it round the room.
Worst toy prob some of the mini-rigs that were not in the films - very uninteresting and no real play value.
A lot of the line was well designed and quite clever - The Scout Walker, Speeder Bike, Landspeeder, X-Wing and Tie Fighters all had movement and cool play features. Also the At-At and Falcon were well thought out.
I think the Rebel Transport and some of the playsets were not designed that well and prob a bit dull to play with.

 

[Gaz46&2]

Not necessarily the best thing I had, but the favourite was Weequay. I took that figure everywhere with me, I remember having a paddy when I thought I'd lost it. My Nan bought it for me from BHS in Kensington High Street. Its still one of my favourite figures now - no idea why though.

The worst I had was the MTV-7 - the Imperial steamroller thing. I still can't figure out what the thinking was behind it.

 

[chipsteak]

I love the telescoping lightsabres. A six year old could vocalize the sound effects while extending them out. A great toy feature IMO, tips or no tips. But a big highlight for me was when they gave us removable helmets circa ROTJ. i was so utterly amazed by this at the time.

Worst? The vinyl capes, for me, are poor. The thru-the-ams waistcoat vibe was cheap and practicLe but makes Vader look less intimidating than he should.