I have a passion for collecting vintage Star Wars merchandise from the late 70's. Action figures, comics, trading cards etc - anything related to the first Star Wars movie. But why only until 1980? It's not that I don't love The Empire Strikes Back and beyond (I really do), but there is something about that first wave of Star Wars mania that really grips me, back when it was all fresh and exciting...

Monday, August 1, 2011

Kenner 3-3/4" Action Figures - The Droids 2


Kicking off Kenner's second wave of action figures from 1979 here with three droids. Pretty much the whole second wave consisted of background characters (other than Luke in his X-wing gear and Greedo) which gave Kenner the excuse to make a whole bunch of weird aliens and robots much to the delight of young fans who were hungry for more Star Wars figures.

Probably one of the cuter Star Wars action figures, the Power Droid (or 'Gonk' droid as he came to be known) can be seen wandering around in the background of the movie supplying power to ships like some kind of walking battery.

He's quite a simple action figure with the feet being the only movable parts. Like R2, his stickers have a tendency to wear off over time and there are a couple of patches of orange paint that can also get worn.




The Death Star droid is often assumed to be wrongly named as this droid can clearly be seen in the Jawa's sandcrawler. In fact there is one on the Death Star (just when Luke, Han and Chewie head into the elevators) so he's something of a generic droid seen throughout the Star Wars galaxy.

Very similar to the C-3PO figure, the stiff joints quickly become extremely loose and his silver paint job is tricky to find in good condition. In fact he's pretty much a silver version of the 3PO figure with some different details on the head and torso.



Poor old R5-D4. If his motivator hadn't blown at a critical moment, Star Wars would have been a very different film. Denied his moment of fame, R5 was relegated to being little more than a background character.

Essentially this is R2-D2 with red markings and a different head. Still, quite a nice addition to a growing collection and the Jawas are hardly complete without some droids to sell.

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