There’s little doubt….no, scratch that, there’s NO doubt that when the Millennium Falcon playset first arrived in kids homes around the world in 1979, released via a variety of different companies and subsidiaries, it was – and remains – the coolest toy ever. For me it reeks of memories of a time when Star Wars was fast becoming the most important thing in my life outside of family and friends. Today, most of my friends are family thanks to Star Wars.

Writing over at SyFyWire, Noah Berlatsky steps back 39 years to that amazing Christmas, when all we had was the original film, The Story of Star Wars, our first few waves of figures, Marvel Comics original run (issue 33 was released on 25th December 1979), the Alan Dean Foster ghost-written novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye from ’78, Han Solo at Stars’ End (still my personal favourite Star Wars book) and Han Solo’s Revenge, (both released in ’79) and a galaxy of endless imagination to fuel us.

I got the Millennium Falcon toy for my birthday when I was eight, and I was enraptured. In the first place, it was enormous; so big that you had to carry it in both arms to make it swoop around the house. And it had seemingly infinite nooks and crannies; a secret compartment for smuggled contraband, a chess table (“let the Wookiee win!”), a gun turret, a ball for lightsaber practice — you could spend days just finding all the bits. Plus, there was a C-battery-powered alarm you could press on the side, to annoy family and friends alike.

Inevitably, I started to lose pieces almost as soon as it was unwrapped.

That’s more or less the Millennium Falcon experience for kids of my generation. The ship was one of the most recognizable and biggest items in the Star Wars toy universe. At 17 x 6 x 23, it was almost two feet long, and weighed 3.75 pounds. It retailed for $29.99 when it was released in 1979, over $100 in today’s prices.