Writing over at the Star Wars Collectors Archive, Ron Salvatore and Ben Sheenan look back over two decades to the mid 90’s and the return of Star Wars 3 3/4 figures and playsets. Specifically, they look at how classic vehicles were essentially kitbashed and tweaked for the new decade. The question is, was that ingenuity, or heresy?
Toys such as the Millennium Falcon, Landspeeder, AT-ST, TIE Fighter, A-Wing and even the lowly Ewok Village, were unceremoniously torn from boxes, cut with saws, modified with styrene and glue, had their insides torn out, and electronics added along with new air brushing or paint in order to create updated designs more reflective of the look and play value children wanted in the mid 1990s.
The resulting kit-bashed concept toys were highly detailed hybrids of old-world Star Wars, analogue-based action figure nostalgia, and new world digital design. The new mechanisms, lights, and electronics were cut, glued, and stuck into them with varying levels of precision.
New paint applications were mostly stunning — far above the standard of regular toys and something not entirely surprising given the cache that Hasbro saw in regaining the Star Wars brand for their subsidiary, Kenner.
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