Imperial Troop Transport. The Droid Factory. These two items encapsulate the feelings of the magic of Star Wars for me in 1978 – 1979, and still make me a Kenner Kid to this very day. What makes these items so special to me is the fact that they were designed from scratch. Neither appeared in the film, nor on the Holiday Special. Some cats at Kenner designed these and I adore both. I can’t tell you how many hours of fun I had with the droid factory as a child. Unfortunately, I never owned the Imperial Troop Transport, but I do have the Sears Exclusive, non-electronic version now.
I adore these two Kenner toys, and the imagination that went into them. The transport being a redesign by Joe Johnston makes it even more special to me. As I get older, I find myself bucking against corporate sameness and strict adherence to style sheets. The zombie style herd mentality of only the canonical matters is just sad to me. I miss the days where you can visit a different town and the television programing is vastly different than yours. In this world of “Planograms” that make every corporate store the same wherever you go, these toys were the hold outs. Considering Lucas had the final say about what was given the green light, even back then, it is amazing that these found their way into our toyboxes.
4 comments
Total flashback – I just remembered getting the Jabba dungeon toy and realizing it was the same as the droid factory, my little mind was blown
It was a clever re-use of the original molds. I love stuff like that 🙂
Loved my troop transport.
I was going to get rid of mine, then I decided to have a pre-ESB focus.