Different type of star wars toy merch post 2005 ish

[thd9791]

Not sure if this has been talked about, I never post over here but I had an honest question. Every time I walk down Star Wars toy aisles in stores I feel like the pretend market is missing something.

I was born in '91 so I had 1995 Kenner and Hasbro toys. My favorite was a kit with a rebel blaster, belt, foam darts and toy macrobinoculars. In the prequel years I had an "apprentice kit" with a belt, braid, holoprojector and plastic Qui Gon lightsaber with a foam blade. Later on, the battery operated sabers came around, with flick-out lightsaber blades.

Now it seems there are a couple blasters that don't look like screen blasters, and only small lightsabers with permanent blades - those cheaper fx ones, and these weird lock-together lightsabers that I don't know enough about. Like, how do you draw your lightsaber?

It's hard to describe, but the toys seem geared towards a different type of play now

 

[publiusr]

A good rant

 

[JOATRASH FX]

I'm a '1st gen' Star Wars toy kid and the differences between toy and on-screen object would bug me in the late 70s. I didn't understand why of course, but even things like undersized ships just felt wrong somehow. When Kenner came out with the ill-fated Miro Collection (not to be confused with Micro Machines) that were more true-to-scale, I bought a whole mess of 'em.

I also had one of those toy Colonial Vipers from Galactica with the flat, horizontal wings that bugged me. My buddy had the 'proper' angled-wing viper but by the time I realized what was going on, you couldn't get them any longer.

Apologies to all the frustrated toy-designers out there, but when it came to established fictional worlds, I didn't really appreciate the creative license being taken even back then!

 

[Laspector]

So true. Even as a kid I knew those first Star Wars toys were crap. Off scale, wrong colors, etc.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I was born in 77 so I was really little and none of that ever occurred to me!

I was more concerned that the AT-AT was "too expensive"...

 

[Funky]

A good rant

I just asked my seven year old which he liked better: accuracy or the dart gun. He went with the dart gun because, "it's gotta do sumthin'".
I'm sure Hasbro has got focus groups with children playing with prototypes and getting honest opinions.
Sure, there are many kids out there who would appreciate the toys if they were more accurate though they didn't "do" much. But clearly, they are in the minority. I just wish at the very least they would have made the Nerf gun removeable to satisfy both markets.
Double dip, Hasbro! You're leaving money on the table!!!

 

[Kylo1]

Being a naïve 10 year old back in '77, accuracy really didn't concern me......I just wanted something to play with that I could act out lightsaber fights and space battles. Anyone remember the unofficial Ever Ready "Force Beam" lightsaber back in '78. It was basically a torch with an acrylic tube but it lit up and resembled a lightsaber so that was good enough for me!

 

[thd9791]

You know, I had the grey and black flash lights with white tubes for lightsabers in the early 90s by hasbro too. I swear there just aren't the same type of stuff out there now!

 

[Solos blaster]

(Born in '79), I remember the really super cheap knock off "lightsaber" toys you could get from the circus or probably a half dozen other places. The handles were usually black or blue and it lit up like a very basic flashlight that had a multi-colored piece of film where the tube attached that would kind of make different colors as you swung it around(very early clash effect? lol). The big kicker was that they had small, engraved caricatures of a Darth Vader-esque(with clawed feet), fighting a character in a suit with clashing "lightsabers". This was early-mid 80's.