go (star wars) figure

I opened the greatest gift of my life on Christmas morning, 1977. The movie STAR WARS had been released seven months before. I was nine years old, and will forever maintain that no demographic was ever more perfectly vulnerable to the cultural flashbang George Lucas had dropped on the world that May. The moment Vader walked in, i was inextricably, forever taken.
I had dreamt of this gift. I tried not to think about my chances of getting it. I was still a year or two away from being able to conceive of acquiring such a gift on my own. Perhaps never again would my desire for something be so pure, and my grasp so tenuous.
I unwrapped it, and my starry eyes beheld...the Star Wars Creature Cantina action figure set.
I already had a few figures. But this set was special. Not available in stores. I'd never seen one in person, and was now the only person i knew in the world who had one. It consisted of four figures and a cardboard backdrop which folded, dividing it into a wall section and a ground section. The wall was the outside of the cantina, with aliens walking by, and one sandtrooper. The ground had holes in which you inserted plastic foot pegs, on which you could stand your figures. The figures were Greedo, Hammerhead, Walrus Man, and Snaggletooth. Snaggletooth would become a rarity, as the version finally released in stores was shorter, more stocky, and bootless. The one i had was regular height, with a blue uniform, not red. I played with my figures and took good care of them, but a couple years later i threw out the backdrop after the seam wore out, and split apart. Had i been just a year older, i perhaps wouldn't have let it come to that point of disrepair, or would have kept the pieces.
Other kids were tougher on their figures, playing with them until the paint or limbs came off. When my original Luke lost some paint, i got a replacement. I also noticed when Kenner started using a different mold for Han's head. I got the new one, and kept the old. I started keeping my figures individually wrapped in ziplock bags. I never lost accessories, and the one exception to this led to the only time i ever stole anything as a child. Princess Leia had the thinnest blaster, and back in the seventies we had a thing called shag carpet, which in my room was a mix of brown, tan, and black. Not the best place to keep track of tiny black pieces of plastic, but i only ever lost one: Leia's. With Mom's supervision, i took apart the vacuum cleaner bag, but to no avail. I carried the weight of that loss for a year or so, resolving to someday reunite Princess and pea shooter. Then one day, i found myself in a department store, looking at a row of figures, and noticed that someone had taken a Leia out of its box, but left the box. And there, taped to the dangling plastic shell, was the blaster. I took a long, hard look into my soul, and then a look in either direction. I reached out my hand, and made my collection whole.
I wasn't proud, but i learned that day that anyone's principles can be bought.
Did i have all the figures? Can you even ask? I remember the first one i didn't have, and the whole flap over Boba Fett's spring-loaded, child-choking jetpack rocket. I hadn't gotten Fett early enough to have one of the banned ones.
By EMPIRE, i was saving my weekly allowance to get the figures for myself. As much as 90% of my weekly 50-cent allowance from 1977-1983 went to Kenner. They started out at $2.75, and were $5 or more by the time JEDI finished. I got 'em all...and some more than once. I remember when the sales tapered off after EMPIRE, they had a $1.99 clearance sale. I picked up seven or eight stormtroopers, and two Imperial commanders (the ones with the black domed helmets, who weren't really commanders, but that's another story). And therein lied my passion-within-a-passion: the Imperials. You might not guess this, given my life's quest for goodness and truth, but my favorites were the Imperials. They were just too cool (though when i went through my naval history phase, i gravitated to the Axis powers, so there was obviously a trend going on). The coolness stemmed from Vader, with the stormtroopers close behind. I never got doubles of single-identity figures, but by the time my chest was full, i had ten troopers, four snowtroopers, and three rebel snow soldiers for good measure.
I kept the faith until JEDI. But the "Gold Medal" series is the straw that broke this camel's back (or possibly the two separate Niktos). I had been slowly facing the reality that there was a certain amount of bald-faced, corporate greed going on. The number of figures released per film kept going up, and the characters kept getting more obscure, until there were ones you didn't even recognize. The "Gold Medal" series was maybe the fourth for JEDI, and my principles finally won out over devotion. I said "no more", and didn't buy a one. In years to come, i sometimes regretted that just the teeniest bit, particularly because i missed out on having Han in carbonite.
There were a handful of others i had missed by the end of JEDI. It would be many years before i finally found Zuckuss, a TIE fighter pilot, and Artoo with sensor-scope.
I had actually manifested a little resistance to corporate greed even from the start, though. I'd decided that figures were sufficient, and that i didn't need the vehicles. With a couple exceptions (X-wing, Imperial troop transport), i maintained that purity. By EMPIRE, my brothers were old enough to be enamored too, and i let them get vehicles while i focused on figures.
I saved every proof-of-purchase, too. For what, i'm still not sure. I might have made one or two trade-in deals over the years, but that leaves a hundred or two at the bottom of my chest, to this day.
And i never understood the fans who kept the figures in the case. If you're an investor, go play the market, but if you love your figures, take 'em out and let 'em run around.
The only time i almost regret not getting the vehicles is when i see one of the old Death Star sets. But i could do better than Kenner anyway. When they finally released the Falcon, i almost did a spit-take at how pitiful it was, all shrunken and distorted. I had made my own in the early days. I took a piece of cardboard over three feet wide, and cut out a Falcon shape. I made walls four or five inches high, divided the ship into sections, and then made a topside. It hit the trash after a year or so, but it was better than what the store-going kids had. I also made some Hoth fortresses out of styrofoam.
I have a friend whose young son has fallen in love with Star Wars. He gave him all his old figures to play with. He's a better man than i, Gunga Din. Me, i dream (along with my brothers) of that future day when one of us has a house with a Star Wars room.
And here's another dream...for anyone else who remembers 1977 like i do. A couple decades later, when they released a Tarkin figure for the Special Edition, yeah, i bought it. A Tarkin figure had long been the one gaping hole in the Star Wars universe. Peter Cushing, however, had been perhaps the skinniest actor in the history of Hollywood, and the figure that finally emerged did not reflect that.
So imagine for just a moment that it's 1977 again, and instead of the Death Star droid, they released a Tarkin. Picture what it would have looked like...hold the image in your mind, and lock it away in a special place.
Okay, come on back now.
I love you all.