This is a sort of letter to the Grand Poobah of Toys (Sir Derek of Lucasfilm) and Sir Derryl of DePriest, both of whom are head honcho types for the Star Wars toy line. Two weeks ago when I bought my Build-A-Droid sets from Wal*Mart, I was heartbroken to find that the Luke Skywalker figure I had purchased was (essentially) the same as the "Vintage" figure from The Saga Collection. (The silver straps were, uh, yeah, uh, dumb.)

Gone was the goonie, happy face that may or may not have screamed "CARRIE!" as he jumped from his X-Wing Fighter that had just destroyed the Death Star. In its place was the sombre, stern, and determined face of the Luke Skywalker who destroyed the Empire’s ultimate weapon.

Where’s the joy? If I destroyed the Evil Empire’s ultimate weapon (in this case the iPod), I might crack a smile and scream "CARRIE!" no mattter who was listening. The fact that it all turned into a big medal ceremony (where Chewbacca was obviously cheated, which is a travesty of justice) would only make me smile even more. (Hey, where’s my goofy smiling Ceremony Luke Skywalker figure?)

Over the years we have had worse figures (Monkey Faced Leia anyone?) and we’ve survived. So what did "Happy Face Luke" (a/k/a Stoner Luke) do so wrong. He really represented a figure at a moment that we, as collectors, wish to preserve (certainly more than Innaccurately Painted Pilot Battle Droids on STAPs). Please note: Battle Droid Pilots, while blue, do not have backpacks. I don’t think they pilot STAP vehicles, and they don’t have totally inaccurate Episode I era heads. (The rest can be overlooked for the sake of toy aesthetics..) Inaccurate Battle Droid heads a la Episode I are vile, and they should all be destroyed.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Happy Luke Skywalker. What, pray tell, is wrong with this figure? Yes, I know he looks stoned to certain people, but my euphoria at saving the Galaxy would look even more "happy" than that. (See all the pix from the recent trip to LFL — I don’t smile for ANYONE!)

So c’mon guys, even if it’s just a brief release on StarWarsShop.com give us a small nod. I promise you that at least a fraction of the people who saw Star Wars in its original release weren’t exactly sober.

(Click image twice to enjoy mega-sized!)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Daily Blog, Prototypes, unreleased. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.