In the summer of 1982, Star Wars toys were in a bit of a holding pattern. The Empire Strikes Back had been released in 1980 and Return of the Jedi was due in 1983. Of course all of the classic Kenner 3.75″ toys were still filling up store shelves, but there wasn’t really anything new to get fans excited. Looking to fill that gap, Kenner released the Star Wars Micro Collection, a series of playsets centered around some of the iconic locations from the first two films. The scale of the sets was much smaller than the main line of toys and featured tiny 1″ – 1.25″ tall die-cast metal figures of the heroes and villains we all love.
This wasn’t the first time Kenner had released die-cast metal Star Wars toys. They started with metal vehicles, releasing 11 ships, like the TIE Fighter, the Bespin Twin-Pod Cloud Car, and the Millennium Falcon, between 1978 and 1981. The ships had some limited action features, like swiveling guns on Boba Fett’s Slave I and breakaway wings on the TIE Bomber, and even included tiny figures, like Darth Vader, Luke and C-3PO, and a Stormtrooper.
But for 1982, Kenner upped their game by creating modular playsets with even more miniature figures for tiny adventures.
Bespin World
The first set released was Bespin World, based on the cloud city owned by that loveable scoundrel, Lando Calrissian. There were three sets sold separately – The Bespin Control Room, The Bespin Gantry, and the Bespin Freeze Chamber.
The Control Room is where Vader and Luke start their epic lightsaber battle before Luke is thrown out a window thanks to Vader’s force…wind, I guess? This is recreated on the playset with a small platform that would catapult Luke out of a breakaway window with the push of a button.
The second part of their battle takes place on the Gantry, featuring the perilous column that Luke has wrapped himself around when he discovers the truth about his DNA. The action features on this set aren’t very exciting – just a rotating platform and a swinging door – but at least it wasn’t just a static walkway. Both of these sets featured four figures – two Lukes and two Vaders, all about 1″ to 1.25″ tall – in different poses. The retail price for both sets was about $8.99 (~$30 today).
The final set takes us to the carbonite chamber where Han Solo gets put on ice, which is recreated by pushing a platform down into the bowels of the playset, turning a knob, and then pulling the rod back up, revealing the Han in carbonite figure on the platform. Many of the stairs and ramps could be moved around too, and there was a working elevator to get to different levels of the playset. This set featured eight figures, including Vader, Fett, Han unfrozen, Han frozen, Lando, Lobot, and a couple of Stormtroopers, and had a retail price of $19.99 (~$65 today).
However, you could also buy the Bespin World “Combo Set” (as it was called in the 1982 Sears Wishbook catalog) for $34.99 (~$114 today!) and get them all at once. The cool thing about the Micro Collection is that almost all of the themed playsets could attach to one another. This was accomplished with simple “Tab A into Slot B” connections, often situated at a corridor leading into the next playset. So, you could buy them individually, but in the end you had three playsets that formed one larger playset; sort of the Voltron of Star Wars toys.
Photos courtsey of Andy Jones AKA Mr. Stinkhead. Click the link for more beautiful shots of this playset!
Hoth World
Released at the same time as the Bespin World sets, Hoth World featured four different playsets – Hoth Generator Attack, Hoth Ion Cannon, Hoth Turret Defense, and the Hoth Wampa Cave.
The Generator Attack set might seem kind of lame, but it included six die-cast figures (Vader and five Snowtroopers) and an AT-ST Walker! With a special platform, the Walker could topple and break apart, and the generators could also break up at the push of a button, simulating their destruction.
The Ion Cannon set included the domed cannon outpost, as well as computer consoles, and eight figures (Han on a Tauntaun, Leia, Luke, Rebel Commander, and four Rebel troops). The action features allowed you to move the ion cannon around with a lever, open the blast doors to the base by turning the outlook post, and there was also a “battle damage” piece that would simulate the base breaking apart by pushing a button.
The Turret Defense set included two swiveling turrets that had an exploding action feature and could be opened to place figures inside. There were also six die-cast figures – Luke on a Tauntaun, Han, a Rebel Commander, and three Rebel troops.
The Wampa Cave combines two scenes in one – the Wampa attack, as well as Han and Chewie blowing up the probe droid. This set included Han, Chewie, a Probe Droid, Luke hanging upside down in the ice, and, the coolest figure of all, the Wampa himself. The special action feature is a catapult platform to recreate the destruction of the Probe Droid.
Unlike the Bespin World sets, the retail price for the Hoth sets varied quite a bit. The 1982 Sears Wishbook listed the Wampa Cave for $8.99, the Generator Attack at $12.99 ($42 today), and the Ion Cannon for $19.99. The Hoth World set, which contained all three, retailed for $39.99 ($130 today). You’ll notice that I didn’t include the Turret Defense set in that list. I looked through the 1982 Christmas catalogs for Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney, and none of them even mention the Turret Defense. This might be because, for whatever reason, the Turret Defense is a stand alone set that doesn’t connect to the other three. It’s still thematically the same, but Kenner opted not to have it attach to the other Hoth sets. It’s absence from the Christmas catalogs that year makes me wonder if the big retailers were worried that people might get confused if there’s a random fourth playset that doesn’t combine with the others, so they opted not to carry it (or at least not highlight it in their catalogs).
All photos courtesy of RebelScum.com
Death Star World
The last set to be released in the series was based on the Death Star and featured two large playsets – the Death Star Compactor and Death Star Escape. I’m not sure why, but the only 1982 Christmas catalog that even mentions the Death Star playsets was JCPenney. Perhaps one reason is that these sets were a bit more expensive than any of the others, retailing for $17.99 ($58 today) and $13.99 ($45 today), respectively. If you bought them both, presumably in the same box, you could save $4.00, for a retail price of $27.98 ($91.50 today). Maybe Sears and Wards felt that was asking a bit too much from consumers or, probably even more likely, the sets weren’t released in time for the catalog.
The Compactor set hits a lot of the major scenes from Star Wars – the detention block where Leia is rescued, the hangar scene where Vader and Obi-Wan duel with a blast door you can open and close, and, of course, the trash compactor scene, complete with pieces of orange foam for trash and a sliding wall to crush our heroes. The Compactor set came with eight die-cast figures – Luke and Han disguised as Stormtroopers, Lea, Vader, Obi-Wan, and three Stormtroopers.
The Death Star Escape set is a bit more generic, in that two of the three floors are really just hallways that our characters would have run down while being chased by Stormtroopers. One section has a small rope and harness for the Luke and Leia figures to recreate the grappling hook swing, while the top floor features a large laser cannon that clicks when you turn it, and the circular console that Obi-Wan uses to disable the tractor beam. This set included six figures – Vader, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke, and two Stormtroopers.
The brilliant thing about the Death Star sets is how they use an elevator to connect to form a cohesive playset. Both feature simple, sliding platforms so the figures can travel from one floor to the next, but the Compactor’s elevator connects to the corridors of the Escape set, expanding both sets into what feels like an almost film-accurate layout. And you can still use the Escape elevator, adding to the labyrinthine nature of the Imperial base.
Photos courtesy of Andy Jones AKA Mr. Stinkhead. Click the link for more amazing photos of this playset!
“Build Your Armies” Mail-Away Offer
Kenner was famous for their mail-away offers that would net kids cool stuff by sending in proofs of purchase. Perhaps the best-known of these mail-away figures was Boba Fett, undoubtedly one of the factors in the characters’ popularity with fans, but you could also send for Emperor Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker, and Nien Numb, just to name a few.
For the Micro Series, if you purchased two playsets, you could send away for six new, unique die-cast metal figures – three Snowtroopers and three Rebels in their Hoth uniforms.
What Might Have Been
The Micro Collection line was not originally intended to end with these three worlds. Kenner had plans for more playsets based on locations from The Empire Strikes Back, as well as Jabba’s palace from Return of the Jedi. For a rundown on those unreleased sets, check out these videos on YouTube…
Reception
Despite the clever, modular designs and novel action features, the Micro Collection was not a very big hit with kids. One strike against it was the price. For example, in the 1982 JCPenney Christmas catalog, you could buy the 3.75″ scale Millennium Falcon for $34.99 (and it came with a $2.50 rebate!). Sure, the smaller Micro sets were only $8.99, but if you wanted to get the whole world, you’re looking at the same price as the Falcon. I’m sure a lot of parents – and kids for that matter – looked at a small playset or a giant space ship for the same price and the giant space ship seemed like a better deal.
But, from a personal stand point, I can tell you that the main reason I would have chosen the Falcon over a Micro Collection set is because the Falcon would have worked with the larger Star Wars action figures I’d been obsessing over since 1978. Maybe if the Micro Collection had come out around the same time as the larger figures, it might have gained a foothold, but I doubt it. By 1982, kids had been conditioned to play with and collect the articulated figures that Kenner had been releasing for the past four years. Throw in the introduction of other, articulated figure lines in 1982 – like He-Man and G.I. Joe – and small, metal figures with no articulation probably felt like a throwback to their fathers’ – or even grandfathers’ – era of toys, rather than the cool, new thing.
Or, maybe the Micro Collection was just ahead of its time. About 10 years later, Galoob put out the Micro Machines Star Wars collection, featuring vehicles and playsets in miniature size. These were pretty successful and ran for a number of years, even though they were smaller and featured fewer play features than the Micro Collection line. However, by that time, similar toys like Polly Pocket and Mighty Max had come along, so kids were primed for tiny, self-contained entertainment.
In the end, it just feels like the Micro Collection had too many cards stacked against it to really be a hit. Oddly enough, I think if a similar line was released today, into a market where adult collectors buy toys just to display on shelves, it would probably be pretty successful. And the aftermarket price on the vintage Micro Collection seems to bear that theory out.
My Micro Micro Collection
As I said, in 1982, the Star Wars Micro Collection did not interest me in the slightest. I was only seven years old, so tiny little metal Star Wars figures couldn’t stack up to the 3.75″ figures I’d been collecting since I was three. I was also much more enamored with the large-scale ships and playsets, like the X-Wing or the Cantina.
However, about 10 years ago, my friend Steve, the other co-owner of Floyd, the Drunken Yard Gnome and a fellow Star Wars nerd, had decided he wanted to pick up the Micro Collection sets. He began searching eBay and found a (mostly) complete Death Star Escape set – it didn’t have the box, it was a little yellowed with time, and was a little beat up, but he put in a bid on it just the same. Shortly after, another set in even better condition showed up on eBay, so he put in a bid on that one too, figuring he’d probably lose one auction or the other. As fate would have it, he won them both! He’s not really much of an eBay seller, so rather than try to flip the first auction he won, he asked if I had any interest in taking it off his hands.
And that’s how I wound up with a Death Star Escape Micro Collections playset!
It’s true, the set isn’t in the best condition – the figures have some paint chipped off, I’m missing the Luke/Leia rope swing, the stickers are barely clinging to the plastic, and the whole thing will explode apart if it’s hit with a gentle breeze, let alone a photon torpedo in its central exhaust port – but it looks pretty cool sitting on my bookcase. I’ve often thought about picking up the Compactor side of the set, just so I can complete the world, but at around $80 – $100, I can’t justify the price. Especially for a toy that I have zero nostalgia for.
Still, the Escape set is really cool and I’m grateful that Steve offered it to me for my collection. Steve has since gone on to collect the other worlds and, I have to say, they do look pretty awesome all put together and displayed. But, for the investment I’d have to make for them, I have bigger, more nostalgic fish to fry, so I’ll probably just be content with my micro Micro Collection.
For more about the Star Wars Micro Collection, head over to The Toy Collectors Guide.
