When The Empire Strikes Back hit theaters in 1980, it presented Kenner with an interesting problem. Their incredibly popular Star Wars line had been on store shelves for three years, giving kids ample time to collect all of the then-eighteen figures Kenner had produced. It even gave them three years worth of birthdays and Christmases […]
There are few scenes in movie history that are as iconic as the climactic duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. That is probably why a screen used prop that is pivotal in that classic Star Wars scene has just shattered a record previously set by the lightsaber used by […]
At best, bootleg and knock-off action figures can usually be classified as a novelty item, lacking real value. But there are a select few bootleg figures that have attained the status of coveted collectors’ items, with their scattershot distribution, poor quality, and lack of manufacturing information making them seriously rare. In some cases, these bootlegs […]
George Lucas has never treated Star Wars as a finished product. He tweaked dialogue and sound mixes on the original trilogy throughout its theatrical run in the late 1970s and early 1980s, long before home video gave fans a fixed version to compare against. The habit became impossible to ignore in 1997, when Lucas brought […]