With the upcoming political events coming up, I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can. To counteract the onslaught of pro-this and anti-that posts and articles, I've hit that like button on nerdy news so that I see more of it. Right now, especially with the release of Rouge One and the upcoming Episode VIII, I see a lot of information on Star Wars merchandise. We all need distractions from the world around us, and I find mine in science fiction and memorabilia. It is probably one of the better distractions, as the likelihood of politics coming up in a discussion and it's Star Wars. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry, one that has continued for forty years this year.

When Star Wars was released in summer 1977, it took the world by storm. Millions of people turned out, lines wrapping around the block, all to see a two-hour science fiction film. Due to the lack of faith put in by the studio, little merchandise was produced at first, mostly just shirts and re-releases of the film novelization. George Lucas, the director/writer, had been able to get the merchandising rights,so to guarantee some income for himself if the film bombed, he began looking into the toy industry. Mego was producing the top-selling and highly popular eight-inch Super Heroes line. Lucas met with Mego in late 1976 before the film's release, but was turned down as the company felt that Star Wars would come and go. Eventually, a small company based out of Ohio jumped in and took the offer. This company was none other than Kenner.

Meanwhile, an oil crisis was beginning to affect the nation, and with that the toy industry. The costs of plastic was becoming high, leading to lower production runs on toylines such as G.I. Joe Adventure Team. Kenner commissioned prototypes that resembled the popular Little People preschool toys, the Mego style toys, and a six-inch scale line that used cartoonish proportions. However, Kenner realized that in order to capture the spirit of Star Wars, a line of vehicles would have to be produced. But it would be too expensive for the consumer to get a Mego-scaled replica of an X-Wing, let alone a Millennium Falcon, and to save costs of plastic, it was ruled that the figures would stand at only 3.75” high. Four figures could be made from the amount of plastic that a large toy would require, and children could buy TIE Fighters for their toys to fight each other in.

Unable to produce enough toys for the Christmas 1977 season, Kenner released “The Early Bird Kit,” an empty box that contained a cardboard stand, a set of punch-out cards, and a voucher to send away to get the first four figures in the mail when they became available between January and May 1978. The figures offered were Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2, and Chewbacca – allowing for children to obtain other figures until they got those four in the mail if they were released earlier than anticipated. When the toys finally were put on the market, an additional eight figures were added to the line-up, with the main cast, save for Tarkin (the Death Star governor played by Peter Cushing) being represented. This led to the question of what to do when they ran out of characters – and so the decision was made to produce toys of background characters as well, starting with the cantina patrons.

The line was an instant success. Children were buying the toys in droves. Vehicles were flying off the shelves. To spread the line overseas, Kenner's international branch, Palitoy, released the exact same toys, though the Death Star playset was replaced with a buildable cardboard display (which is considered by many to be the better of the two playsets). With the November 1978 broadcast of the infamous The Star Wars Holiday Special, a mail-away figure was commissioned, being the supposed “rocket firing” Boba Fett – but when released, the toy was missing the promised rocket-firing feature, due to changes in safety regulations following the choking death of a child playing with a Battlestar Galactica missile-firing ship. Despite this, the Boba Fett figure was eventually put on a card, while prototypes have made their way into the collector circulation.

The figures are often cited for often inaccurate design choices, such as Luke Skywalker's yellow lightsaber (a trait that continued until 1983's Return of the Jedi-based figure.) and the “small head” Han Solo, which would later be changed to a larger headsculpt that resembled Harrison Ford more than the original. Background characters often had costumes unlike those in the film – Greedo is sculpted in a green and blue bodysuit, unlike the teal jumpsuit and orange vest from the iconic scene. At the same time, they were praised for the cutting edge articulation frame – each joint had a separate peg that was set into half of the torso, then the other half was glued on to secure the limbs. While not as articulated as the larger-scale Mego and G.I. Joe toys, it cut down on costs and time, effectively giving more time and money to be spent on increasing the output of product.

Another entire line was designed for The Empire Strikes Back, though the amount of playsets was cut down, while vehicle scope was increased with the AT-AT and Star Destroyer being produced. The line featured re-releases of the original A New Hope figures as well, only the logo on the packaging was replaced with the Empire logo. The line continued to boom, each set getting bigger and better than the last, until the controversial 1983 Return of the Jedi assortment. While having its fair share of film characters, the line re-released the same Darth Vader they had been selling for five years and many of the sought-after figures were hard to find, and the vehicles were primarily repackaged Empire Strikes Back product, with the speeder bike and Imperial shuttle being the only notable new toys. It should be noted that in 1982, Hasbro released their now-famous G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero line, which was the same scale as the Kenner Star Wars, but featured more vehicles, much higher articulation and more detailed sculpts overall. The brand was dying out alongside the Original Trilogy itself.

In addition to the cartoon-styled toys made for the ill-fated Star Wars: Ewoks and Droids cartoons in 1985, Kenner tried to revitalize the brand by packaging each figure with a collector coin in their new line, The Power of the Force. While highly anticipated figures such as “Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper Disguise” and “Han Solo with Carbonite” were produced, most of the new figures were unpopular background characters. A mail-away was made as promotion for the line, being a ghostly Anakin Skywalker, based off the brief scene of his Force ghost alongside Obi-Wan and Yoda. This figure could not hold a lightsaber, so the play value was not that high – children could not really imagine what happened to Anakin to turn him into Darth Vader. It was eventually released on card. The demand for figures had decreased, with Transformers and G.I. Joe offering more for similar prices, and without a new movie to promote, the line began to just be repacks of old toys. By late 1985, the Power of the Force line ended, and with it, the seven-year run of Star Wars toys

Kenner was bought by Tonka in 1987, and Hasbro bought Tonka in 1991, and used Kenner to produce many of their “boy's toys” products. Star Wars figures returned in 1992, but the original assortment had overly-muscular characters, and the likenesses were there only if seen from far away. Eventually the line would become more accurate, and articulation would slowly increase to G.I. Joe levels (a line that was also on its last legs). When Kenner was closed and the properties absorbed by Hasbro, more Star Wars lines were made, continuing to this very day. Every new movie, cartoon, video game – there is at least one figure from it. The line has grown to have well over a thousand individual figures, including variants and repaints. All because of one company passing on the offer, Star Wars continues to dominate the toy aisles and collections. And if things keep going the way they are, it will be for another forty years.