Inside the Guide: Star Wars Droids and Ewoks Figures

From the time Star Wars: A New Hope had its history making run in theaters to a few years after Return of the Jedi concluded the original trilogy, Kenner produced multiple lines of action figures. Each film received a few waves of toy releases designated by the number of figures on the back of the cards, starting with the 12-backs all the way up to 92-backs.

When Star Wars branched out into animated series two more collections of figures were released. Those Star Wars: Droids and Star Wars: Ewoks lines were aimed at a younger audience with brightly colored packaging images of the characters accompanying the figure on the card. A short character biography appeared on the back of the card and, similar to the Power of the Force figures, they also came with a collectible coin.

The Droids line was led by R2-D2 with a pop-up lightsaber and C-3PO with removable limbs, along with characters like Kea Moll and Thall Joben. The figures came with extra accessories and weapons and the Droids line also included the ships ATL Interceptor, Side Gunner, and A-wing Starfighter. The Ewoks line began with Wicket, Logray, King Gorneesh, and a few Duloks.

Both lines saw domestic and foreign releases. The Brazilian Glasslite company created Droids figures and vehicles, which were sold on different cards than in the U.S. They included characters from the U.S. line, as well as the henchman Vlix, who was not issued in other countries. Kenner made a prototype figure of Vlix for U.S. distribution, but it never went beyond a mock up, which makes it one of the rarest Star Wars action figures.

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