Original Trilogy Figures With No Proper Display Home:  Part 1

The whole reason for the 3.75" scale is that it unlocks the world. To put a finer point on that, it means that the scale makes vehicles and play sets possible. Most iconic scenes have key pieces around which the figures can focus. Jabba related figures have the Barge, two skiffs and three (or four depending on your accounting) play sets that bring them together. Cantina figures will soon have the Cantina itself (and previously had the cardboard diorama and bar). Hoth soldiers (on both sides) have the AT-AT to anchor that display. We even have the Lars homestead and a properly branded Sandcrawler so that droids can be purchased. [Editor's Note: That was a cordial and professional way to say that the Fakecrawler is bootleg nonsense.]

Despite the opportunity for world building pieces, there are dozens of figures that exists in a vacuum save for their on-screen counterparts. I don't know about your set-ups, but for me, these figures typically exist on a "these guys go together" shelf. It's the dullest, and least inspiring part of my display. I'm going to focus on the OT for this article two-parter because a) I like it and b) Hasbro has had the entire 30 year run of the modern line to bring us world building items from these scenes, but has failed to do so. Plus this exercise would be silly for new media because the list would be endless. We have figures (Hunter) that don't even have the fellow members of their crew, let alone a vehicle or play set around which they can congregate.

I was going to do this as one entry, but after being two hours into making images, I realized I needed to break this in to two. We'll look at three scenes today, and two more at some point next week...or year. The figures pictured below are not all of the figures we have for these respective scenes. They're just a sampling. These could represent opportunities for future play sets. Some of them may seem boring, but it we can get an Armorer's Forge, anything is possible.

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Let's get to the elephant in the room right away. If I didn't, it would suck all the air until we did. It's like the mole on face of Fred Savage in Austin Powers. It's best to just rip that band off and yell, "moley, moley, moley" to get it out of our systems. This is a subject that simply won't go away until Hasbro does something about it. The question is what lasts longer? The line, or the community's desire for some form of Death Star play set. You could argue that I'm breaking the rules right out of the gate since we did get two Death Star play sets during POTF2 with the detention block and rope swing chasm, but those hardly count for the spirit of this article. They don't collect the dozens of Death Star related figures we have.

I have only some of them in the sample image. There's also the heroes in Stormtrooper disguises, the heroes in their "escape" configuration, the rest of the briefing room officers, more astromechs, and scanning crew members. In addition to those figures that are primarily or solely associated with the Death Star, there are dozens more that go in a Death Star display while not being exclusive to it. A Death Star would elevate our display as meaningfully as the Sail Barge, if not more so.

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This is the one that honestly kills me. When I was describing the "these figures go together" shelf above, my Home One display was in my mind's eye. Hasbro has given us a lot of these characters to include the entire top brass. As with the Death Star, once we push past the figures that are exclusive to Home One, there are dozen's more that could go in a Home One display. We have two of the three Dressellians, all the core heroes (but two to three of them need updates), oodles of pilots, and we can even sneak a 2-1B droid in there.

The problem is that any sort of briefing room play set would amount to some stadium seating around a display console. The good news is that it feels like something doable based on past offferings. The bad news is that I don't know how many collectors would become giddy with excitement over getting a "college lecture hall" play set. I know I would, but I also bought five Carson Teva figures on Wednesday, and I have no justifiable reason for doing so. As I mentioned in the lead-in, this one may be best left to third party.

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I almost skipped this because of the tactical screen that came with General Rieekan. No foolin'. But if I'm going to disregard those chintzy POTF2 Death Star sets, I sure as heck have to discount one lone tactical screen. The Echo Base interior offers multiple opportunities for display pieces. There are figures that go in the medical bay, and ones that go in the hangar, but the command center aggregates the most in one spot. Rieekan, Toryn Farr, K-3PO, R-3PO, R3-Y2, and R5-M2 are primarily exclusive to it, but you can also add in deck officers, Hoth Leia, Bespin Han, and good ol' 3PO. Once again, this would collect and elevate a bunch of figures.

At first blush, it may seem like any sort of commander center play set would be as dull as a corporate cube farm diorama. But, AH HAH, you forgot that the Snowtroopers storm the facility with Vader. Not so smart now are you, smart guy? We just got an awesome new Snowtrooper, so the stars align on this one. Hasbro has seemed to err on the side of things being photogenic in the past. With the right environmental lighting, the shots on Instagram would look like movie stills. Plus. as with many previous sets, there would be ways to design it to encourage multiple purchases.

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There's the first three sets of OT figures that I can think of that could used something to better collect them on our shelves. There are two more that I'm saving for part two. I'm only considering scenes were several figures come together, so Tosche's Station won't be appearing even though we have all four figures. Shout out what else there could be for the OT in the comments. Maybe I'll find something I need to add to my planned part two. Also, let Nomadscout know if he should do this for the PT.

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