Reminiscing About One Of My Favorite Vintage Kenner Toys

I can't begin to describe how gobsmacked I was by the vintage Kenner Droid Factory. It spun me into a vortex of wonder and imagination. The fact that it was the only option to give your R2 figure a third leg was the big draw and the reason the Droid Factory shot to the top of my childhood wish list. Being an idiot kid, I didn't have my own money. What a loser! Amazingly I can't tell you what special occasion landed this item in my toy box. I can vividly remember when I got both the Death Star playset and the Millennium Falcon (birthday and Christmas respectively). I probably got the Droid Factory for being a good boy at the dentist, which is something my subconscious would definitely suppress. Dentists stink, right kids?

Once I got that sucker open and truly realized I could create my own droids, my mind was blown. I can remember feeling a sort of electric excitement over the prospect. Part of me was even wondering if it was real (I was 6). No longer would I be limited by the creative decisions made by Kenner. I could inject my own new creations into the Star Wars universe. To a kid, Star Wars play is canon. I had become a Star Wars God. NOW KNEEL BEFORE ME.

Here's the amazing thing. You would think after having gushed over this toy so much that I would be campaigning for an update in the Vintage Collection. While I wouldn't mind owning the vintage Kenner Droid Factory again some day, I personally feel that something so off-screen and arbitrary has no place in the modern Vintage Collection. I can't envision folding this into any of my displays. Part of world-building is that things need to interact with one another and appear visually congruent. In a nutshell, that visual congruency (or lack thereof) is why I bristle at Carbonized figures. Simply put, I personally do not want toys anymore. I want adult collectibles.

But there is a silver lining to this sad admission of the death of my childlike wonder. The spirit of the Droid Factory could translate to a Sandcrawler and that is something I would be very interested in. I doubt we'll ever get the chance to buy one. It seems to have no place in the current landscape, but it would be amazing. Having a better scaled Sandcrawler that from the outside looked like a movie prop, but opened to contain a droid garage loaded with build-a-droid parts would be the perfect marriage of modern world build and nostalgic play. The fact that this is unlikely to ever happen is the saddest part of this tale.

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