Missing in Action Figures: A Retrospective

Posted by Dustin on 06/02/18 at 07:05 AM Category: M.I.A.F

Skiff Guards/Sail Barge Combatants

It all started with a simple man and a simple goal. Which skiff Guards were we still waiting for? Chris did this one himself and thoroughly cataloged the embarrassing holes in that particular sub-collection. Sure, there was some bickering over a few of these that might have actually been made, but their depictions were so bad, they were declared unmade. And so, the great project began. How far are we from completing key dioramas and collections?

Skiff Guards/Sail Barge Combatants

Cantina Patrons

Next up, Chris called for backup to tackle everyone's favorite diorama, the Cantina. While it seems like we've gotten at least 600 figures from this scene, there are still quite a few "missing," including most of the left side of the bar. We learned that for every memorable alien visible in that scene, there's a non-descript human lurking in the background. Is this an exhaustive accounting? Probably not. The lighting wasn't great and fact that this scene was edited together from two different shoots (not to mention fiddled with for no good reason 20 years later) make it difficult to tell if we're missing anything.

Cantina Patrons

Thrawn Trilogy

To mix things up we decided to look outside the Original Trilogy. No, not the Prequel Trilogy. The EU! Or as its known now, "Legends." Out of that scrap heap, we focused on the original Thrawn Trilogy. Obviously we couldn't pull every fleeting character (or costume) from those pages, so we stuck with significant characters with good visual reference. Even at that level, we presented some truly terrible choices for consideration.

Thrawn Trilogy

Jabba's Palace/Sail Barge Passengers

After our foray into the lesser known region, we went back to pretty much the exact same well as the first MIAF feature to take a look at Jabba's Palace and Sail Barge characters (non-combatants). Once again, we cooperated on this one, and once again we learned that Jabba's palace has a lot more humans than we remembered. With this list, I can say that there are definitely some "characters" that didn't get covered. Again, lighting played a role, but also there are a lot of repeated costumes so it's really tough to distinguish. It's unlikely anything we missed would be on anyone's wishlist, but Star Wars collectors are an odd group, so I'm sure someone out there really wants Unidentified Caucasian Human With Brown Hair #3 (Jabba's Sail Barge). Also, Cane Adiss is the worst figure idea of all time.

Jabba's Palace/Sail Barge Passengers

Bespin

In order to have a feature to represent each of the OT films, we next planned to look at Echo Base. But then a bunch of stuff happened and instead nothing new was posted for a year. Then instead of Echo Base, we did Bespin. Which is to say, I did Bespin. Chris was very busy. While lacking the biological diversity of the Cantina or Jabba's Palace, Bespin is a bustling colony full of weirdos. Not necessarily good choices for action figures, but there are some gems in there.

Bespin

Anyway, almost three years later, maybe we can get this moving again. Stay tuned for exciting developments involving your favorite Star Wars scenes and all the backgrounders that we should be requesting (demanding) from Hasbro now that they're making Star Wars figures again!