My Obsession With 1985 Star Wars May Be Solved

Shortly after I began my career as an adult Star Wars collector in 1995, I became obsessed with the 1985 Star Wars product. I was reading a copy of Toy Shop magazine (which was actually a newspaper at the time). I scanned the classified section which was how many of us did our buying and selling in the days before Ebay. I saw an add looking to trade for a Tatooine Skiff. The person was offering multiple Yak Face figures or a 12" IG-88 for trade. Wait. What? I had known about the rare 12" IG-88, but since when did Kenner make a Skiff, and what the HECK is a Yak Face? It would kick off my Sansweet-ian education and I was learning about Brazilian Vlixen, unmade Governor Koongs, Droids packaged A-Wings, and planetary maps. It was like finding out about a piece of my personal history that had been lost. I became obsessed.

But this obsession didn't seem to add up. This hobby is supposedly about reliving our childhoods, right? That's what they all say, but the 1985 product was not part of my childhood. As I mentioned in the comments recently, the only POTF '85 figure I had as a kid was the R2-D2 with pop-up lightsaber, and I really bought that as an adolescent collector. I didn't buy it as a toy. So, I have no childhood nostalgic ties to Imperial Dignataries, Yak Faces, A-Wing Pilots, collector coins, Thall Jobens, Jann Toshes, etc., etc., etc. Yet, these are the things that get my collecting juices flowing the most. Why is that? The easy answer is that they're rare and I'm a collector, but that's not it. The aforementioned 12" IG-88 is rare, and I have no compulsion to ever own that. It's something else.

At the risk of being boastful, I think the answer I landed on is revelatory, and I think it explains some of the disconnects in the community. I am not trying to relive my childhood. I'm trying to extend and complete my childhood. I want the best of both worlds. I want to autonomy and resources of adulthood combined with the innocence and wonder of childhood. There's a big difference between the two. I'm obsessed with the 1985 line because I am a dutiful soldier in the Kenner "collect them all" army. It's an unfulfilled mission, but this distinction between "reliving" and "continuing" extends further into the modern product. Retro and 5POA are about reliving your childhood. That's why I'm not into those products, though OT Retro is growing on me (especially when it's 1985 product or product that should have been).

Ultimately, this is what the Vintage Collection represents. It's a raging against the dying of the light (all my literary references come from Rodney Dangerfield movies and the Simpsons). It's as if the good times of my childhood never ended and continued until today. From 1978 through 1985, you can see a progression in the quality of the Kenner figures. Extend that line of progressive improvement forty years and you land on TVC. It's why we rebel against any attempts to rollback the quality. It's represents and end to the good times. Instead it should always be onward and upward (until I stop collecting in a few years). Those in the "relive" camp may disagree.

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