Archive for the ‘Toys’ Category

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LEGO R2-D2

Sunday, April 28th, 2024

I recently bought and assembled this guy:

It’s a brand new model of R2-D2. Here’s what was inside the box:

About 1000 pieces and some stickers. A quick build therefore, and a less expensive one (even at $99). He went together easily and his main body is about as big as a rockmelon:

Construction is somewhat repetitive, but utilizes clever techniques to (mostly) hide the studs. He’s very solid too.

He has a few display modes once completed. Here he is with all his contraptions in use:

And here he is with his third leg, which is probably how I’ll display him:

I like this kit! At about 29 cm it’s not too big so it can be displayed even on a shelf, and considering the size it’s both poseable and a good likeness of everyone favourite droid.

LEGO has done two other versions over the years (excluding a terrible technic one 25 years ago), but they’re both more expensive and much bigger. Here they are:

The ultimate one on the right certainly looks great, but it’s also twice the size of the little guy I built so displaying it would be a problem which is why I never bought it.

I’m glad they made this new one. He’s cute 🙂

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Five Droids

Tuesday, March 5th, 2024

Just because I sold hundreds of Star Wars figures last year doesn’t mean I stopped buying them, but these days all I’ll pick up is a droid. And thankfully they almost never release any! Here’s five I’ve bought since the great sell-off about a year ago.

This first one was an R2-D2 released back in 2000 in packaging reminiscent of the original figures from the 1970s. I was in the tail end of my collecting days then and didn’t buy it, but recently picked up the above copy for a low price on Amazon and was amazed when it arrived in near mint condition after 23+ years!

I won’t discuss the history of the character since you all know who he is, but here’s a fun R2 fact: he’s appeared on four postage stamps!

This R4-G9 was amongst the very first Revenge Of The Sith figures released and by then (2006) I’d by and large stopped buying any figures. I recently picked the above copy up (also on Amazon) and she’s unusual enough I’m surprised I never bought her back then. Perhaps I simply never saw her?

As for the character, despite appearing with Obi-Wan her role in the film was so brief you probably forgot about her moments later. And if you hadn’t yet picked up on it, yes R4-G9 is a lady droid. Couldn’t you tell from the pink tint to her dome? 😉

I only purchased this Power Droid because it’s so ugly and weird, and I find the existence of a carded figure amusing. Another Amazon purchase, this one came in mint condition sealed in a custom shipping box and cost me considerably less than various online sites say it is ‘worth’.

This droid – long nicknamed ‘Gonk’ – dates all the way back to the original Star Wars. They have made many appearances in Star Wars movies and shows, such as in Rogue One as shown above. Gonks are just generators on legs with rudimentary intelligence, but endearing because of how ugly they are!

I’m not a big fan of the current ‘Retro’ line of figures that are sculpted to resemble the original 1970s lines. That said I love how tiny this Chopper figure is and didn’t hesitate buying him. I’ve got a thing for little droids in tiny bubbles!

Chopper (his ‘real’ name is C1-10P) is from Rebels and last year made his live action appearance in the Ahsoka series. He’s a bit of a rogue, and famously uses a garbled dialect that is almost legible. There’s a recent non-retro figure of him as well, which I’m sure I’ll get one day.

R4-D5 was in the original Star Wars, and famously if it wasn’t for his ‘bad motivator’ then Luke may have never adopted R2 and C-3PO. Decades ago I had the original R5-D4 figure, and recently I picked up the newly released version above as well.

R5-D4 was recently in the third season of Mandalorian, which was a mystery since it raised the question of where he had been for so long? The short version is that his encounter with R2 in the belly of a sandcrawler years prior eventually led him to the Rebellion where he loyally served for years. Oh and that bad motivator? That was self-sabotage to make sure Luke took R2. Good old R5-D4: he’s always been the hero 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Movies, Toys | Comments Closed

Fulubukuro: Gacha Toys

Thursday, January 4th, 2024

As mentioned we bought three more Fukubukuro (lucky bags) yesterday. Here they are:

We just finished opening the smallest of the three, a ¥3000 (about $20) bag containing exclusively gacha toys. Every toy was still in the sealed capsule, and the bag was stuffed with them.

All told there were 37 items inside, most of which are shown abovez. Toys and badges from several popular series were included – One Piece, Tokyo Revengers, Chainsaw Man and Pokémon – as well as some weirder or harder-to-identify stuff. This is great value for ¥3000, and the quality was better than I expected.

Notable inclusions were a ‘premium gacha’ toy of a wasp (these cost ¥1000 in the machine) which when assembled is many times life-sized.

A 45 cm tall model kit of a power pole with no instructions. I wanted to assemble this but it’s very challenging and the QR code on the included sheet of paper only links to the official site.

And this portion of a model of a road overpass. Incredibly you need two other prizes to make the whole thing. Who in their right mind would keep buying prizes at a gacha in the hope of getting all the sets required to make this?!?

Ultimately very little is worth keeping, but I’d say this was a worthy Fukubukuro since it was bulging with stuff and fun to open. I’d give this one a thumbs up.

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The Strong

Saturday, December 16th, 2023

We’re in Rochester for an early Christmas and today visited The Strong museum. We’ve been here before but they’ve had a major expansion so it was time to see the new attractions.

This included a massive room housing the Video Game Hall of Fame, as well as a fantastic interactive exhibit on gaming in general. We played lots of games and had a lot of fun but it was the many, many displays of toys and games and associated paraphernalia that I particular enjoyed. Here’s a selection of only a few of the interesting things we saw:

That’s a prototype table for the official Lord Of The Rings pinball, as well as the actual (playable) table on the right.

Here’s the Vectrex 3D accessory, which is famously rare. I’ve never seen one, much less a boxed one!

The above are two examples of overproduced Atari cartridges once buried in New Mexico. Long considered an urban legend, this was proven to be true after they were dug up a few years ago and the city donated a few to the museum.

An actual World of Warcraft server ‘blade’ that housed one of the realms for several years! This is physically about as big as a skateboard.

An actual Atari store display from the early 1980s, stocked as how it would have been in those days. I wanted to grab one of the catalogues!

The above is a fascinating item. Those of us that have been around for a certain vintage recall these home-packaged games but to think this one has survived for so many years!

An original piece of hand-painted art that was scanned and used as a backdrop for an early Leisure Suit Larry game! They also had other prototypes and original art examples, including of consoles and arcade games.

Speaking of original art, that’s a hand-drawn sketch of Sonic The Hedgehog done by the original designer!

A lcd game based on those Japanese ‘nammeyano‘ delinquent cat art photos from the 1980s. This is an example of how varied the museum collection is. (Needless to say I’m not showing any of the vast display of more common game or toy items.)

Esoterica like the above I love seeing: an ancient McDonald’s happy meal box (from the late 1980s) and a series or Japanese World of Warcraft scratch-off cards that came with meals over a decade ago!

Or this unopened box of Pac-Man candy. This (which is about the size of a playing card) is 40-odd years old.

And some Donkey Kong ‘action figures’. I imagine the one on the right wasn’t a big seller!

A variety of game-related books. I’d love to read the two on the left, and last year I actually bought and sent the calculator one to Bernard!

Bridging video games and other pastimes, look at these two sets! Kristin recalls she even had the one on the right and put them on her bedroom door.

Here’s some rpg miniatures from decades ago. The grenadier ones even came painted! They also had lots of early D&D products and even an original photocopy of one of the earliest design documents co-written by Gygax and Arneson!

Look at this absolutely beautiful (not to mention unusual) board game based on the BBC Narnia series! I’d love to play this one.

A Wonder Woman trio: artwork for an unmade Atari pinball, a box of colorforms and a funky looking record with ‘songs and stories’ on it.

This is a talking doll invented by Edison and produced in the late 1800s! It’s a little retro-futuristic isn’t it? It’s also in extraordinary condition for something that is over 130 years old. I wonder if it still talks?

Speaking of dolls, the above is apparently the world’s most glamorous ‘teenage doll’. This is another fantastic condition and sealed-in-box item that is decades old and full of nostalgia.

Can you guess who the above doll is? It’s a pretty good likeness for when it was released (the 1970s)…

The above toy set of ‘missiles’ was released in 1958 and appears to be cardboard cutouts. I googled this and it was popular and rereleased (and updated to plastic) several times into the 1970s! What boy wouldn’t want to play with world-destroying nuclear missiles?

The museum was incredible, and there’s so much to see. It’s bigger and better than ever and I’m glad we visited it again. I hope you liked seeing some of the many wonders we saw.

Posted in Art, Blog, Books, Books & Comics, Games, Retro, Toys | 2 Comments »

LEGO Rivendell

Sunday, December 3rd, 2023

I bought this for my birthday earlier this year, and after many months of letting it age, it was time to build it:

This is Rivendell, the legendary elvish sanctuary in Lord Of The Rings and home of the powerful and ancient Elrond. Rivendell has always been depicted as a fantastic and beautiful place, and the LoTR films followed in the tradition:

When LEGO revealed this set I was simultaneously astonished and in love and appalled. The price was very high and it’s so big… but after several months of denying myself, I bought it 🙂

The box is gargantuan and heavy and there were fifty bags of pieces inside, as well as a sticker sheet (for the paintings, see below) and a hobbit-sized stack of instruction manuals:

The set is built in three large sections, and I did it in twelve sessions of about four bags apiece. It was a fascinating and fun build, and although I didn’t keep close track I would estimate it took me 25-30 hours in total. Some parts (the filigree and roof tiles) were a little frustrating, but it wasn’t exactly a difficult build. Here’s the finished set:

It’s so large photography was difficult! It’s about 80 cm wide, 35 cm deep and 50 cm tall. Here’s a view from the rear:

It can be separated into five different sections for ease-of-transport (and display). The first is the side of the main building, with Bilbo’s accommodations and the tower with statuary:

The middle section contains the elvish library, and the council platform where the Fellowship was first assembled. If you look close you’ll notice the small entry on the right side is at an unusual angle compared to the main building. This and several other slopes in the set were cleverly achieved using 3-4-5 Pythagorean triangles:

The last section contains the blacksmith, a waterfall and a removable pagoda. The instructions say the engineering of the base of the hexagonal pagoda was the most difficult part of designing the set. The small mushrooms you can see on this piece glow in the dark!

As you can probably see the detail is exquisite, with all sorts of furnishings and little touches that fans of the movie will spot. For instance the walls feature several cute ‘LEGO paintings’ such as this one depicting the forging of the rings:

And there’s also the shards of the legendary sword Narsil, no doubt waiting to be reforged at the smith:

The chairs on the platform are made from popsicle and frankfurter parts repurposed! Several of the mini figures have variant parts for sitting down:

Speaking of mini figures, the set has fifteen:

From the top, they are Bilbo, Frodo, Samwise, Pippin, Merry, Gloin, Boromir, Gimli, Aragorn, Gandalf, Arwen, Elrond, Legolas and a male and female elf. The set also includes many extra weapons, so even Arwen could wield a couple of axes were she so inclined!

The set has over 6000 pieces, but a few hundred of them are the roof tiles. These are applied to a single stud at a 45 degree angle, and getting them all aligned was not a trivial task! By far this was the longest and most tedious step, and I daresay I’ll shed a tear for this when/if I ever disassemble Rivendell.

Which brings me to the obvious question: Where the heck will I put this? It’s easily the biggest LEGO set I’ve ever built, and as far as I can tell fits on no surface in our house.

I think I’ll just leave it on the craft table in our library for now, and worry about that question when we return from our upcoming vacation!

Posted in Crafts, Movies, Toys | Comments Closed

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