Boba Fett Star Wars Holiday Special Animation Script & Character Model Sheets Package

My friend Mike F, proprietor of 4th Moon Toys in Toronto, runs an annual special "Life Week" sale full of cool goodies both vintage and modern. Being a fan of Star Wars books, especially the oddball ones, I was particularly interested in this book by John Celestri, formerly an animator at Nelvana Studios here in Canada, and an industry artist and creator for over 50 years. The book was offered in a limited edition signed by the author with a bonus autographed print. SOLD!

The book arrived quickly and was all that I'd hoped. It's a pretty slim paperback, magazine sized and perfect bound, with colour covers and a B&W interior, all on high-quality slick paper with heavy card covers. 

It has some awesome character reference pictures done by John for the holiday special animation. They're so good!

The book also includes the full shooting script of the Fett cartoon from the Holiday Special...

...and of course many many renderings of the sinister bounty hunter himself!

As if the book wasn't cool enough, the package included this signed Fett print by Celestri. I put it in a frame and it's hanging upstairs in my house. 

Highly recommended to Fett fans and enthusiasts of the Holiday Special. The tv show was awful for the most part but the Fett cartoon was AWESOME and this book is a great memento of that time in Star Wars history.

Slave I - Boba Fett's Spaceship

So everybody knows that if bounty hunters are cool, and Boba Fett is the coolest bounty hunter, then Fett's ride has to be uber-super-cool. So what if it looks like a streetlight? Of course Kenner knew this well so in 1980, they produced a "Slave I" vehicle for their Star Wars mini-action figure line.

 

Packaging is awesome, one of the best designs yet, in my opinion. Notice anything funny about the name of the toy? Maybe not, but to me the ship was always Slave (numeral) "1" - it never occurred to me that Fett might prefer the Roman numeral. And it must be the Roman numeral, since nobody says "Slave Eye".

Box top shows how to place Fett in his cockpit and lock the wings.

There's even a handle on the bottom so kids could "fly" him around. Shades of Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, but on Fett's ship it makes much more sense.

As usual I've set up the scene as shown on the box front - the Cloud City landing pad where Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, is being loaded onto Fett's ship by a pair of Stormtroopers. Lobot and two Bespin guards (both mustachioed) hang around trying to be cool, but Fett out-cools everybody, doesn't he?

Unfortunately the decals on my ship are quite worn and flaking off, readily visible in this overhead shot.

As usual, administrative staff stand around...

...while Stormtroopers do the heavy lifting.

Fett and Lobot chat, completely ignoring the dude on his break who just want to say "hi".

"Turn it... no, turn it... turn it tall ways..."

Lift with your legs, not with your back. That's how workplace injuries happen!

"Well, if everyone's going to ignore me anyway, I'll just pop in for a quick look. Never seen the inside of a Firespray-31 before..."

The rear ramp, along with the Han-in-carbonite-block, is often lost from loose examples of the toy. The other detachable parts are the wings (which must be detached from the root pieces if the ship is to fit into the box) and the side door.

"Wheeee!"

Okay, I know I went a bit off the rails with this post but if anybody's still reading, I hope you don't mind ;-)

Darth Vader's Star Destroyer Action Playset

One of the oddest playsets in the vintage Kenner line has to be the Star Destroyer playset. As we will see below in a review of the play features, this is a toy that doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind as to what it is. Is it a vehicle? maybe - it has "landing gear", and a handle underneath that the child on the box illustration appears to use to make the ship "fly". But it is obviously far too small to be a Star Destroyer, or even a reasonable representation of the bridge of one. Is it a playset environment? maybe - it has several different elements - the command pit, a space for Vader to communicate with the Emperor, and his meditation chamber - but these things were all very separate sets in the movie. And what is up with the Death Squad (pardon me, "Star Destroyer") Commander hanging upside down from the ceiling???

Obviously you know a toy is gonna be super-cool when it has pictures of bounty hunters on the box.

Box reverse has line drawings illustrating the various play features. Vader's meditation chamber closes down and lights up red, Vader bows before the holographic "Grand Vizier" (Emperor?), action figures duck out the escape hatch (into outer space??), Vader rotates around on his platform, bow cannon rotates and makes "laser clicking sounds".

Little kid flies the playset through outer space. Like I said, weird.

As usual I've set up the toy to replicate the box photos, down to the DSC hanging from his ankles. I know, super-nerd.

Vader describing the job to the assembled bounty hunters. But where are Zuckuss, 4-LOM and Dengar???

"You are free to use any methods necessary but I want them alive - no disintegrations!"

"Hey, what's up with Death Squad Commander?" "Oh, you know, just hanging around as usual."

Of course there are pits on either side of the bridge for doing "Empire stuff".

Crazy-ass gun mounted on the bridge of the Star Destroyer (?) It can be removed remotely by a lever underneath the toy, and makes clicking sounds as it rotates.

Inquisitive stormtrooper checks out the secret escape hatch. "Hmmm, I wonder where this leads to?"

Rear view of the playset. Note the back door openings that lead to...?

Hologram of the Emperor slides down to allow Vader to communicate with him.

This sequence shows the different positions for Vader's meditation chamber. First open (above)...

Closed...

Pushing the button on top of the central part activates the red light. It's actually pretty cool.

I used to think that this toy was pretty lame, and actually posted as much on Rebelscum. But the more I thought about it, and especially after I got one and put it together, the more I think that this set is pretty cool. Not so much maybe for its play value, but for how much is crammed into it. Bounty hunter meeting space? Check. Man-cave for meditating with a funky red light? Got that. Command pit for doing Empire stuff? Yep. Secret escape hatch? Commune with the Emperor? Big-ass laser cannon? Pegs for hanging dudes upside down? Got those too.

And it flies.

:-)

Large Size Boba Fett and IG-88

With its introduction of iconic Star Wars figures of 1978, Kenner is basically credited with inventing the 3-3/4" action figure as we know it today (perhaps a disputable proposition given the earlier origins of the 4-inch Fisher-Price Adventure People line). In any event, while Star Wars will forever be inextricably linked to the small figures, Kenner also produced what it called "Large Size Action Figures" or as most would call them, "DOLLS".

Dolls they may be, but they were pretty cool dolls. Arguably the coolest of the cool were Boba Fett and IG-88, the infamous bounty hunters who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back. (Well, I suppose Boba Fett actually first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special, but that's a tale for another day).

Boba came in Star Wars or ESB branded packaging. The loose example shown here took me some time and expense to assemble, as it originally came with many (easily lost) accessories.

Fett's gun (unlike IG-88's weapons) is an original design to the 12" line. Strangely, none of the original vintage toys ever seem to get Fett's gun quite accurate to the screen version...

Boba also comes with a grappling-hook/rocket thing on his backpack. This element comprises two pieces (the red plastic part and the white rubbery top bit) that are attached. There is a string tied to the distal end of the red piece that extends through the body of the backpack and is looped around hooks at the bottom of the backpack, with a plastic ring at the end of the string to prevent it slipping out the top end of the backpack.

This picture also clearly shows the small opening in the back of his helmet that contains a tiny lens. You can look through this lens and see a "Boba's eye view" of the bounty hunter's target. Pretty cool!
 

Fett also carries some Wookiee scalps as a trophy. Bet that made Chewbacca upset...

Here are all of his accessories. The nozzles at each bottom corner of the backpack are separate pieces made of a soft-ish rubber, very prone to breakage. The nozzles are mounted in holes on the edge of the backpack. The two halves of the backpack (front and back) are then sonic-welded together to keep the nozzles in place. This makes it nearly impossible to replace a broken nozzle. To do so, you basically have to very slightly enlarge the hole in the backpack and squeeze the new nozzle into it... ask me how I know ;-)

You can clearly also see the arrangement with the string and how it loops around the backpack hooks.

Just an awesome looking dol- errr... "Large Size Action Figure".

The last (and rarest) of the 12" Kenner line was Fett's fellow bounty hunter, IG-88. Taller than Fett, he measures in at a whopping 15" tall.

Not nearly as well-equipped with gear as Fett, IG-88 comes with a plastic bandolier holding four plastic "grenades". Unfortunately these are also very easily lost, and the ones on my example are reproductions.

IG-88's weapons are accurate to the 3-3/4" toy version's guns - a long blaster and more compact "Stormtrooper" model blaster complete his equipment.

Despite his size, IG-88 is nowhere near as fully articulated as Fett, having only five points - arms at the shoulder, legs at the hips, and neck. Oh, and I think his "hands" rotate. That's it. Even so, a very cool figure, made cooler by its rarity. Also not to be confused with the "modern" IG-88 variant which has a weathered deco and more points of articulation, but is smaller than the vintage version.

Although more 12" figure prototypes were designed by Kenner, the relative unpopularity of the large figures doomed the range, as it made much more sense for the manufacturer to concentrate on the smaller line and its profitable ships and playsets. The large figures were obviously too big to justify making ships etc. to scale, so the range was limited at the end to Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, Artoo, Ben, Jawa, Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Boba Fett and IG-88.