Where Kenner’s “Star Wars Collection” Failed Cloud City
In the late seventies and early eighties Kenner’s “Star Wars Collection” of toys was a financial success that kept me — and many others of my generation — happy and entertained for hours and hours that we could never truly track. Action figures, creatures, vehicles, and even playsets all worked together perfectly to activate our imaginations and let us create our own new scenarios set in the Star Wars universe. The line was, looking back at it, possibly the greatest toy series ever created.
But there was one glaring flaw with the collection during the years between the release of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a flaw that to this day eats at some collectors and leaves some of us asking “What if?” when we review the old line and look at everything Kenner offered. That flaw is, as you’ve likely guessed, was the lack of any widespread release of a playset for the Cloud City environment.
Hoth Gets all the Love
Checking the Empire playsets list at kennerarchive.com we find a total of seven playsets released by Kenner for The Empire Strikes Back, four of which are Hoth playsets. Now to be fair two of those four are cardboard and plastic playsets that use an identical base (which is a reuse of the Land of the Jawas playset), and one of those two Hoth playsets was a Sears exclusive, but that still leaves us with two completely new Hoth playsets created by Kenner and released to stores.
Cloud City had zero playsets released to stores.
Kenner’s “Cloud City Playset”
The only playset that Kenner released for Cloud City was the Sears exclusive Cloud City Playset. Made of cardboard, the playset included four action figures and was also released in Canada with figures different from those in the Sears release. It’s actually a fairly cool papercraft design and you can find photos and information on the playset at theswca.com, 12back.com, and kennerarchive.com.
Why Did Kenner Ignore Cloud City
Looking back at all of their toy offerings based on The Empire Strikes Back I can think of two reasons why Kenner only released one cardboard playset for Cloud City.
- Hoth is a more exciting environment. When we watch Empire we see that while Cloud City has some important scenes in the film, Hoth has a lot more toy-friendly activity. Monsters, vehicles, and even a spooky droid all cover the Hoth landscape and the only full-scale battle sequence in the film takes place on Hoth. From a “this would be easy” point of view Hoth clearly beats Cloud Cityin the potential for toys department.
- It has been speculated that Kenner’s release of the “Micro Collection,” which included the Bespin World playset (see theswca.com), was partly responsible for the lack of a full-scale plastic playset for the 3.75-inch scale action figures. This sounds totally believable to me and, while unfortunate, did give the “Micro Collection” something special that kids couldn’t really get with the standard series.
Playsets That Would Have Been Great
If we watch The Empire Strikes Back we can see that there aren’t a lot of exciting playset options (as I mentioned, Hoth is friendlier to toy designers), but I can think of three different playsets that would have been quite cool to own in the early eighties.
- Carbon Freezing Chamber – The cardboard playset that Kenner did release featured this stage, but just imagine how much fun we would have had with a big freezing chamber playset made of plastic complete with elevator to lower figures into the chamber. Hasbro did eventually make a Carbon-Freezing Chamber playset in 2001 (see rebelscum.com) but that doesn’t magically transport it back to my childhood.
- Gantry/Control Room – Kenner constructed both of these areas for their “Micro Collection” series — Bespin Gantry at theswca.com, Bespin Control Room at theswca.com— and in my opinion if they had scaled the designs up to work with 3.75-inch scale figures this would have made an incredible playset. Don’t fall!
- Landing Pad – The final playset I wanted as a child for Cloud City play was that landing pad where the Millennium Falcon rests at Cloud City. Something that size would have needed to be cardboard — the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier playset came a few years after Empire was in theaters so it hadn’t set the standard for “big ass playset” yet — but having a playset to dock Cloud Cars, Slave 1, and the Millennium Falcon on would have made me one happy kid.
But We Can’t Relive the Past
While it’s fun to dream, the harsh fact is Kenner never created the playsets that I wanted and they never will. Sure there may be new Star Wars playsets based on Cloud City in the future — though playsets seem to be a dying breed these days so it’s unlikely — but nothing produced now or in the future will give the early eighties me that toy. Just one missed opportunity for the Kenner “Star Wars Collection” of toys . . . not that they suffered when it came to parting little me from my allowance.
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I had that cardboard set for Cloud City and while it wasn’t a molded plastic piece, it was still pretty cool. Perhaps even a little more fun since you got to put it together. Unfortunately, it didn’t weather well with time.
You’d think Kenner (and now Hasbro) would have been all over the first real “futuristic” city depicted in the films–one that floats among the clouds to boot!
@Jay – That’s the big danger with cardboard. I’ve seen some sites with the flat images scaled to print and build your own. Makes me want to design a cardboard playset of my own!
Hmm, I need to put that last “Control Room” one back up at my work. I took it down when I had to move desks, but I think I appreciate it more now than when I was a kid!
Nice article Phil! I used to love those Micro SW toys soo much.
OH! and hey never complimented you on the redesign…great job!
huh, wasn’t there a Cloud City ‘cloud Car’ released? i thought it wasn’t just in the newer releases. Could be wrong though…
Nice write up. I’m a HUGE fan of card board playlets. I don’t know why we don’t see more of them these days with the costs of plastics on the rise.
I was super happy when Hasbro released their Carbon Freezing Chamber cause the vintage line never got that love.
Interesting retrospective on the subject, Phillip. I hadn’t really considered that playsets are a dying breed of toy until you mentioned it. The only ones I can really think of off hand are the new TMNT sewer-set, a JAKKS Wrestling ring, and those Transformer Cyberverse vehicles-that-are-sort-of-play-sets.
I’m actually in the midst of building 1:18 scale cross-section dioramas ( http://bit.ly/RKnUxv ), in part because I had so much fun with that scale as a kid. To me, GI Joe and Star Wars vehicles and playsets were interchangable, and that really added to the imaginative potential of the stories I could tell as I played.
Perhaps it’s a side effect of what was discussed in your article on the downsizing of toys compared to those of yesteryear – parents just aren’t willing to drop large amounts of money on something that takes up alot of space, believing all the immersive play kids need can be accomplished with a $30 video game. 🙁
My younger brother (whose now i his early 20’s) was part of the generation who largely ignored toys (being too young for most 80’s brands, even at yardsale), and found himself engaged strictly with videogames from an early age, as did all his friends. While this is strictly from personal observation, I think a lack of imaginative toys – like playsets, and action figures – really hindered his creativity as a child, and later on as an adult.
So – maybe playsets are more important to our childhood selves than we typically imagine. 🙂
Wow, I used to look at the micro bespin world set in catalogs and stores. It did look cool. I lived in Canada for a bit and had the legendary cardboard deathstar. That playset still beats the plastic ones since they tend to be gimmicks stuck to slabs of plastic more than looking properly like the movie. It was only complete with the millennium falcon incorporated for scenarios and an x-wing strafing the turret. Yeah nothing close to that was made for bespin for sure.
@googum – As a kid I only had a few “Micro Collection” toys — I wish I still had that TIE Fighter that I got for my birthday in 1982 — and these days I keep looking at the line more and more. Too bad it never really succeeded.
@drrampageo – Thanks. Site redesign isn’t quite finished. Close, but still some tweaks being made.
@Ralph – There was a Cloud Car, ten figures, one Mini-Rig with Cloud City-inspired packaging . . . I sense another article is needed.
@Bill Murphy – I’m also a bit amazed we don’t see cardboard playsets much these days. At least Gentle Giant is releasing a scaled up version of the old cardboard Cantina for their vintage series.
@Blayne – Thank you. And the new TMNT line actually has two playsets — the newest catalog included with the figures shows a new pizza box playset — so someone at Playmates is really pushing hard to follow the old eighties/nineties toy playbook.
Good luck with that zombie display. Looks like it should be pretty cool once you get everything finished.
And yeah, the death of playsets would probably make for a fun article all on its own. (Well, maybe not “fun” since losing playsets kinds sucks.)
@Openchallenge – I never even knew about that cardboard Death Star until just a few years ago. Awesome design and I wish Hasbro would rework it and bring it out today for kids to have fun with.
@Phillip Reed: With this article in mind, I was walking through Walmart’s toy department today, and noticed that there are indeed ‘playsets’ – however, they’re all for the Rescue Heroes / Playskool lines. In my mind, it’s kids who are a bit older than that who benefit from immersive play that playsets provide.
I’d certainly look forward to any article about playsets – it’s be an interesting angle to take viewing the “decline of the playset” – but to also explore the different archetypes of playset (carboard, MOTU Hinge-types, transforming, etc.), and your views on some memorable ones. It wouldn’t need to be all doom/gloom – but an interesting look back at some lesser known lines, along with ones people might recognize from their own childhoods (or presently from their mancaves).
@Phil the cardboard deathstar is to this day a top five toy for me. It’s tough to beat a $20 toy that includes two storm troopers, delivers U.S.S. Flagg play value and folds flat. It was structurally pretty sturdy. The design follows the plot well. Features like a small corridor to Lea’s cell and the chute to the compactor are nicely in place. It’s brilliant. If anyone prints some copy me. 🙂
@Blayne – Also last year there were Imaginext playsets and even a playset for the Power Attack Batman line. There’s more playsets than it looks, but as you pointed out the playsets seem to be aimed at younger kids.
I’ll think about some ideas for more playset-related articles. Thanks for the encouragement!
@Openchallenge – Now you have me thinking about how cool a cardboard aircraft carrier would be in the G.I. Joe line. It’s too bad the toy companies abandoned the idea of exclusive cardboard playsets to drive action figure sales.
@Blayne and Phil, Hasbro has said in several Q&As over the years (Rebelscum used to do round-ups of several sites) that they are “out of the playset business” when it comes to the 3 3/4″ figure lines.
Fans kept asking when they’d re-release the Death Star playset or a make droid factory for the build-a-figure droid packs. Year after year they just kept saying “no” because their “research doesn’t support older kid play patterns with playsets” so some other nonsense.
What they have done is work some accessories or playset elements into figure packs or vehicles (i.e., the moisuture vaporator that came with Tatooine Luke or the Cantina bar that came with patron alien figs). Or, more recently, they’ve turned larger vehicles into playsets (the Millenium Falcon, for instance).
You’re correct about the kiddie sets though–those are fair game. They consider that a different demographic with different play styles though. It’s too bad, Kenner released some of the best playsets ever made–for which Hasbro now owns all the old molds.