I thought it'd be fun to take some pictures of my Star Wars collection so I could share with everyone here on SykoGrafix. I thought wrong. It was a massive effort to complete this article. Digging out parts of my collection and taking decent pictures of it all took a very long time. But, even though I've had most of this stuff for several years, I found a few surprises that I thought were pretty funny. And it's a fairly complete look at all the Star-swag I've gathered, so it's great for my own posterity if no one else's. My collection isn't anywhere close to being the biggest or the most impressive on display, but I'm proud of it and happy to show it to you now.

We'll start with some Micro Machines, as that was the first Star Wars merchandise I went out of my way to collect. Of course, when this stuff first came out, it was pretty much the only Star Wars stuff you could easily find on the shelves of the toy section, so I was pretty happy to see this line just as I was rekindling my interest in Star Wars.

Beside the vehicles is a picture of some very cool playsets, each based on a planet or location. They each had various gimmicks based on events that happened in the movies, like rolling logs from the Endor set and a blow-apart power generator on the Hoth set. They also came with Micro Machine vehicles and tiny little mini-figures.

Hiding behind these character heads are actually transforming playsets, which creatively unfold to reveal a location from the movies. They also came with vehicles and mini figures. Gimmicks aside, they look pretty cool just like this. I don't have all of them, though. I know there was a Royal Guard, Luke in X-Wing pilot gear, and some Episode 1 based transforming playsets as well. I think there were ones based on the Alien and Predator movies too.

The ultimate transforming playset was the Millennium Falcon. Much larger and more expensive than the others, it can split it half to reveal two scenarios; the Falcon's interior (complete with game board so you can let the Wookie win) on one half, and a secret Rebel base with starfighter docking bay on the other.

So in collecting these playsets I amassed quite a few of the included mini-figures. Plus, there were also packs of mini-figures available to build your armies, like Rebel Pilots, Imperial Officers, Jawas, Storm Troopers, Sand People, and so on. I got a lot. It'd have taken too long to have stood them all up to take a picture, so I just made a little pile and took a shot of that instead. See which characters you can find!

Some carded micro stuff. I have no idea why I have them, or why they're not opened like the rest of this stuff, but here they are anyway.

The Action Fleet line, while being a spin-off from Micro Machines, was a little different. They're larger vehicles that came with slightly articulated figures not much taller than an inch. The vehicles had moving parts and were more detailed, and the figures were more or less in scale with them and could fit inside. They're sort of like the halfway point between Micro Machines and action figures. A pretty decent alternative to buying the larger vehicles from the action figure line.

In addition to the vehicles, you could also get smaller packs with several figures and a smaller vehicle or accessory. Here's the Speederbikes from the Rebel set, the Swoops from the set based on "Shadows of the Empire" (with a sail barge from the Jabba the Hutt set behind them), the Dewback from the hunters set, and good ol' Jabba the Hutt himself.

Again, I got a lot of the figures. They're not so bad for such tiny little guys.

Here's some Action Fleet still in package. The large set was an Episode 1 preview that came out well before the movie and the ensuing tidal wave of merchandise. The rest are Episode 1 vehicles.

And now on to our next section, action figures!

The original vintage Kenner action figures were well before my time as a collector, so I don't really have any of those. But when new Star Wars figures were released in 1995, I was all over that and collected each new wave as quickly as I could. My buying habits have slowed down since, but I've amassed a huge collection of these guys which now inhabit much of my space.

Here are some shots from this one long shelf where most of my figures stand. For awhile I was trying to group the figures together based on what movie they come from. As the collection grew, that fell by the wayside and now I just put them wherever I can find a few inches of space on the shelf to stand them on. The first batch of '95 figures were often in weird poses and had exaggerated muscles. The Obi Wan Kenobi figure was particularly bad. One of his legs was posed in such a way that it looked like the bone was broken. He can not stand up, and thus I've always displayed him lying on the ground after getting the crap kicked out of him by Darth Vader.

I've got a lot of Jawas and Storm Troopers and stuff like that. You can see in the picture on the right that even though Lando wore a loose fitting blue shirt in The Empire Strikes Back, you can see all these crazy muscles as if it were skin tight and he'd been spending his off hours on Cloud City lifting big blocks of carbonite.

On the left you can see the exclusive "Spirit of Obi Wan" figure, which I believe could be obtained through eating lots of Fritos. Ironically, Old Ben's dead apparition can stand up much easier than the representation of him when he was alive.

More figures from the shelf, including Jabba "The Party Master Hutt" with the fine alien chicks.

On another shelf I've got this Cantina diorama set up. This was obviously offered as a way to recreate the famous scene from A New Hope, however I made things go terribly wrong. Darth Sidious is the bartender, Uncle Owen flirts with Aunt Buru as she hits the drink pretty hard, Leia in her Jabba's palace slave outfit dances atop a table for a Scout Trooper, the Jedi ghosts are hanging around, and there are droids everywhere. I've had it set up like this for years.

Now onto the figures that I've left in package.

Wow, this is a lot, and I've actually got a few extras besides these. Like most people, I foolishly believed that since the vintage figures were worth so much money in the collectors' market, naturally these newer figures would also be worth a lot some day. Except that since everybody thought this way and everybody bought extras to keep on the card, these are probably not worth very much. I'm not sure if any of these are worth anything, but I just can't bring myself to part with them. Some of them are in Canadian packaging, and others are American.

When the Special Edition movies came out in 1997, the whole line switched from the orange and red cards to these yellow and green cards. At first they had holograms, but later were packaged with film slides. By this time I wasn't going out of my way to collect them all, but I managed to save a few. On the left is an action figure carrying case that was largely inadequate for holding this line of figures. Apparently it's pretty rare though.

Shadows of the Empire was a big multimedia event for Star Wars in 1996. There was a book, a comic book series, a video game, essentially everything a Star Wars movie would have... without the movie. With that came these action figures.

At some point after the second wave of figures, the powers that be decided that the lightsabers were too long. So a running change was made and new batches of first and second wave figures were reissued with shorter lightsabers, making any figure with a long lightsaber a sought after variation. But at some point in between all that, the short lightsabers were packaged inside the plastic bubbles made for the long lightsabers, creating yet another sought after variation. I just so happen to have obtained all 3 of these variations for this figure, Luke Skywalker in X-Wing gear.

Now for some of the special ones. Peter Mayhew, the man behind the Wookie, signed this Chewbacca figure for me. Next to that is the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker figure in special packaging that was given away on opening night of the Return of the Jedi Special Edition. I'm not sure how much it's worth, but at the time it was worth quite a lot. I used to have 2 of these, until one of my cousins decided he'd help himself to one without asking. Still bitter over that. Next is the preview figure of Mace Windu, the first Episode 1 toy to be released. You had to send in receipts and proofs of purchase to obtain one. At the end is a figure based on some concept art for Darth Maul. I snapped some up when it was a really hard to find figure. Then all of a sudden it wasn't so hard to find anymore. Oh well.

The Princess Leia Collection was a series of action figure 2 packs with some fabric clothing. One of the figures in each pack was always Leia. I think it was made as an attempt at appealing to girls, but whether or not that succeeded, I do not know. Beside that is a 2 pack recreating the ending of the epic battle in The Phantom Menace, complete with a Darth Maul figure that can break in half. After that are two random Attack of the Clones figures that I have for some reason.

Here's some toys that came packaged with exclusive figures. I don't know why I have two Darth Maul vehicles and two Cantina playsets, but I do so here they are.

I don't know why I have any of this stuff either. The large electronic Darth Maul figure isn't even half as cool as it looks at first glance, so in the box it shall stay. I have no room for the Theed Hanger playset, but that couldn't stop me from buying one when it was on sale. The Jar Jar with the large firing cannon just seems like a bad idea from all angles. I wouldn't trust that guy to opperate something like that no matter how many freakin' droids are coming to kill me.

And to round out the first half, here's some random stuff I couldn't fit anywhere else. First we have these small playsets that fold to become planets. There's Endor with an Ewok on a glider, and the Death Star with Darth Vader. The top portion of Vader's helmet can come off. Next is a 12 inch Darth Vader figure, essentially a standard GI Joe body with Darth Vader clothing. After that is the Jawa from the same line, who despite the picture, is not as tall as Vader is. Last is not really a toy, but a collectible vinyl figure of Han Solo in Stormtrooper disguise.