Spider Droid No Match For Kid

Following the theme from my previous post, I have another vehicle to add to the toddler-disabled list: the Homing Spider Droid. According to the official background, this droid has formidable weapon that can disable other vehicles as well as scythe through enemy troops. However, its principle weakness is its legs that support the central ball unit. If it loses one, it falls to the ground completely disabled.

The Hasbro version has a similar weakness. The legs are inserted into pegs that are fairly firm. But, when I came home from work today, I saw its whole right side missing. The top and bottom turret weapons and the canopy were also missing (once again the canopy...). I'm surprised the upper cylinders of each leg have not fallen off or been removed yet.

The good this is that the pieces can be reassembled pretty easily. The trick is finding them all again!

"Don't worry. She'll hold together!"

I have to hand it Kenner and now Hasbro, Star Wars toys are very durable. I'm fortunate that my parents saved all my Star Wars toys from when I was a kid. We're talking the original 1977 figures here. They also saved my old G. I. Joe toys as well. I've passed them on to my son now and have found my old Joe toys have fallen apart. The rubber band that holds the torso to the waist have dry rotted.

The Star Wars figures, on the other hand, are still in great shape! The vehicles are in a bit of worse shape. Part of it must be due to hard play when I was a kid, part of it due to storage & moving over the years. My old Millennium Falcon is missing the rear panel, the cockpit cover, and most of the accessories like the floor panels. My landspeeder has the top rear engine broken off. Still, my son still loves playing with them.

So now to the point of this post. I've found that some Star Wars vehicles are more hardy to kid play (especially toddler play) than others. We haven't bought too many of these, but here are a few observations...

Probably the worst toy for little kids is the Trade Federation Armored Assault Tank (AAT). There are a bunch of pieces that don't attach well. There is a central piece with attachments for the sides of the front curve of the tank, the turret, and side cannons. The main cannon is also loosely attached to the main turret. My three year-old had played with it for only a few minutes when one of the side pieces came off. It easily reattached, but over time all the pieces came off again. Your only option here is super glue the parts, which can work for everything except the turret unless you don't mind it not rotating.

The best vehicle I've found so far is the new V-19 Torrent Starfighter. The two main wings attach very firmly and the center wing is pretty well seated. The two engine attachments are the weakest parts, which I might end up super-gluing. The cannons fire, so I am hesitant to super glue and thus ruin them. The good news is that after two days of play by my son, the cannons are still attached.

The weakest part of any Star Wars vehicle is the entry point for the figure, such as a starfighter canopy. I don't think there is anything you can do about that with super glue since the piece acts as the hinge as well. The Torrent canopy is a little difficult in that when it clicks closed it takes a little dexterity and effort (more than a toddler can manage) to get it open without pulling the whole thing off. Still it is an extremely well put together little toy (to paraphrase Capt. Panaka from TPM). Oh, and it is not actually little. The wingspan is two feet long!

Midnight Madness at Toys'R'Us

My son and I went to the Toys'R'Us midnight madness sale for the launch of the new Clone Wars product line. Fifteen members of the 501st were there and my little guy was both excited and nervous. There were clone troopers, stormtroopers, Boba & Jango Fett, Padme, a Jawa, and even a "lifesize" Chewbacca (he must have been on half-stilts). He was fascinated, but too scared to get close to him. He was content just waving to him. However, this morning (*late* this morning) when he woke up, he asked to see, "Chihuahua Chewbacca". I guess he liked him after all!

Here we are meeting Boba Fett!

For the record (and to help me remember), this is what we got last night:

Vehicles for Figures
Spider Droid, V-19 Torrent Starfighter
Titanium Vehicles (small die-cast)
AT-TP, ARC-190 Starfighter, Gunship
Clone Ware Figures
Anakin, Obi-Wan, Capt. Rex, Battle Droid
Stuff for Collecting (a.k.a. for Dad)
1st Day Capt. Rex, 1st Day R2-D2, Holographic Gen. Grevious.

My Introduction

I grew up with the original trilogy. I still vividly remember going to Burger King to collect stickers for the Empire Strikes Back book. You had to get four squares to form a picture of the movie - the asteroid escape, the Imperial walker attack, etc. I of course also had the Star Wars figures and am very thankful that parents held on to them for all these years.

I am now a proud father of the best little boy in the world (of course I am biased). I feel like I am having a second childhood - especially when it comes to Star Wars. This time last year (July 2007) I bought a Star Wars toy for the first time since the early 1980s. It was a Tie Fighter, similar to the one I played with incessantly as a kid myself. A year later and my son still plays with it!

His favorite Star Wars character also proved to be one of his first words - Boba Fett. When he saw the iconic T-shaped helmet in one of my Star Wars magazines, he pointed to it and said, "Boh-bah, Boh-bah!" I was so amazed, especially since he was my favorite character too as a kid.

We were cleaning up his toys tonight and he came across my old Lando figure. Now we know how slick Lando is (or he thinks he is), but do you know how my son remembers him? He grabs his own throat and makes a face - imitating the scene where Chewbacca is choking Lando while he tries to say,"Han! There is still time to save Han!" While I'm not thrilled about him pretending to choke and had to correct him on that, I was laughing inside about the first thing he thinks of as the ladies man of Star Wars!

The purpose of this blog is to share my experiences as being a Star Wars fan and raising a son who also happens to love Star Wars too. Please feel free to leave comments!