1985: Star Wars was still bringing new adventures to our screens, though they were Ewok Adventures and the screens were in our living rooms, not the local theater. It wasn’t dead yet, but after Return Of The Jedi, it seemed like the saga of a galaxy far, far away wouldn’t be continuing anytime soon.
But was it still a marketable commodity? Yes – or so Kenner hoped, as it prepared to launch its final line of Star Wars action figures. Sure, when the brand resurfaced in the 1990s, so did the Kenner name – but only as a nostalgic imprint of giant toymaker Hasbro. Kenner had tried to jump aboard the lucrative video game bandwagon in 1983 by snagging the rights to create toys based on the popular arcade game Q*Bert, but the move turned out to be ill-timed: the video game industry suffered a massive shakedown, and licensed merchandise like Kenner’s Q*Bert figures, dolls and wind-up toys were left out in the cold.
So, one last time, Kenner turned to Star Wars, hedging its bets on a toy line that didn’t focus on any specific movie, but rather on characters from all three films.
Kenner didn’t produce as many of this range of figures as it had in the past; there were already too many indications that the Star Wars craze was fading. As a result, many of the Power Of The Force figures are among the rarest of the entire original Kenner catalog: the Amanaman figure seen above was acquired in 2000, uncarded, for just under $100 (primarily by virtue of coming complete with his accessory, a staff with human skulls mounted on it; the figure itself is one of the rarest from this line). I’ve never been able to lay my hands on a single Imperial Dignitary, and as for Yak Face…short of a missile-firing Boba Fett, Yak Face – later released as one of the Hasbro figures in a new mold and paint job – may be the hardest-to-find of the original Kenner action figures. Yak Face was never released in the U.S., so be prepared to head for the border or do some overseas dealing to find him.
The complete Power Of The Force lineup is as follows, with asterisks denoting characters that have been released (though not in their original form) as more recent, easier-to-find Hasbro Star Wars figures. For pictures of the others, I highly recommend visiting the RebelScum.com vintage figures archive (linked here).
- Amanaman*
- Anakin Skywalker*
- A-Wing Pilot*
- Barada*
- EV-9D9*
- Han Solo in carbonite*
- Imperial Dignitary*
- Imperial Gunner*
- Luke Skywalker in battle poncho*
- Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper outfit*
- R2-D2 with pop-up lightsaber*
- Romba
- Warok
- Yak Face*
Trying to repurpose both the new figures and remaining stock of older characters as collectibles, Kenner also repackaged many older figures as Power Of The Force figures, and packaged both new and old characters with metal coins bearing that character’s likeness.
As 1985 wound down, Kenner made preparations to tie off its series of toys based on the original Star Wars films. Flagging sales weren’t enough to justify the expense of design and manufacturing, though it is known that several characters were sculpted as prototypes but not produced at all, including the rotund female dancer from Jabba’s palace, and a hulking robot called Atha Prime which didn’t come from either the movies or the TV specials. (These wouldn’t have been the first non-film characters planned, though – a single set of prototypes was made for the family of Wookiee characters seen in 1978’s Holiday Special; Kenner was also working on numerous other original characters not seen in any of the other Star Wars media.)
In 1986, as Lucasfilm launched two animated TV series – Ewoks and Droids – Kenner came along for the ride again one last time.