{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "As you might know by now, RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) was the first Star Wars film I saw, and promotional materials like the ones...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/181938605613/", "html": "

talesfromweirdland:

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As you might know by now, RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) was the first Star Wars film I saw, and promotional materials like the ones featured here\u2014in fact, exactly these\u2014were my first exposure to its active marketing machine.

I remember my brother and I sending in our suggestions for the unfinished comic below (image 2), where you had to say what happens next.\u00a0Never heard anything back of course. An early lesson in how to cope with disappointment.

Since the Internet, the way we experience\u2014or rather, interact with\u2014movies and music has changed drastically, and irreversibly. When I grew up, ads and competitions like these, a few chance magazine stills, and maybe a comic were all you had; and the figures of course. But you couldn\u2019t instantly watch a trailer and watch it again and again, you couldn\u2019t look up the actors anywhere, read interviews with them (see their tweets or Instagram photos), or quickly gauge what other people or critics were saying about a film\u2014or own the DVD or even VHS. Movies were mysterious, they were kings passing through a village: first a few scattered rumors, then a herald, then suddenly the king in all his glory and splendor, and then it was all over and all you could do was talk excitedly about those strange sights and colors you had never seen before.

We ordered several mail-away figures. Admiral Ackbar, Nien Nunb, Boba Fett, the Emperor. They arrived in a thin white box, the sparsest yet most exciting box in the world. I still remember the smell of a new figure: it was an intoxicating, promising smell, a kind of drug. To obtain mail-away figures, you had to cut out the names on the action figure cardbacks you owned\u2014\u201dproofs of purchase\u201d\u2014and send them in. Ackbar and Nunb cost you 5 names, Chewbacca\u2019s bandolier was 12, the Darth Vader case was 20.\u00a0The story of Kenner and Star Wars is one of sheer marketing brilliance really.

The power of these figures, creatures and vehicles wasn\u2019t just that they were exciting toys, they were also souvenirs of something greater, something magical and unique\u2014something that, much like your childhood, was all over before you knew it.

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