Figure of the Day: Day 1,464: Princess Leia Organa

PRINCESS LEIA & R2-D2
Power of the Force Princess Leia Collection
Item No.: Asst. 66935 No. 66936
Manufacturer: Kenner
Number: n/a
Includes: R2-D2 figure
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $9.99
Availability: 1998
Appearances: Star Wars

Bio: Moments before being captured by the evil Darth Vader, Princess Leia inserts secret plans for a new Imperial battle station into her loyal astromech droid, R2-D2 (Taken from the figure's packaging.)

Image: Adam Pawlus' TV area.

Commentary: As you've no doubt heard by now, in 1998 Kenner allowed their Girls' Division to work on some Star Wars product-- and we got some really wonderful things like the Princess Leia collection and the plus Buddies (Beanie Baby-alikes.) This particular Princess Leia is the only one to date to feature completely cloth garments, which allowed her to sit or be posed much more easily than any other Leia figure before or since. She has only 6 points of articulation, which was common for the time, and deco that was basically just fine. The head deco varies from figure to figure, so be sure to take a look around her eyes as the color sometimes bleeds out beyond where you might want it. Other than that, she's a better-than-average figure for the day and if they used this construction now with more articulation under the robe, it would probably be the best figure of Leia yet.

As toys go, this is the real winner even though there's very little sculpting detail to speak of. Other than her head, everything is pretty smooth, lacking in wrinkles and sporting little definition that you might come to expect from most modern action figure. This is sensible, because the cloth dress covers the body and it really doesn't matter if she's wearing nothing at all or clad in a white undershirt. Fans of good toys should look this one up, despite the sculpt being not as crisp or authentic as modern toys, because it's just such a nice artifact of the kind of experimentation going on inside Kenner in the late 1990s. Great stuff.

Collector's Notes: This set was a good seller in the time she came out, and seemed to be one of the finest sellers of the four two-packs. Like most toys from the era, it's close to worthless-- it sells for as little as $1 on eBay, which is, obviously, a good price for it.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 1,464: January 24, 2011