Luke Skywalker: X-Wing Pilot
But I can only remember opening one of them: Luke Skywalker, X-Wing Pilot. I don’t recall which store my Mom bought it from. Maybe Toys R Us, probably Pay ‘n Save. There were other figures on the pegboard, of course. I remember thinking long and hard about getting a second stormtrooper. But the picture of Luke climbing up the ladder to his X-wing’s cockpit was just too wonderful.
I didn’t have an X-wing, so this would be the next best thing.
Years later, I would do the same thing with the AT-ST driver, purchasing it because we couldn’t afford the actual vehicle.
I wasn’t allowed to break Luke out of his blister pack until we got home. Surely, I would lose the blaster pistol in the backseat of our gray, solid steel Chevy. I ripped the bubble off and freed the pilot from his commercial prison. I promptly lost the blaster pistol in our thick, rust-colored carpet.
My mom reminded me not to lose the blaster pistol because she didn’t want to suck it up in the vacuum.
I found it again and then lost it permanently a couple of hours later.
As I stared at the action figure, something began to trouble me. I thought I was getting a Luke Skywalker action figure, but on closer inspection, this figure had black hair hanging down from underneath its helmet. You have to understand the hairstyles of the 1980’s to appreciate how feasible this was in a child’s mind.
I told my Mom that they must have just put Luke on the picture, but that this was just a plain rebel pilot guy. She told she didn’t think it was hair, just Luke’s visor.
“But Luke’s visor is yellow in the movie.”
“It says Luke Skywalker, X-Wing Pilot on the package.”
“Maybe they put the wrong toy in the package. Luke doesn’t have black hair. Probably this is Wedge because Biggs has a mustache.”
But I wasn’t upset.
It took a lot of men to fight the Empire. And my other Luke in his “snow clothes” could still fly a pretend X-wing as he had before that trip to the Pay ‘n Save. Only now he had a wingman. I would fold the legs and make them both sit down on the coffee table inside invisible X-Wings, chasing down my TIE Fighter Pilot as he raced away in his own invisible starship to warn Darth Vader that the rebels were here!
I didn’t mind it, though. I could see the whole battle with perfect clarity in my mind.
This is what Nick Cole and I mean when we say Galaxy's Edge is just playing with our action figures in the back yard.
A LONG, LONG TIME FROM NOW, AT THE EDGE OF THE GALAXY…PRISMA MAYDOON HAS COME TO THE FRONTIER STAR PORT AT ACKABAR WITH HER FAITHFUL SERVANT KRS-88 TO EMPLOY A BOUNTY HUNTER AND OBTAIN JUSTICE FOR HER MURDERED FAMILY.
MEANWHILE, REPUBLICAN LEGIONNAIRES HAVE ARRIVED TO DESTROY A SECRET HIDEOUT OF THE GOMARII SLAVERS AND ESTABLISH THE IRON FIST OF RULE BY REPUBLIC LAW OVER THIS FRONTIER STAR PORT.
ARRIVING BY FREIGHTER, PRISMA FINDS A FULL SCALE EVACUATION IN PROGRESS…
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