In 1995, the much anticipated return of Star Wars toys and action figures had arrived as Kenner, now a division of Hasbro, released a new collection they would dub the Power of the Force 2 (The original Power of the Force was released in 1985 with special collector's coins). It had been 12 years since the release of Return of the Jedi and 10 years since the last collection of Star Wars toys had been on store shelves. The new line featured brand new packaging and improved sculpts from their predecessors. With the rerelease of the Star Wars Special Editions in 1997, George Lucas' timeless myth had come full circle and reintroduced itself to a new generation of fans and collectors.
The line was first introduced with a red lightsaber on the card in 1995. In 1997, with the release of the Special Editions, the card and saber color was changed to green. A special holofoil sticker was also included to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Star Wars. Since then, Hasbro/Kenner has included various add ons to its packaging. The Freeze Frame slides featured a cel slide of a particular movie scene the character was in. These slides themselves were considered collector's items and Kenner produced both a viewer (modeled after Luke's binoculars in ANH) and a binder to hold the slides. The Flashback cards released in late 1998 were a "prelude" to the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace. The Flashback cards featured a picture of the character in the Classic Trilogy. When a tab is pulled, a picture of a "related" character from the new prequel appears.
With the advent of the Commtech technology introduced in the new Episode I toyline, the POTF2 line also adopted the commtech chips in 1999. Now these new figures can recite the classic lines we have all come to know from the films. |
