Mighty Jabba's Collection

I stumbled upon this game in Toys R Us a while ago, having never heard of it before. I was of course delighted to see that it included a little Jabba figure and bought it right away. I finally got a chance to try it out with my son a few days ago. It comes with 15 Star Wars-themed objects like the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader, R2-D2 and of course Jabba the Hutt.

The idea behind the game is that you roll the objects out on the table like dice and then compare how they fall to the pictures on the card you draw (each card shows 4 objects in various orientations). If you see one that matches, you grab the light saber token of that color. If you see 3, you grab the “3” token and if you see none you grab the “0” (there’s an optional rule that lets you grab two sabers if you see two items, but generally there is no option for just two — presumably to make it more likely for multiple players to score during any given turn). You get points for grabbing correctly, and that’s pretty much the whole game.

It might not sound like much, but it can get kind of heated trying to quickly decide which of the objects match the cards. You don’t want to grab too quickly, since if you’re wrong you’ll lose a point. I could see it growing a bit contentious if you had two or three kids playing.

There’s also an optional “combo call-outs” rule where you check if certain pairs of objects land face up. If they do, the first person to say a particular quote from the movies gets to collect those objects. This was a fun addition, but my son and I found that certain objects would never ever land face up (we even tried tossing them over and over just to see if it would ever happen). Maybe ours are a little deformed or something, but that detracted from the experience a tad. Overall, it’s a fun game to play if you have kids, although I can see it getting old quickly.

I first saw one of these displays on eBay a year or two ago, but the one up for auction was almost totally destroyed and the seller wanted a lot for it, so I passed. But I did look into it at the time and found that it was apparently used during the release of Return of the Jedi on VHS, which would match the 1986 copyright date found on it. My hunch is that the display was geared more toward video stores. VHS versions of movies were quite expensive just after their release, so the number of people actually buying them for themselves would probably be relatively small.

The display is made of cardboard and comes in several pieces. There’s the imperial shuttle, which is completely flat if viewed from the front, and the centerpiece with the ROTJ movie artwork on it, which attaches to the bottom through various slots and tabs. Then there are three hangers: Jabba the Hutt, a Gamorrean Guard and Salacious Crumb. These attach to the corners of the triangular centerpiece, but I’m not sure if there’s a particular place each character was supposed to go. So naturally, I put Jabba in front.

The artwork used for the hanging characters looks kind of familiar, but it might just be because it’s based on the usual publicity stills. Jabba is a bit wrinkled, unfortunately.

These displays are relatively hard to find — especially in good condition — but they aren’t nearly as valuable as the displays that were used for the vintage toys. Those can go for thousands in some cases, but this is closer to the $75-$100 range, depending on condition. That makes it a nice display piece for someone who wants a vintage-looking display but may not want to sink such a large amount into it.

I did a study abroad program in England for a few months in 1992-1993, and I distinctly remember that they had Data East’s Star Wars pinball machine in the student union, right next to the pool table. While I wasn’t a collector back then (and barely had enough money to eat) I was still a Star Wars fan, so the lights and sounds of the machine attracted me right away. From time to time, I managed to scrounge some coins so I could play it, and remember it being quite a bit of fun. There’s something about the physical nature of pinball that’s hard to replicate with a video game. I don’t have this machine or any pinball machine for that matter, but when I saw just the “Jabba’s Bounty” part pop up on eBay, I thought it might be nice to have. (The photos here of the pinball machine itself are just for your reference and are provided courtesy of Videogame Obsession. You can also view more info about the machine on the Internet Pinball Machine Database.)

The part can be seen above.  Here’s a video of some gameplay (I’ve linked directly to a shot of the Jabba’s Bounty part, but the rest is worth looking at as well.)

The part itself is basically a piece of clear acrylic that covers the artwork (note that they apparently left the apostrophe out of “Jabba’s” for some reason). It’s got a picture of Jabba and his palace, as well as the twin moons of Tatooine. In the center is a light and behind it is actually just a piece of wood.

Kind of low-tech looking in a way, isn’t it? Anyway, while I can’t have the actual machine and I’m not sure I’ll ever get a chance to play it again, it’s nice to have a piece of it at least.

This steel box is not exactly a lunch box, but could certainly be used as one, although it wouldn’t fit a thermos. Despite being made by The Tin Box Co., it is made of steel, and seems pretty sturdy. I’ve had metal boxes in the past that would deform with very little effort, but this seems like it would stand up to some use. On the front (the lid) there’s an embossed design of Jabba, while the back has the same design but without the embossing. (The font they used must have confused the eBay seller I got this from, as they listed it as “Jabba the Futt.” :)) On the side, they put his tattoo design.

While it might have been nice to have this be a proper lunchbox, since those are a collectible genre all their own, this is an excellent metal box. The colors are very vibrant and I like the embossed metal lid.

Speaking of Christmas, Target was recently selling a set of 25 fillable Star Wars ornaments. They’re fairly large, sort of capsule-shaped and made of metal. They open up, allowing you to put something small inside, so you can use them as an advent calendar of sorts. They’re even numbered from 1-25 on their backs. (Above you can also see the “At Jabba’s Mercy” Hallmark ornament from last year.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about these until they were sold out at my store. Target doesn’t sell them online, so getting them would mean paying scalper’s prices on eBay. I decided to just buy the three Jabba’s Palace-related ones: Jabba, the Rancor and Boba Fett. But I like them well enough that I’m seriously considering getting the full set if I can find a good price. Here’s another shot of the Jabba one on its own. It’s really quite good looking.