Weekly Review: Droid Factory

[LusiferSam]

Rounding out the 1979 and Star Wars line is the Droid Factory. The Droid Factory was 56 pieces (if I counted right) of building fun. An endless number of different droids could be made with this set, a long with a special three legged R2-D2. The blueprints showed how to make 5 (?) droids to you to started with and left the rest to you. The other main featured is a crane to aid the Jawas in droid assemble. The base can be used to the store the droid parts in. Released in 1979 and was available until the end of 1980. For the 1980 release the box's art work got rework in addition to the ESB logo.

Palitoy released a completely different version of this toy. The base was vac formed in either blue or yellow plastic. And although it has a similar ramp, it lacks the crane and where the individual parts are stored is different. In place of the crane Palitoy added a conveyor belt. I believe there few fewer parts as well (if someone could correct me).

Let's be honest the Droid Factory wouldn't enjoys half the glory it gets if it won't for the three legged R2. Without him this would be a pretty ho hum playset. Most of the droids that can be made are pretty lame looking in my opinion. It might have been cooler is the Droid Factory fit in or came with the sandcrawler. Over all I don't have a lot of good things to say about it other than the R2 figure.

[vader121]

I thought it was a pretty cool toy. It allowed you to make your own droids. The actual platform was lame in that it almost only served as a place to store the parts. The ramp and side control panel were ok but there wasn't a whole lot to do with those features. How about those pegs that were used to connect the pieces? Way too easy to lose.

The R2 was definitely the best feature of the playset but it was pretty weak in that it wasn't very strong standing up. Also it was even thinner than the action figure which made it look like R2 after the 'Grapefruit diet' (remember that?).

[Kidhuman]

I wanted this set badly but never got it.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

This was a cool one, and my friends' parents were quite strict about NOT letting the pieces get lost, so theirs stayed in decent shape. I kinda liked the small-character-could-sit-in-it droid body with AT-AT type legs. The set could be used as a carbon freeze chamber scene if you took out the droids.

[Ji'dai]

I don't remember playing with this playset that often. Once I built R2 a few times and messed around building the other droids it went under the bed where it collected quite a layer of dust. The little connector pegs were difficult to keep track of and were most likely destined to get sucked up by the vaccuum.

The base for this set was later re-released in gray for a Return of the Jedi playset: "Jabba's Dungeon," or something to that effect. I think it was a catalog exclusive and included some pack-in figures. I also have that version too.