I know, I know. You're wondering why I'd post a picture of an old and tattered looking Kenner R2-D2 figure. Well, joke's on you! It's not what it appears to be.
The large fellow is actually a nearly seven-inch tall version of R2 that's modeled directly on the original 2-inch Kenner version. It's made by a company called Lili Ledy, which held the license to make Star Wars figures in Mexico.
This is one of my favorite Star Wars toys. It's just so weird! It's literally a four-up version of the R2 figure we know and love. From the sculpt to the chrome head to the sticker, it gets all the details correct -- just... bigger. The line between genius and madness is straddled by a large, plastic toy robot.
The large Lili Ledy R2 is pretty uncommon, and it's often found in... "played with"... condition. I've seen three for sale since I bought mine, and all looked even worse for wear. Maybe kids in Mexico were rougher on their toys or something.
Lili Ledy also made a standard size R2 action figure, and on a superficial level it looks pretty much exactly like the Kenner action figure. The small R2 featured in these photos is actually a Kenner toy. In fact, it's the very first Star Wars figure I bought when I got back into the hobby about three years ago.
Here's the Lili Ledy R2 next to a Kenner large R2 figure. Significantly different!
6 comments:
Brilliant post! I love these Lily Ledy figures and this R2 is incredible. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
I always thought the Lily Ledy looked like something in a store window that'd be used to advertise SW figures. You know, like a giant pair of glasses at the eye doctor's, or a giant baseball at a sporting goods store or something.
It's grown to be one of my favorite toys -- really just a fun, weird, awesome R2.
Wow this is totally new to me - super cool!
When I first began collecting SW, I had no idea Lily Ledy made licensed toys. I knew about the company already -- they do a great Lost In Space robot that can talk in Spanish (!) -- but that's pretty much all I knew them for.
Their standard size action figures look pretty much like the Kenner figures, so I assumed the larger dolls (I hate that term, but whatever...) would be the same as the Kenner ones, too. Boy was I wrong!
The Kenner R2 is one of my all-time favorite Star Wars toys. I just love the little guy. So when I found out there was a giant one... Man, I was all over it!
I had no idea if it'd work once it was scaled up, though. Some toys really fall apart when they're made bigger... The detail looks too thin. But I was thrilled to discover that, yep, R2 translates just fine when he's city-stomping size!
Is it wrong to want the standard size Lily Ledy R2, also? Even though it's essentially identical to the Kenner? I kind of like the synergy of having them both...
Does this mean I'm ready for a toy intervention? Ha ha.
You know I am sitting here thinking of how we make toys for foreign license holders and strip our logos from them, sort of like we are being their factory and they get the credit, they have to have the license still, but I am wondering if this was the relationship between kenner and Lily Ledy on their figures that were similar. And then wonderful items like this R2 are a result of Lil Ledy working with another factory to produce larger scale figures off the Kenner ones.
Fun post!
Haha and the word verification is scuummur, a little Rebel Scum humor there.
Uncanny! I knew of Lily Ledy, but not about this...
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