C-3PO (SW 1978-79)

Ah, C-3PO, you shiny-plated pain in the ass. C-3PO is one of the original 12, and he came on a SW back card and an ESB card. Despite being a central figure, he was never released on a ROTJ or POTF card because by that time C-3PO with removable limbs took over.

It's hard to be enthusiastic about someone whose main "power" is translating. Sure, he's shiny, but no weapons, no commlink, no nothing. He's more of the Jar Jar Binks of the original trilogy, except he's actually useful (and less annoying).

Why should you own this figure? Five reasons:

1. How else is everyone going to figure out what the hell R2 is talking about?

2. Shiny...so shiny.

3. Decently detailed figure - even has a restraining bolt on his chest.

4. C-3PO can be used as the fall guy for everything. Oops, ran over C-3PO with my landspeeder. Oops, C-3PO just got blown out the airlock on the Falcon. Oops, C-3PO just ended up in my dog's water dish.

5. Makes a good reflector for spotter planes when your on a life raft.

Backstory:
The movies pretty much show all this. C-3PO is built by Anakin, kind of stolen from the Lars homestead, resides on Coruscant until Anakin goes bad, given to Bail Organa (adoptive father of Leia) and his memory wiped. Then he goes through all that stuff in SW, gets dismantled and put back together in ESB, and talks a bunch of teddy bears into assaulting a much more technologically advanced foe in ROTJ. In the novels he pretty much follows Han and Leia around, translating and providing Han with someone to yell at.

Interesting movie note is that although Anthony Daniels wore the costume and provided the voice for Threepio, Lucas was going to replace his voice with more of a Bronx used car salesman. he hated Daniels' voice. However, they ran out of money on the first movie and stuck with Daniels.