Saturday, October 4, 2008

Radar Laser Cannon (ESB)



One of the few small accessories to actually have screen time was the Radar Laser Cannon. You would have seen it with the Rebesl during the Hoth battle. You’ll notice it was absolutely ineffective against the AT-ATs, yet Kenner tried to get you to buy it!

The Cannon looked pretty similar to the movie version, and a button on the back of it caused it to “explode” when pressed. This feature was always nice when you were staging a toy battle, or for frustrating a sibling who had it. It came in both an ESB and ROTJ box. It also came with the Hoth Ice Planet Adventure Playset, which featured a cardboard AT-AT background and a white-molded base reused from the Land of the Jawas set.

Why should you own this accessory? Five reasons:

1. It’s a big gun – get it already.

2. The Hoth Rebel Soldiers need something to sit around and look busy at.

3. You know, it does have treads on the bottom, so you can pretend it’s a mini tank.

4. It’s small. It’s cheap. It goes anywhere!

5. One of the few things that can fit on your cubicle at work.

Backstory:

The Radar Laser Cannon was based on the 1.4 FD P-Tower Laser Cannon. Manufactured by Atgar SpaceDefense Corporation, it was capable of taking out an AT-ST in one shot. An AT-AT, however, not so much. It did not have little tank treads like the toy does.

It could shoot about 2-10 kilometers, but wore down its batteries after 8 shots if not hooked up to a generator. It was also sometimes tricky, because if just one of its 16 routers went out, the whole thing was useless.

Want more? Its Wookieepedia article

126th in alphabetical order

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