Maximillian Bricks has triggered my nostalgia in a big way with these recreations of the Kenner Star Wars Mini-rigs. A little backstory, for those of you unfamiliar with the Mini-rigs: Star Wars was famously a merchandising juggernaut from the very beginning. But, once upon a time, before the internet and on-demand movies – heck, even before wide-spread physical media for your home – people buying up Star Wars merchandise weren’t obsessed with screen accuracy. It was enough that the toys just looked vaguely like something that might have been on screen. The toy company Kenner needed to fill the shelves with certain price points, and so they developed a line of smaller vehicles that never appeared in the movies.

These vehicles, being smaller and more affordable, filled toy boxes nationwide. And, for some of us, they’re key to our nostalgia of playing Star Wars at the time, even though they never appeared in the media. Maximillian’s brilliant recreations take me back to the days of burying Luke Skywalker in my sandbox, back when I didn’t worry about the fact that his lightsaber accessory was yellow and when WalrusMan was the most dangerous villain in the galaxy (because I didn’t have a Darth Vader figure).