What if Kenner's Classic Star Wars Toys Kept Going?
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Two years after Star Wars (as we then knew it) came to an end with the release of Return of the Jedi, Star Wars merchandise seemingly followed. In 1985, as sales declined, Kenner closed out its Star Wars action figure line after seven years—but Star Wars nearly lived on in what could’ve been the earliest glimpses of an expanded universe we wouldn’t see flourish until the early ‘90s.
The Epic Continues
As potential to mine further figures and toys from Star Wars dwindled—even as Marvel kept carrying on its own version of Star Wars’ post-Return of the Jedi continuity in the comics—Kenner made one last hail mary to extend its line of action figures beyond its plans for 1985. That idea formed around The Epic Continues, a presentation made by Kenner designers to Lucasfilm that would’ve created a brand new Star Wars story to build new figures and playsets around, carrying the line over into 1986, and potentially beyond. Scans of a presentation booklet used to sell the idea are all that remains of what could’ve been.
Enter Atha Prime
The Epic Continues would’ve introduced a major new antagonist to the galaxy far, far away in the form of Atha Prime. Inspired by concept art from The Return of the Jedi by Nilo Rodis-Jamero for the Emperor’s Royal Guards, Atha Prime was an ancient evil somehow unleashed from exile on the fringes of the galaxy after Palpatine’s death. The actual master behind the Clone War, Atha Prime was meant to launch a new assault on the remnants of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance alike.
Although Prime never made it to Star Wars continuity, his form did, of a sort. The concept made its way into Dark Empire as the design of the returned Emperor’s Imperial Sentinels—and a similar design and even idea for the character was turned into the Separatist genetic terrorist Zeta Magnus, a Clone Wars-era villain who in the eventual Expanded Universe would be responsible for the virus that caused the legendary Katana Fleet to descend into madness and vanish.
Return of the Clone Wars
Of course, as the architect of the Clone Wars—at that point still largely unseen and discussed in Star Wars continuity—Atha Prime would’ve been joined by a whole new army of Clone Warriors. Seen in concept art with red shoulder-cloaks, a gas-mask-esque helmet, and upgraded armor, the Clone Warrior was meant to be the new Stormtrooper of The Epic Continues... in part due to the waning strength of the Empire itself.
Tarkin’s Imperial Remnant
Just as with the Expanded Universe and now even current Star Wars continuity, the Empire was planned to be a major player in Kenner’s plans for a post-ROTJ galaxy, just very much diminished compared to the threat of Atha Prime. Kenner intended them to have a surprising figurehead too: not a returned Emperor Palpatine, but a returned Grand Moff Tarkin, who had apparently mysteriously survived the destruction of the first Death Star, and bided his time in secret until he could take control of the remaining Imperial military forces and re-establish the Empire.
Tarkin was the rare major character Kenner had not actually made into a figure yet—intending to correct that oversight, in The Epic Continues presentation he is simply represented by a still of Peter Cushing from A New Hope.
Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight
Atha Prime’s return warranted a call-to arms of the galaxy’s greatest heroes—and none other than Luke Skywalker himself would’ve been fit to lead the Rebels against him. In Kenner’s mind, Luke was now officially a fully-fledged Jedi Knight after the events of Return of the Jedi, and concept art gave him the look to match: a glowing red lightsaber and golden metallic padded armor.
Heroes of the Rebellion
Luke would’ve been backed up by Han Solo—presented in concept art with a garish, almost piratical costume—as well as new allies from Luke’s homeworld of Tatooine: the Mongo Beefheads (yes, really), a nearly extinct tribe of aliens who had joined the Rebel Alliance. The bizarrely named creatures looked similarly bizarre, too—an early prototype figure including in the presentation used a robed humanoid body with the arms of Kenner’s Hammerhead figure, and the head of its Squidhead figure—flipped so its back was actually the neck of the Beefhead, so the tentacles emerged at the top.
A Double Decker Star Destroyer
Kenner didn’t just want new action figures, it wanted new vehicles to sell them with as well. Atha Prime’s forces would’ve been stationed around the Annihilator, a massive, city-sized capital ship that was, essentially, two Star Destroyers sandwiched on top of each other—decades and decades before we got the more horizontally-positioned double Star Destroyer in Star Wars Visions. It’s more likely that this never would’ve become an actual toy, but Kenner did have separate toy plans for a personal ship for Atha Prime: the Apex Invader, a smaller ship that slotted into the top of the Annihilator’s primary bridge.
Imperial Attack Droids
Not much is shown in the presentation for Tarkin’s remnant, outside of concept art for new ships or Kenner’s attempts to finally make toys it hadn’t gotten around to yet, like a TIE Bomber (an action figure-scaled Bomber wouldn’t become part of the Star Wars toy line until 2002!). But one interesting tidbit glimpsed in the presentation is an Imperial reliance on attack droids for its forces—represented with mashups of prior Kenner figures, kitbashing arms and torsos and weapons from across droid figures from the whole line to create new foot soldiers.
Re-Use and Rejuvenation
This sort of prototyping is seen throughout The Epic Continues presentation’s physical models. Many ideas were pitched as a way to either re-use older figures and toys as repaints, or modify them in some way to keep Star Wars’ design language intact. Intriguing vehicles in the presentation include a Rebel Sandspeeder, with a Tatooine-appropriate color scheme and more weapons, and an Imperial ATIC—a modified AT-AT Walker with the back half of its body carved out to make way for a massive ion cannon battery, itself lifted from Kenner’s Death Star playset.
The Legacy of The Epic Continues
The Epic Continues never made it past this presentation point, however—conflicting stories say either Lucasfilm approved the idea only for Kenner’s upper management to wind down the Star Wars line anyway based on market research showing declining interest in the series, or that Lucasfilm just wasn’t quite ready to take steps in solidifying a new Star Wars continuation at the time. Either way, The Epic Continues was over before it started, and with it, Kenner’s Star Wars toy line came to an end in 1985.
And yet, its legacy did live on in some ways. Just years later in the ‘90s, the Expanded Universe began with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, and with it, a new era of Star Wars storytelling that would pay homage to the concept work done for The Epic Continues in various ways, from West End Games’ Star Wars tabletop roleplaying game, to illustrations made for Star Wars Galaxy magazine. Of course, Star Wars toys themselves would make a comeback too—a decade after The Epic Continues would’ve began, Kenner, now owned by Hasbro, restarted its Star Wars toy line with a revived Power of the Force wave of figures, paving the way for a revival that would go into overdrive a few years later with the debut of the Phantom Menace toys. Along the way, the aforementioned Imperial Sentinels that borrowed from the same design roots Epic Continues’ Atha Prime did got made into action figures by Kenner, a funny twist of fate!
But while so much of The Epic Continues’ legacy is rooted in Star Wars’ past, not all of its inspirations are quite so old. Those weird Mongo Beefhead mashups? They made a blink-and-you’ll miss it cameo in the pages of 2021's Darth Vader #18 as an unidentified alien species—finally canonized after 35 years of waiting in the shadows.
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