Ive looked at the work of the Britains company before on the blog, but never examined one of their more relevant products until now. Back in 1981, with Star Wars fever riding high, sci-fi and space toys were having a quiet renaissance. Transformer toys and a lot of japanese import toys were on the shelves and tv series such as Battle of the Planets and Ulysses 31 were prime time for kids.
Naturally toy companies wanted a piece of the action and lots of products were introduced with a space theme. Britains had been making toy soldiers and die cast vehicles for decades and were prominantly placed to establish a great new toy into the market. So began a subtle invasion of new, good quality space toys. Something which had been sadly lacking in the waves of Palitoy and Kenner Star Wars toys which tended to be big, flimsy and oddly disfigured in order to accomodate the 3 " action figures. Britains capitalised on their quality of construction and experience, sticking to a tried and tested formula, they brought in a range of spacemen at the standard 1/72 scale that had been used for soldiers, cowboys, knights and farm labourers for years
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Stargards and Aliens took the familiar and simple idea of opposing forces - goodies and baddies - simply and strikingly colour coded in bright yellow and lurid green. The majority of the toys were tough plastic, but some main elements were even stronger die-cast metal. The beauty of the line was that each part was interchangeable and almost all the parts could connect in one way or another thanks to a series of cylindrical connectors, one at about 10 mm diameter and a second sub connector of 3 mm or so.
The first wave consisted of a Space Craft, looking more like a submersible, with a self righting cockpit that doubled as a wheel, a laser cannon and a space platform. This was quickly followed by a rather neat space buggy and the seriously impressive Alien Saucer, plasma cannons and grab arms.
The series ran for a good four years or so, adding new elements to the series in later years, re-using parts in a new white/red and blue/white colour scheme. New vehicles included the enterprise like Winged Raider and the Orbital Raider with large blue wheels. The series also gained a pair of large vac-formed space bases that the parts could attach to.
With the addition of the new white livery, the series became 'Star System' rather than just plain old 'Space' and the figures gained flashy new orange suits. Oddly enough, although the astronauts in the line did include visibly female characters, they were only ever seen inside the protective confines of the cockpits, their shapely tapered legs always moulded in seated positions.
One of the final additions to the line in 1985 were two toys which were completly mismatched with the rest of the line apart from the sci-fi theme. The Muteron and Cybertron were both scaled smaller than the standard figures and although each toy was interchangeable, it was only with its own parts. The Muteron set featured a large carnosaur which looked like a mutated dinosaur crossed with Britains Zoo. Sat on its back was a huge green fly with Muteron riding its neck. Also included was a small caterpillar with spring loaded head. Cybertron rode a space platform with jointed legs and scorpion tail. Various accessories could be swapped about on the vehicle, but again none of the parts fitted properly with the rest of the system and the seated robot rider looked significantly childlike next to the standard Stargard figure. Perhaps these were intended as a secondary breakaway line or were retooled parts of a separate toy, but they petered out after a short release and were never expanded upon.
Star system in all its various colours is always available on ebay and is worth investing in as the build quality of the toys and the basic design is very impressive. Plus the fact that the small soldier like figures are always great for a quick session of carpet wars with a handy Dinky Ufo Interceptor!
