\n Like many men of his age,\u00a0Matt Fox’s fascination with Star Wars began the moment he first saw the 1977 classic as a young boy.\n<\/p>\n
\n But unlike most, he has continued collecting toys and ephemera from the much-loved sci-fi franchise.\n<\/p>\n
\n That enormous collection now forms the basis for a special exhibition,\u00a0May The Toys Be With You, which\u00a0opens at Lynn Museum on Tuesday, July 15, and runs until May 31 next year.\n<\/p>\n
\n Part of the Star Wars exhibition at Lynn Museum (Image: Chris Bishop)\n <\/p>\n
\n Teacher Mr Fox, 52, from Canterbury in Kent,\u00a0said: “There are 250 exhibits, but I’ve probably got five times that many back stage as it were.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I saw the first film when I was five and that kicked off what’s been a lifelong interest.\n<\/p>\n
\n “On the way home, we stopped off at a toy shop and I asked mum mum to buy me a Star Wars figure, it was Darth Vader.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Some of the figures in the exhibition (Image: Chris Bishop) The figure’s packaging showed all the others you could collect in that first series.\u00a0 So Mr Fox did just that.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some bought for \u00a31.50 almost 50 years ago are worth thousands today if mint and still in their original packaging.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Fox declined to reveal what his collection is now worth, adding it was “six figures”.\n<\/p>\n
\n Matt Fox with some of the posters in the exhibition (Image: Chris Bishop) As well as the toys, the exhibition also includes original posters and artwork.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n “They’re amazing because they were all produced before there was Photoshop,” said Mr Fox. “They had to paint them all by hand.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Fox’s collection spans the so-called first trilogy of blockbusters Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).\n<\/p>\n
\n Part of the Star Wars exhibition at Lynn Museum (Image: Chris Bishop) Critics hailed the movies, with their previously-unseen special effects, as some of the most important of all times.\n<\/p>\n
\n They centred on the war between the Rebel Alliance and the tyrannical Galactic Empire, blowing audiences away with their special effects which were ground-breaking at the time.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Star Wars exhibition’s logo (Image: Chris Bishop)\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1977, the first\u00a0Star\u00a0Wars\u00a0film broke box office records.\u00a0Star\u00a0Wars\u00a0toys became the must-have playthings for an entire generation, with an estimated 300m action figures sold between 1977 and 1985.\n<\/p>\n
\n One industry analyst reckons while the movies have grossed $10bn, the merchandise has brought in more than three times that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many men of his age,\u00a0Matt Fox’s fascination with Star Wars began the moment he first saw the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-258909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114840258873354085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}