From the first time I saw the Star Wars Micro Machines, I wanted them, and have collected most of the licensed sci-fi sets they have released since. Galoob did a wonderful job sculpting these tiny toys.

Star Wars

Star Wars has been the most prolific of the Micro Machines licenses. Galoob did not stop with just making ship collections, but went on to make a whole line of playsets and micro figures based on the original trilogy and the first prequel movie. Also unlike the other collections, the Star Wars license has gone beyond the movies to include a few sets based on some of the Star Wars novels. I've managed to not only pick up all the ship collections, but also all the figures and playsets.

The pride of my Star Wars collection, however, is a self-built Tie Defender (a fighter ship only seen in the LucasArts Tie Fighter game, though it is mentioned in at least one Star Wars technical guide). I built it using two Tie Interceptors, the wing struts from a Babylon 5 starfury, and the back piece of a Babylon 5 station. With a little modification with an exacto knife and some glue and paint, it turned out much better than I thought it would. In fact, I've built two of them... one sits above my computer at work, while the original (shown in the pictures below) is in my home collection.

Babylon 5

Six sets of three vehicles each were made for the Babylon 5 television series. The final two sets were almost impossible to find, but I managed to order them direct through Galoob before they ran out. They did a nice job with these, but I would have loved to see either a micro Earth cruiser "Agamemnon", or a Shadow ship. Unfortunately, Galoob never produced more than the six sets... for more on this, I've added a couple of usenet posts from the creater of Babylon 5:

        This kills me...and I've heard it before...because
        when we went on the air, some places didn't want to
        carry our stuff (like the micromachines) because it
        wasn't like Star Trek and only Star Trek sells...and
        now they are reluctant to carry us because they think
        we're like Star Trek and Star Trek DOESN'T sell
        anymore....

        Some days you just can't win.
                                                   - jms


        The problem, as I heard it, was that the stores simply
        wouldn't put them out. They'd sit in the back room
        because the owner didn't know what B5 was, and didn't want
        to take up the shelf space. The nets are full of tales of
        people who were told there were no B5 micros, then after
        having the back room checked, found 'em...bought 'em...but
        the rest never hit the shelves, just sat back there until
        they could be sent back.

        Meanwhile, Galoob was being deluged with phone orders for
        the things. They ran out fast, then as the store sets
        started to come back, were able to fill orders of stuff
        that had been out of stock before.

        On the other hand...these are the sorts of stories you tell
        years later at conventions...like when Mark Hammil sat for
        3 hours at a comics convention and nobody talked to him
        because no one had yet heard anything about this "Star
        Wars" movie....
                                                   - jms

Star Trek

Galoob created 16 sets of 3 ships each, as well as a few special ships you can only find in their big boxed collections. The ships range from the original series, Next Gen, the movies, and even DS9 and Voyager. I have managed to collect all the ships they have put out.

There is actually one other ship, which I managed to find at an auction website (ebay.com). When Galoob first put out a multiple ship gift set with the USS Excelcier (from the third ST movie), it was marked with the designation "NX-2000" rather than the later "NCC-2000." Only a few of these were actually made, though. They do appear from time to time at the auction website under the name "The Error Set."

Unfortunately, like the Bab5 sets, Galoob discontinued the Star Trek license.

Other SciFi and Fantasy Micro Machines

Galoob also produced micro machines based around several other sci-fi or fantasy series, including Aliens, Predator, Terminator, Starship Troopers, Men In Black, and the Indiana Jones Trilogy. I've managed to pick up most of these sets... in particular, the Aliens sets have some very nice versions of some of the ships from the movies, and the Men In Black sets include amusing versions of the movie characters holding wacky alien guns.

Macross 7

Not actually Galoob Micro Machines, these Japanese toys consist of three sets of mini Macross 7 Valkeries. Now if we could just get someone to do some of the other Macross ships like this!