Queen Poppy of Naboo

I’m doing something a little different for this post.  I’m sure many of you, like me, have enjoyed the Star Wars movies over the years.

I’ve always been fascinated by the costumes of the character Padmé Amidala (played by Natalie Portman) from the prequel trilogy. I always thought she looked so far out…a strange blending of sci fi and Eastern fashion. Kind of like Tibetan fashion meets Flash Gordon!

I periodically peruse Ebay for a nice doll or action figure of Padmé. Unfortunately, I’ve not found any of high quality.  I was recently again searching for the perfect Padmé doll and noticed the 12 inch Hasbro line of Padmé dolls with a new eye. I’ve seen them before and ignored them. While the costumes seem nice, the dolls are just plain ugly. As you can see, the dolls have faces that only a Mother could love!

But this time, looking at the Hasbro Padmé dolls, I got an idea.  As I explained last time, I’ve been picking up Poppy Parker dolls to use in my dioramas. I wondered if maybe Poppy would look good in the Hasbro costumes? Like Queen Poppy…Queen Poppy of Naboo?!

The rest of the world seems to agree with my general sense of the Hasbro Padmé dolls, because they can be gotten for around 10 bucks each, plus $8 shipping. It’s pretty bad (from a collector’s standpoint that is!) when the item costs the same as shipping. So, for less than half the price of an average Poppy Parker doll, I picked up all six of the Hasbro Padmé dolls!

As soon as they arrived, I carefully removed the costumes. The dolls have found a new home in the local landfill. The costumes themselves were surprisingly nice. The plastic parts look a little cheap, but the fabric parts are quite good. The outfits are higher quality than the average Barbie outfit, but definitely below the typical Integrity Toys outfit.

And so, I did my little experiment with the help of Barefoot in the Park Poppy Parker:

I chose this Poppy because of her great 1960s curly hairdo, thinking it would fit nicely with Padmé’s cool, and often far out, hair styles.

Even thought this isn’t a usual diorama, it’s still part of blog continuity as Our Story So Far reveals…

Poppy got a call from her old accomplice, Madame H, who wants to recruit her for a top secret mission. After the call, Poppy felt tired and went to sleep. She had strange dreams of being a Queen on distant planets. It all felt quite familiar to Poppy, who is quite at home with outlandish and exotic fashions…

So please, Enjoy Queen Poppy of Naboo! (with some music if you wish too)