Liz OhanesianOne of the first things L.A. Weekly spotted at San Diego Comic-Con last summer was a tiny, limited edition MIMOBOT flash drive that looked like Darth Vader, but revealed itself to be Luke Skywalker. Like most MIMOBOT flash drives, it was cute, reminiscent of chibi anime characters. I almost had a geek attack in the booth.
Mimoco, the company behind MIMOBOT, just released a new series of Star Wars-related flash drives. This time, the characters all stem from A New Hope. Included in this run are R2-D2, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jawa and Stormtroopers Unmasked. Obi-Wan was selected by fans, beating out the TIE Fighter Pilot, Tusken Raider and Greedo options. The Stormtroopers Unmasked feature both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Below, Mimoco CEO Evan Blaustein answers a few questions about the new Star Wars flash drives.
Why bring in a Jawa for the new line of flash drives?
Jawa is one of those insta-classic characters that didn't occupy a lot of screentime from the original trilogy but made a lasting impression on a lot of Star Wars fans and us especially. Not only are they cute, cool, and mischievous, but as techno-scavengers, they fit perfectly into the MIMOBOT collection, which are equal parts designer toy and techno-storage device. Plus Jawas are endearing, and their language is cool. Uttini!
Is the Luke Stormtrooper shorter than the Han Stormtrooper?
Ha! Well, in the movies Han is taller and there is the famous line from Princess Leia to Luke wearing his uniform “Aren't you a little short for a Stromtrooper?” But we are packaging Han and Luke Stormtroopers in a blind assortment, meaning the helmet will be covering the character underneath so you won't know which character is in there until you open the box to find out, which is why the character is dubbed Stormtrooper Unmasked. So, in MIMOBOT form, both Han & Luke Stormtrooper are the same size.
The Star Wars flash drives overall have a really cute look, what inspired the artwork and design?
The inspiration behind our line comes from all over pop-culture. For instance, MIMOBOT DNA stems from comics, anime, sci-fi, to many designer toy visionaries, modern art, and technology. With a mission to bring style and soul to personal tech devices, we love technology, not only for what it can do but how it looks, so the design plays a central part in our process. And as a platform “toy”, every MIMOBOT character is based on our basic body, and we use different cap shapes to help differentiate the designs, as well as a bold, stylized graphic design treatment for the character art.
As far as Star Wars is concerned, we're fans first and foremost. It's such an expansive universe to explore and Lucasfilm has been a very supportive partner. We've had a lot of fun interpreting the 20 characters in our first five series and Lucasfilm has been great every step of the way. Our goal with the Star Wars MIMOBOT line, and all licensed product, is to stay true to the characters at hand but also bring something fresh and fun and purely MIMOBOT to the mix.
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