This '90s Star Wars toy is a working 35mm film camera that enables you to hang with Jar Jar Binks and co from The Phantom Menace

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The Star Wars: Episode I Picture Plus Image is one of the strangest point-and-shoot film cameras I've ever seen

GIF of person handling Star Wars: Episode 1 Picture Plus Image film camera
The Star Wars: Episode 1 Picture Plus Image is far from the weirdest Phantom Menace merch. Remember those lollipops modelled to look like Jar Jar's tongue!? (Image credit: @bluemooncamera)

I’m a child of the Nineties, which means I won’t hear a bad word said about the Star Wars prequels. So you can imagine my glee when I happened upon an Instagram Reel from the excellent Blue Moon Camera, which had come across a sealed Star Wars: Episode I Picture Plus Image 35mm Point and Shoot Film Camera by Tiger Electronics.

Star Wars nerds – like myself – will instantly recognize that the camera is modeled after the electrobinoculars that the battle droid commander, OOM-9, is seen using at the beginning of the climactic Battle for Naboo in Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. But that’s not the only nod to the films.

Six individual characters can be cycled through and overlaid onto the image. This means you can take a photo next to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala, Darth Maul, Anakin Skywalker or Jar Jar Binks.

A post shared by Blue Moon Camera and Machine (@bluemooncamera)

A photo posted by on

Blue Moon Camera's Reel illustrates how this toy prioritizes the Star Wars subject matter over usability. The rewind mechanism and advancement wheel are on the bottom of the camera, and you have to flip up a rather cumbersome viewfinder mirror to use the viewfinder on the back of the camera. The Picture Plus Image features a flash, fixed aperture and fixed shutter, so it’s a true point-and-shoot camera.

The entire front portion of the electrobinoculars opens up, so you can load in your 35mm film. Make sure you check out the Reel (above) to find out how the characters are superimposed onto each image and to see the photographs this thing takes with a roll of Kodak Gold Ultra 400.

Few franchises (if any) can boast more crazy merch than Star Wars, so it should come as no surprise that you’ll find other Star Wars cameras throughout the galaxy, such as the Mandalorian Polaroid Now and a rather neat Star Wars Instax camera.

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Mike Harris
Mike Harris
How To Editor

Mike is Digital Camera World's How To Editor. He has over a decade of experience, writing for some of the biggest specialist publications including Digital Camera, Digital Photographer and PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine. Prior to DCW, Mike was Deputy Editor of N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine and Production Editor at Wex Photo Video, where he sharpened his skills in both the stills and videography spheres. While he's an avid motorsport photographer, his skills extend to every genre of photography – making him one of Digital Camera World's top tutors for techniques on cameras, lenses, tripods, filters and other imaging equipment – as well as sharing his expertise on shooting everything from portraits and landscapes to abstracts and architecture to wildlife and, yes, fast things going around race tracks...

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