star wars "saga"

[jjreason]

Must be that more recent battle pack I was thinking of - for some reason I thought we had been promised at Rebel Tech earlier but that b&w photo doesn't twig me. All good anyhow as mine is on the shelf - I may still shop for a couple of old battlepacks & hope to find them cheap, that Yavin one would be included as I'd like the astro droid.

[jjreason]

Found this link, which I felt was a bit pertinent even though we discussed this ages ago:

http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/speci ... susmodern/

[Sleazer]

Funny how they won't give any recognition to the crapy CGI Snootles figure.

[Ran]

I was bored so I was checking out SW websites and saw the Q&A results. They are going to put electronics into 3.75" figures? I could see it working for droids (especially of the bi-pedal medical variety), Vader's chest, and maybe a Jawa. But light-up light sabres for Jedi? I remember the POTF2 versions. I never bought any, but didn't their hands looked huge because of the wiring and the way it was molded to the handle of the sword?

Oh, and I did a Ross/TJ Maxx run this weekend. Saw they had Force Battlers. How many times does that line have to fail before they quit trying?

[Ran]

Is new stuff hitting the shelves? My wife called me from Walmart to tell me there was a bunch of SW things out. I have the things I wanted up to the Rebel Fleet Trooper and Bom Vimdin.

[Ran]

Went by Walmart to see what it was. There was a new display out for the DVD release. It stuff from ceremonial Han/R5-D4/Death Star Escape Luke to the new ROTS Yoda.

We hit TRU also. The guy was putting out the Darth Vader TIE/Luke X-Wing set. The box for that set was huge.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I was bored so I was checking out SW websites and saw the Q&A results. They are going to put electronics into 3.75" figures? I could see it working for droids (especially of the bi-pedal medical variety), Vader's chest, and maybe a Jawa. But light-up light sabres for Jedi? I remember the POTF2 versions. I never bought any, but didn't their hands looked huge because of the wiring and the way it was molded to the handle of the sword?

Hopefully the new electronics will look better than the ones from the past. Lego had some light-up lightsabers a few years back, so clearly it can be done in a much smaller way than what they did for POTF2. They'll reveal more at New York Comic Con in a few weeks but it seems that, apart from the TPM figures in the Vintage Collection, there will be another TPM movie line, and that's where the light-up stuff will be. So the good aesthetics will be in TVC, and the play features will be in the movie line. Though I really hope having the same characters out at the same time in two separate lines won't sabotage sales as it has been lately . . . I'm curious to see if their choices match up or are separate.

As for what's hitting in Vintage, the final waves for the year are hitting now. There are only three truly new figures in the bunch - Rebel Soldier (Echo Base Battle Gear), Ponda Baba (Walrus Man), and Bastila Shan (from Knights of the Old Republic). That's wave 9. Wave 8 is a bunch of repacks on both Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Jedi cards (all the figures should be on both, with the Revenge ones being rarer). Presumably the black Rebel Commando from the SDCC set will be out single-carded but I haven't heard anything yet, so that's another newish figure (it doesn't have any new parts, just a new configuration).

[anarky]

Wait, the electronics are going to be in the WM-only TPM wave? How's that going to work? Aside from a droid, I don't remember anyone being in that wave who would lend himself (or herself--can't forget the Fett-ishistic hard-on for Aurra Sing) to electronics.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Wait, the electronics are going to be in the WM-only TPM wave? How's that going to work? Aside from a droid, I don't remember anyone being in that wave who would lend himself (or herself--can't forget the Fett-ishistic hard-on for Aurra Sing) to electronics.

Nope, though there's a lot of understandable confusion here. (I'm going back to re-edit this post after listening to Derryl DePriest on the Forcecast clear up some of this.)

There are three confirmed lines for next year - The Vintage Collection, The Clone Wars, and Movie Heroes.

TCW will continue on as it has been for the last few years.

During the TPM 3-D re-release, both TVC and Movie Heroes will focus on TPM before then branching out into the rest of the saga.

Movie Heroes is taking the place of Saga Legends in the way that it will feature main characters from all the films. It will feature newly tooled figures as well as repacks, all of which are more kid-focused but would still appeal to collectors to one degree or another. There will be electronics in some of the figures here, including light-up lightsabers. He said the aesthetics are great but there were compromises in articulation to get them to work. Movie Heroes will feature the Darth Maul packaging. (I don't know what TCW will look like, not that it matters to most of you anyway.)

The apparent wave of Walmart-exclusive figures Hasbro revealed at Comic Con includes Mawhonic, Aurra Sing, Naboo Pilot, Ric Olié, Gungan Warrior, and G8-R3. Hasbro sent out a list of mainline TVC numbering which includes all but Ric and G8-R3, and has noted that those other figures were originally supposed to be released in TVC this year but were pushed back to next year. It seems that those figures - Mawhonic, Aurra Sing, Naboo Pilot, and Gungan Warrior - will still be released in TVC packaging at all retailers, but at some point after the exclusive wave has had its run. Ric Olié and G8-R3 seem to be completely exclusive to Walmart. Whether or not there is any difference to the figures themselves, or their accessories, remains to be unseen. It seems like these will be on Movie Heroes cards at Walmart, but I am not sure.

The original version of this post was much longer and more confusing, so thank the maker for the Forcecast.

[anarky]

I don't understand it.

Revenge of the Sith Nute Gunray made at least five of the "top ten" lists being sent to Hasbro for the Fan's Choice poll. And he topped at least one list.

One of the biggest pegwarmers of all time... with a new fucking hat. And a Neimoidian, never a recipe for success (unless they'd get the sense to release Tey How, who at least looks different).

If fans are going to overwhelmingly say to Hasbro they want figures that are proven non-sellers, why don't we just circulate a letter, signed by everyone who ever collected, that says, "Yeah, we don't want these Star Wars guys very much anymore"?

[Ran]

They were doing another poll? Did the fans mostly pick EU/video game characters?

[anarky]

Very little EU, surprisingly.

Another site's top ten (I'm being too lazy to remove the extra numbers that were sorta pointless):
Cliegg Lars 14 7.0714285714 99
Sim Aloo 13 6.4615384615 84
Jocasta Nu 8 8.375 67
Toryn Farr 9 6.3333333333 57
Nute Gunray (ROTS) 6 8.8333333333 53
Guri 7 6.2857142857 44
Tey How 8 4.625 37
Noghri 5 7 35
Captain / Admiral Piett 5 6.8 34
Cane Adiss

I was mistaken; Cliegg won this one (I misremembered it being Nute). Piett is another WTF figure. He was probably the biggest human male pegwarmer who never kept a Rancor.

I'd buy everyone here except Nute and Piett, who would have to be damned impressive figures to sway me to re-buy them at $10.

[Ran]

Those extra numbers sparked my interest to find out what they were. The "winner" had 14 votes and the poll had 42 voters? That's pretty sad. Is Cane Adiss even possible? I didn't think it was a complete body in the movie, and would be too big to fit on a regular figure package.

I looked up RS's poll to see what they had, and to compare the number of voters. All I could find was their top 10, which was mostly OT. (FU PT & EU!) They had Piett, Sim Aloo, and Toryn Farr on their list too. Yes, I would probably buy Piett.

If I read correctly, Hasbro is going to take all the fan site vote results and do another poll?

[jjreason]

They let the few of us at Snowtroopers have a vote too - here are our results for what it's worth:

1. Mosep Bineed
2. Sgt. Doallyn
3. Torryn Farr
4. Fozec
5. Splinter of the Mind's Eye Leia
6. SA Cantina Band Member
7. Cane Adiss
8. Holiday Special Ackmeena
9. Nikto (a la vintage)
10. Nien Nunb

It's weird how certain ideas gather steam at certain websites - I haven't looked but really can't imagine Splinter of the Mind's Eye would have garnered too many votes across the webs. I'm proud of us for not having too big a prequel or EU presence though.

[Ran]

I saw a Vader, Ackbar, and Luke with "Revenge" of the Jedi on the card at KMart.