Is Lil Ani new?

Pretty sure that it might be the same figure as the TVC TPM wave (Padawan Anakin).

Nice to finally see Merumeru!  The rumors during SDCC & CE2 were cool, but finally seeing the figure is believing!  And it looks like Hasbro has stepped up their sculpting on this particular Wookiee.  And seeing how good it looks on the card, I'm hoping that Hasbro will get around to revisiting Tarfful at some point, too.  The ROTS version of him was weak in comparison.

Very cool as trailers go.  I'm glad to see that Loki is still in the mix.  In the movies thus far, the relationship between Thor and Loki has helped both characters immensely.  And I think Alan Taylor was a good choice for a director this time around.  Kenneth Branaugh did a good job with establishing the characters in the first film.  But Taylor's experience on Game of Thrones has shown that he can work well in an immersive fantasy type of genre and give it a sense of realism that sucks in the audience.

But the question remains:  will the audience buy "Chuck" as the new Fandral? 

I get the sense that perhaps I was still in the halcyon daze of the Avengers line, where the distribution of hero figures was actually somewhat reasonable (except for that one silly Reactron armor Iron Man), and that the Avengers model might serve as a lesson going forward for Hasbro.

But then I snapped out of it.

From what I understand, the convention center in Anaheim is very close to Disneyland.  That seems very likely to have been a significant factor in steering the location of Celebration 7.  As locations go, I know that there have been a lot of comments from fans who would like to see a Star Wars Celebration in their region.  But with Disney in charge now I can see the methodology in keeping Celebration close to one of the theme parks.

As for the timing?  It's actually in line with the timing of the first three Star Wars Celebrations, which were all scheduled just a few weeks before the release of each of the Prequel Trilogy movies.  It may not be ideal to get away for families during the school year.  But I can recall seeing plenty of families in attendance at both Celebration 2 and Celebration 3.  If people really want to go, they're going to go.

I hope that Reed is going to stay on as the promoter.  I like how they've built up New York Comic Con, although I didn't get a chance to attend the Star Wars Celebrations that they promoted.  And I think they probably did a far better job than the promoters who did Celebration 2, 3 and 4.

Mermuru is in that case assortment

According to VolkerC, who has had a pretty good track record.  But did Hasbro show an image of Merumeru at the CE2 panel?  Or did the display case get updated?

It's an interesting mix of a wave, although the absence of core characters is a bit of a head scratcher.  I guess Hasbro's approach is changing.  Plagueis is definitely a cool concept.  And Neyo seems to be a step forward as far as phase II Clones go.

I definitely like Vizam.  Although that figure appears to essentially be a resculpt of the Nikto from the POTF2 skiff guards cinema scene.  That figure did need updating, so this is fine by me.  For my tastes, if Hasbro is going to work their way through resculpting the older goons from Jabba's palace, I'd like to see them alternate those releases with new characters.  I agree that a new Yakface would be in order.  The POTF2 version is weak in comparison with modern figures.  But please don't do things like that at the expense of getting new figures out.

Definitely surprised that we haven't seen some figures like the A-Wing pilot and the realistic Captain Rex.  Maybe the Hasbro panel will shed some light there?

I think that's just marketing.  Keep things fresh and different to keep eyes looking.  I understand the thought.  It's not all about the collectors obsession with it but rather the buying public at large.

+1

Packaging changes are really about *SEEMINGLY*  keeping things fresh with the public.  And a superficial thing like a packaging change will do that.  We all walk down the toy aisle and after a while we become used to seeing certain things.  But when new packaging gets introduced it can catch the eye of a potential customer and get them wondering "Hmmm, what's this now?"