I haven't been following this conversation all that much - but are you saying that the realistic Clone Wars figures bombed?  I seem to recall most of them doing pretty good, but the animated ones having more problems.  A lot of those hit clearance in quantity.

Just my impression really, not based on any hard data. I've looked through those 2003 offerings though and they are pretty limited, IE: not a huge # of figures, vehicles, etc. I assume if they had strong sales Hasbro would have had a more robust assortment of swag.

By contrast, I could never find the first incarnation of animated figures at retail, although admittedly I was pretty clueless about tracking stuff down back then. I had to get nearly all of them on eBay.

Really I was just sort of making the point that it seemed like they tried going down the realistic/animated route before, and for whatever reason decided to go in a different direction. (Thankfully, IMHO)

Didn't Hasbro sort of attempt that back in 2003 with the Clone Wars line? The ships were cool but I thought the character renditions were horrible. Durge in particular was a trainwreck compared to the Tartakovsky inspired version. I don't think they sold all that well either as my recollection is that this line was pretty short-lived.

It's a novel concept, but also my worst nightmare, frankly. I would definitely lose all interest in the TCW offerings if they went "realistic". I just don't think you can render animated characters well in a realistic style. It's true kids might buy them no matter what, but I think the animated style is sort of unique and holds its own offbeat appeal.

I do think you'll see the positive impact you are looking for when the live action show arrives. Those will likely inspire a whole new line in the realistic style, and likely help boost the associated realistic lines as well.

Finally snagged a nice A-Wing Pilot on Saturday night for a better than average price. The auction listing did not include the hyphen, so I think that helped. (If you search eBay on "A-Wing" it won't display listings for "A Wing" apparently)

The last few remaining figures on my want list are going to be pricey, so I'm looking at knocking out a few more of the remaining playsets first. Only 15 items total to go and I'm done.

In the latest round of Q&A, Hasbro alluded to making less of the Sport Skiff compared to the other selections in this wave, or something to that effect. Anyone else catch that?

Thanks, that makes sense...I figured it had to be something like that. For some reason I guess I imagined that the lettering and date was not part of the mold, but some kind of imprint applied after the casting process. Not the case, I see.

Interestingly, I have seen TONS of TCW Wave 3 here recently, mostly in Targets, but Wave 2 has completely disappeared. I really wanted another Hondo and Aayla for openers, but you can't find any of that wave anywhere around here anymore. I never even saw this wave hit at Walmart. I saw them first at TRU and snagged them, but they never restocked after that first case. I saw a few more at Target but they didn't last long and were definitely never in the numbers that I have seen for Wave 3.

I'm starting to wonder if those will ever trickle out again.

Oh, and like others, I have seen a recent glut of older TCW waves hit the shelves, mostly that horrid Padme assortment. I think something must have gone down at the warehouse and they had to dump those in a hurry.

I caught that too...very interesting. One would have to assume the Aurra Sing/Pre Viszla batch is Wave 1, so what happened to Wave 2? Why would they skip over that entirely to show a few random selections from a later wave? I'm not complaining or anything, it's always great to get sneak peeks, I just found that curious.

That camo clone just got released in the new GH wave, BTW...