Although not entirely surprising with the rumblings we've been hearing lately, it is another strange move with the Hasbro Star Wars line in a series of weird things over the past few years.  Admittedly, a lot of this may not be Hasbro's fault at all.  With the 3D releases moving around, the whole Disney thing, along with the sales/distribution problems of 2012, something probably had to give.

I guess in a way, the break is alright with me as well.  I'm going to do my best to have the discipline to just save that money up for when things do start hitting (or for something else) and not just spend it on other collecting areas (LEGO I'm looking at you), although there may be a bit of that too.

I wonder how much Hasbro even knew about the possibility of more movies too far prior to the Disney announcement.  They've often said it takes a couple years from start to finish to make a figure, and at this point there isn't even a cast for the next movie.  Once stuff like that starts getting confirmed, I would guess that Hasbro will have to be dedicating most to all of their resources for the new movie stuff.  I think it was sort of that way going into the prequels even, prior to AOTC we had a scaled back (especially compared to today's standards) POTJ line, and prior to ROTS we basically had the OTC and post-OTC lines (and the first round of VOTC), which - aside from VOTC - was very largely repacks.  Like it was mentioned, I wonder if they'll coast on a largely "greatest hits" style line for the back half of this year and next.

Either way, it seems to be a very quiet year, or at least first half, for SW this year.  I guess the Vintage re-release (or really, first release at retail for much of it) is a good thing for those who are still looking.  I would think that many (most?) of us had already settled and got what we wanted online (or via the recent sales).  I may buy an extra figure here or there, but otherwise I'm largely satisfied with what I picked up this year.  Which is fine, because it would be good for me to save the money - even if it is for the future movie lines .

With this news today, I had to go back and double check what all figures were announced for Droid Factory.  After checking them I was sort of "ok, no biggie" with what we'd be missing.  Sure, there are several that I'd buy and was looking forward to, but at the same time it wasn't anything I was too upset about losing (for now) either.  A lot of that comes from the majority of them being resculpts (or resculpts of resculpts) - and I'm a fan of updating figures in general - but so much of it was stuff we already had pretty decent versions of already (although I was looking forward to Yavin Luke and Biggs as well).

We haven't picked up the Shelob set yet (but hope to soon), but my daughter and I have been going through the LEGO site and looking at the various sets and videos.  In the LOTR section, if you watch the video for the Shelob set, the designer explains that the wheels were put on there because they found that when kids were playing with that set, they tended to just "shove" Shelob flat to the ground (instead of up on the legs), and they thought they would add those wheels on for when kids would slide her back and forth, instead of having constant scraping.  Anyways, that's what the video said, so maybe that helps to explain it.

I'm hoping to be able to pick some of these sets up sometime soon.  We got some of the Hobbit sets for Christmas, and those are great as well, but I'd really like to dig into more of the LOTR ones (we just have the Gandalf arrives set).  Despite only seeing the "good guy" parts of the LOTR movies, and the trailer for the Hobbit (no Orcs/Goblins for our little one), our daughter has been obsessed with all things Middle Earth lately, and the LEGOs have really taken the top spot as far as that stuff goes.  Hope to pick up the Shelob set this weekend if we can find it (a lot of our stores are pretty bare for LEGO stuff since Christmas), and if I had the money, it would be nice to get the Mines of Moria set.

Also got the Hobbithole set for Christmas, looking forward to putting that together.  Like Jesse mentioned, I'd really like to get some of the LOTR sets.  I'm debating whether to put some gift cards towards one of those sets or the Jabba's Palace one.

I saw those today as well.  From what I've read about them, it is some sort of interchangeable line where you can mix and match parts or something like that.  From those pics, it appears they are quite underarticulated and don't look all that great.  Like you said, trash.  Oh well, it makes it easier to save money though, and I hope that they come out with at least a few in "Legends" form like the Avengers and Spidey lines at WM this year.  I know there is supposed to be an Iron Man Legends type line of 6" figures, but I'm not sure of the details (comic or movie based - or both, store exclusive or retail wide?).  These figures though...eek.

Kind of a neat video if you have the time to watch it, the building of a basically life size Hobbit house:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/12/21/life-size-lego-hobbit-house

Man, it looks like it would be cool to work for LEGO .

Our TRU has sold through this stuff pretty well since the movie release, at least for what little they have on hand.  The basic figures are all Bilbos at our store, then they have some of the deluxe two packs with Gandalf/Bolg.  They have sold out of the Goblin King packs, as well as the role play Sting sword.  Oh, and they also had a couple of the five packs last time I was there.

I really wish we could see a line of these for Lord of the Rings (specifically the 3 3/4" stuff).  The figures really are well done, and I'd love to at least be able to pick up the Fellowship in this scale.  Hopefully Bridge Direct gets that license eventually too, although I haven't heard anything about it.

I wasn't sure if I wanted it or not, but when the Helicarrier recently got down to $34 on Amazon, I went ahead and placed an order.  $40 or below was about the line I had drawn in my head for what I would pay for that, and $34 with free shipping seemed ok.  Not sure if I have anywhere for it to go right now, but thought that was a decent price.