Yup. Some good action (car chase) and FX (the helicopter) but the plot was crap. 

Logan has a bunch of these manning the ImagiNext pirate ship.  Too bad these figs all have different peg holes on the feet.  Love that new Jabba set.

I'm in.  In the event I do end up buying into this line, I don't want to miss anything.

That is very interesting. I initially thought that maybe the profits from the 3D re-releases were supposed to fund the sequel trilogy. At one movie a year, that doesn't seem likely though. The Blu-Ray box sets were wildly successful though.

Quote

Variety is reporting that Star Wars has sold more than one million units in only a week on the markiet, shattering records for the high-definition format, and further cementing Blu-ray's dominance as the home video format of choice.

Despite an average list price of $79.99, the nine disc set generated more than $84 million in worldwide sales. U.S. sales accounted for $38 million of that total, with 515,000 units sold in North America.

That was September of 2011. Expecting families to shell out 3D ticket prices for TPM just four months later is a tough sell. Still, TPM3D opened to 22m and grossed 44m domestically. It earned 102m worldwide. I'm just not sure what a realistic number would have been to be deemed successful.

This is why I cringe when people call TPM 3D a failure.  It was not a failure at the box office.  It made far more than other similar 3D-ified rereleases.  The fact that "people" hate TPM jades objective opinion.  The Phantom Menace was a phenomenal success.  TPM 3D performed quite well for what it was.  Retconning either into "bomb" territory just does not hold water.

The issue is HASBRO overestimated the demand for TPM merch and it torpedoed everything since.  I refuse to believe this was LFL's fault since it isn't like TPM 3D merch hung around forever in other market segments. 

One of the best things in January is playing the Target clearance game.  "How long will this last, and how far will it go down?"  I have spent a TON at Target in the past week or two.  I have toys for my son all the way through next Christmas.

I had a friend (who I credit with teaching me about collecting) who used to do that with every book he bought.  He always said that if he died while reading, at least he knew how it would end.

I actually fell out of touch with this friend during the lead-up to AotC when I told him I was trying to remain spoiler-free and that was all he could talk about. 

Well said.  The league and as importantly, the players' union turned a blind eye to all this stuff.  The players that didn't take anything, but didn't complain about those who did are complicit as well.

It will be interesting to see what in-season HGH blood tests do to the numbers this year...

Meanwhile, that Reuters report that had everybody thinking Episode VII would return to Yavin and show us a new Jedi Academy has been debunked already. Reporter Michael McDonald tells TheForce.net:

    This was a mistake. I misunderstood what fan clubs had told me and shown me in book plots and that storyline has not been announced by Disney. Perhaps I should have written something along the lines of 'Yavin 4 appears in several Star Wars book plots and while Guatemala fans said they hope film crews return to Tikal, the company has not announced plans for the new episode.'