Scored the WM exclusive Dewback & Super Vulture Droid today.  Getting a couple of WM exclusives out of the way in one shot is always a good way to ease my collecting concerns.

Yeah, that's called the Nielsen people meter.  And even when viewers were consuming all of their television live there were flaws in that system.  It couldn't account for how many people in a household were actually watching a show.

As for selling the show to a network, McCallum made it clear that HBO wasn't in play because they won't give Lucasfilm complete creative control and they want some level of ownership of the show.  I imagine that's going to be a sticking point with some other networks as well.  And then there is Lucas's outsider status with Hollywood.  He's done some amazing things on his own, but look at the obstacles that he had in getting Red Tails made and distributed.  He's been quoted as saying that he had to pay to have the theatrical prints made himself.  So it comes down to who is going to do business with Lucas AND provide the budget that the show will need in order to get made.

What is the issue with Nielsen?  I would think sponsors would be lining up for this show.

Nielsen probably cannot account for the varied delivery systems people are using to watch television at this point in time.  They're still very much tied to the old methods of measuring how a show does in an individual time slot.  But programmers are running their shows in multiple time slots in order to accomodate a wider audience, and get ad revenue from multiple airings.

There's also the varied digital formats that people are using to watch their shows.  TV shows are on iTunes, as well as the websites of networks and VOD services.  Nielsen doesn't seem prepared to deal with this broad-based way of measuring a total audience across all of these media at this time.

The Nikto looks pretty cool.  Hasbro already confirmed that one, IIRC.  It's definitely a welcome addition to Jabba's goons. 

The new Galen Marek is a little bit of a surprise, but a cool new EU offering.  The accessories look pretty awesome.  Is all of that actually going to fit in a TVC blister?  My only gripe here is the timing.  I really think that Hasbro would have a lot more success with these EU video game figures if they could get their release schedule synced up with the game releases.

Which brings me to Shae Viszla.  Pretty awesome that Hasbro managed in this case to offer up a video game figure that IS well timed with the game release.  Granted, we saw Shae in that Deceived trailer going back close to 2 years.  And with the lead time on a new figure being about 18 months I'm glad to see that they took advantage of all of this lead time to get the figure ready.  I'm still surprised that it took LucasArts so long to bring this game to market.

Glad to see they got Rex's new helmet right.

Good to see that WalMart is offering exclusives online.  But not very exciting to see that they're doing it with repacks, which is what both of these battle packs are.  Will WalMart be doing that with the exclusive basic figures?  I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath.

I can't say that I blame him in the least.  After hearing "George Lucas raped my childhood" from way too many fanboys, why should he subject himself to more of that crap?  It's become an abusive relationship where the fanboys have not grown to understand George Lucas's philosophy on filmmaking, and the spirit of innovation that he has used to move the film industry forward.  He improved visual effects.  He improved audio and visual presentation.  He's been a driving force with CGI and animation.  And he and Steven Spielberg essentially created the blockbuster.  And in that spirit of innovation he has been guilty of trying to improve things in the movies where he originally felt like he had to compromise.  That has not been as well received.

In contrast, what are the credentials of his detractors?  It's all well and good to sit back as an amateur critic, but when you criticise someone's work, you had best have something to bring to the table.  Because at the end of the day, how many of these fanboys have become filmmakers and have made something better?  Where are their mountains of credits as screenwriters, directors, producers, etc?  GL has definitely inspired a good number of people to get into filmmaking, but I suspect that they're not the ones who spend many a waking hour on the TFN message boards pouring over every flaw they perceive in someone else's film.  On the contray:  they've been inspired by Star Wars but are embracing their own creativity to do something new.

I have always felt that Lucas faced an uphill battle with the Prequels.  Because he brought the films to kids, and they loved them.  Having that kind of baggage of living up to a generation's worth of expectations is something that almost nobody could accomplish.