I was surprised to see that this was not being discussed.  But seeing "Revenge Of The Sith" in the theaters again to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release is something pretty remarkable.

I went to see it this past Friday night.  The presentation at the theater I went to on Friday night was amazing! Such great sound and the movie looked fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many enthusiastic and relatively young cosplayers in attendance - and they had the good judgement to NOT light up their lightsabers until they were outside of the theater. The Vader helmet popcorn bucket looked cool, but I couldn't justify it at $45. Still, the intro by Hayden Christensen was a very nice touch.  And evidently he and Samuel L. Jackson both turned up at one screening.

The unfortunate takeaways? Some fans really need to be more mindful of their hygiene. Please, guys - regular bathing, deodorant and doing your laundry aren't difficult life skills. ALSO? A movie theater is not your living room. I don't need to hear you recite the dialogue like it's Rocky Horror.

Jedi News is reporting this upcoming Disney Parks Droid Factory offering that’s being released for May the Fourth!  It’s TC-14 from TPM, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. 

No word on availability through the Disney store app at this time. 


https://www.jedinews.com/collecting/articles/new-disney-droid-factory-tc-14-action-figure-available-on-star-wars-day/

The guys from the @SWTVC Instagram account are back with the 2024 edition of TVC March Madness.  And the window to submit your own Top 25 most wanted TVC figures has opened.  It will run through the end of January, at which point the results will be tabulated.  And in March they will launch the bracket tournament of the Top 64 most wanted figures from those submissions.

The general theme that the @SWTVC crew are pushing for is this - your Top 25 most wanted figures that would feature ALL NEW TOOLING.  So characters like variations of previously released troopers, repaints of Mandalorian armor, or Imperial officers might not be the best candidates for this poll - but that didn't stop people from submitting characters like Pre Vizsla, whose figure used a number of parts from other Mandalorian figures.

This year you do not need to have a social media account in order to submit your own Top 25 list.  You can do it via this Google doc:
SWTVC March Madness Top 25 List Submissions

In the event that a character gets announced during the January submission window they will be disqualified from the tournament.  And the Google doc will permit people to revise their Top 25 lists until submissions end at the end of January.

More details to follow about how to vote for the head to head matchups in the bracket tournament in March.  IIRC you can do that in Instagram in the polls posted by the SWTVC account.  There might also be an option to do that via Google docs, but that info is yet to be confirmed.

The folks over at BanthaSkull.com are running a new Vintage Collection figure poll.  It's called Last Figure Standing.  The format is similar to the vote-off format of TV reality shows.  The goal is to try to find genuine consensus within the TVC collecting community over what may be the most wanted new figure in The Vintage Collection.

Collectors are being invited to submit their own Top Ten lists for consideration in the poll.  The Top Ten characters from those submissions will be offered up to the community in the vote-off format until it works its way down to the Last Figure Standing.

Check it out here:  https://www.banthaskull.com/story/news-launching-last-figure-standing-a-vintage-collection-fan-even

Listed today on Shop Disney!  A collection of 6 rainbow colored droids in celebration of Pride

2023 Disney Droid Factory Figure Set – Star Wars Pride Collection - $74.99

https://www.shopdisney.com/droid-factory-figure-set-star-wars-pride-collection-461014696892.html?fbclid=IwAR26K1d61GCAkrGhhVrROfSJL9ZdIExn5t7Jw2Kex5R_GP0j8R5a3fTYKq4

YES!  Tusken Raiders of the Dune Sea troop builder 4-pack.  And complete with the Tusken Chieftain!!!!

I thought it would be generally interesting to get people's feedback about the online stores that they prefer.  What are some of the positives and/or negatives associated with some of them, etc.  Are there ones you swear by?  Concerns with another?  Does one have great service except for their shipping policies?  Etc...

---

My first bit of feedback?

Big Bad Toy Store

I was going through my keychain on my iPhone and noticed that there was a security risk associated with Big Bad Toy Store.  Evidently BBTS has been the subject of a security breach.  I also got a notification this morning of an unauthorized charge on a card that I have not used in a while.  When I checked my spreadsheet of TVC orders I saw that the last time I had used that card was with BBTS on their exclusive Gaming Greats ARC Trooper.  You might want to check your cards as well.

Personally, I am really disappointed that I didn't receive a notification from BBTS about the data breach.

Images have surfaced on social media of the Disney Parks Obi-Wan Kenobi Droid Factory 4-pack.   Here are the droids included in the set:

R3-T2
NED-B
Viper Probe Droid
1-JAC

In light of this news, and the fact that this line is a partnership with Hasbro, I don't think we can expect TVC versions of NED-B or 1-JAC any time soon.