So Obi has his ROTS/ANH saber, do they ever explain how he looses his EP2 saber.

In Episode II, didn't the Geonosians take it away from him, and he fought the rest of the film with a spare that was tossed to him in the arena by the Jedi who rescued them?

Yeah, it could be worse. It won't be quite as big of a deal to me if the price of figures stays at $7.00, but I don't want to be paying $8.00 +tax for a droid piece.

It's probably going to be a big deal, then.

I still feel that Hasbro could be handling the situation a lot better. I don't expect them to offer the pieces online, as that would cost them figure sales. However, I think they should work harder to group the Droid bits by more of a theme or common trait between the figures. They repeatedly recognize what figures are aimed at collectors in each wave and which ones are not. If Hasbro tries to make everyone a completist with the BAD concept, they might lose sales on other items.

It's probably best to view the build-a-droid as a marketing concept much like the mail-in offers.  This is done to sell more product, not to reward collectors.  With Marvel Legends, it was pretty much the same way-- you want to own a giant Sentinel? Prepare to shell out some cash for the whole wave.  One good thing they're doing is including parts with some of the repacks, which, if you're an army builder (or if you know army builders) could be a very good thing when it comes to actually completing the droids.  (I know it'd be easier to just pack them in the way we'd each prefer, but it'd be easier still to just ditch the build-a-droid concept and sell the figures outright.  Ideally, the solution to make everybody happy would just be to drop the program entirely, although I don't think we'd end up with quite as many astromechs if they did this and I do love those little guys.)

The thing that raises my eyebrows the most is the whole (as I understand it) "we're making the droid for one wave only, if you miss the wave 1 droids during wave 1, then they're not going to be around in wave 2."  As a marketing tool, this is a great idea, but it seems limiting the droid parts you can get might be a bad move for people out there who aren't always so lucky to find figures during their first shipments.  Hopefully they'll consider cycling them back if there's-- and this probably reads as silly as it sounds in my head-- significant collector demand for more of an R2 unit's left leg.

My hope is that the whole build-a-droid thing furthers the whole "community" angle and helps to build the online network of fans willing to trade and deal with fellow collectors, which has been and should continue to be a good thing for everybody.  While not a HUGE fan of networking myself, I'll do my best to try to make sure fans can get the parts they need of I have extras, and I hope everybody else will as well.

From JI:

Wave 2 of the "Legacy Collection" is due out on 8/10/2008 with 8 figures.

That's what Hasbro's Powerpoint thing said, but those are notoriously inaccurate.  Also, in movie years-- and this is a movie year-- a lot of times figure waves have arrived early, with numberous ROTS and AOTC releases showing up-- at some stores-- on launch day.  With packaged samples arriving now, it's entirely possible these MAY be available, if not widely, on 7/26.

I thought we were supposed to get the red suit human b-wing pilot with the set? 

I think they just said *a* human pilot and didn't get too specific.  Perhaps they want to save Red for the Vintage line or basic carded figures?

Looks neat.  Not that I'm itching to buy more giant ships this year, but yeah, I'll get one.

Quote from: Adam_Pawlus on June  8, 2008, 09:14 PM

Seriously, at this point, whichever tracks you're on-- right or wrong-- are things I can't comment on.

Toydarians!

Hey, nobody can catch Zlato.

<snip>
I was merely pointing out Mr. Pawlus using one of Hasbro's favorite lines: "No Comment."

*looks back* Well, it looks like at least I didn't use the phrase "no comment" exactly.   I suppose I could've penned something in blank verse but I've never been particularly good at replicating iambic pentameter.   (But yeah, you don't have to talk like I'm not here... I do read these forums ya know...)  I'm not shy about sharing information when I can get away with it.

Notice how AP hasn't showed up in the past few days?   hmmmm..

That's right, how rude of me, what with my being out of town for the back half of the week and all.   Blah blah blah not kotor blah blah blah if you liked the old ones blah blah mandies blah blah I love Jolt.  There we go, it's like I never left.

Seriously, at this point, whichever tracks you're on-- right or wrong-- are things I can't comment on.  All I can do is watch you guys until the announcement is made, or post about how I'm watching until the announcement is made.  Which is seriously exciting stuff.  Sorry guys!

More than likely Hasbro will crank out realistic versions of those as well.  I understand if you don't want to buy the line because it's animated, but why all the hatred toward Hasbro about it?  It's just odd to me. 

Makes perfect sense to me.  Fans have a lot invested in the line-- time, money, love-- and now we're seeing a big chunk of it altered into this other, unknown thing.  A lot of fans are going to get animated figures if they want them or not (free Clone Trooper in the AT-TE, for example), but it's totally obvious to me why fans don't like the idea of the new figures being this weird style that doesn't mesh with the line they've been buying for a few months, or over a decade now.

We're not a logical bunch-- our gut says "it's different! kill it! kill it!" because most "other" lines Hasbro and Kenner have given us have a very short life (Epic Force, Collector Fleet, Micro Collection), or are cycled in and out (Buddies, Unleashed, Playskool/Galactic Heroes) before ultimately succeeding or being slaughtered.   I have no doubt most fans are under the assumption (as this is what I'm assuming) that the animated line may be a flash-in-the pan which if we like, we *can't* collect for too long because Hasbro will pull the plug, or that if it does well, it may take the place of the movie-style line eventually, thus ending our decade-long affair with thousands of small plastic men.  Either scenario isn't particularly rosey.

We want to see Hasbro do well, and we want the line to continue and to be great.  But competing action figure lines of the same brand typically compete for resources, and well, I can understand why people are worried one may clobber the other.   Since we can't see inside Hasbro's magical meeting rooms, we don't know what their plans are for sure, but it certainly looks like they're pitting two styles against one another this year rather than showcasing one strong uniform line.  Hopefully everything will just do awesomely and continue as long as we're interested in buying.