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Messages - Adam_Pawlus

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241
The Legacy Collection / Re: Legacy Wave 3 - Repaints/Repacks
« on: July 18, 2008, 09:27 PM »
I have similar concerns about the BAF droid parts.  I've seen theft of the Marvel Legends BAF parts firsthand, and it stinks.  It would be nice if the retailers could police this better.  But I do have hope that Hasbro is trying to foil the efforts of the mouthbreathers that are doing this.  I scored a few Clone Wars figures yesterday, and the packages were genuinely somewhat difficult to open.  The packaging might deter some of the scoundrels who are trying to steal the parts while they're in the store.

When opening my figures-- because I am that deranged-- I often try to see if it's possible to slip out a particular piece first, in this case, the BAF parts. I wanted to see the built figures more than I wanted another Chewbacca in my living room.   It really wasn't hard to make a couple of quick incisions and slide it out, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see people do what they did during Saga/POTJ in Phoenix-- buy it, open it, take out some pieces, replace them (or don't) with older stuff, and return it.  I saw at least two Geonosians with Massiffs, sans Geonosian, and resealed.   I saw repainted Corps figures placed in POTJ packaging because, apparently, it was "close enough" to the employee.   Some goon during ROTS here in LA would buy figures, take the blaster, and return it in a way that looked sealed if you didn't inspect the seal.

The packaging isn't going to to squat if someone really wants that droid bit.  Heck, I've seen enough Joe comic packs sliced open in the front with a giant chunk removed from it and a figure missing.  As long as peopple have access to the product, a consumer/thief has the ability to remove most any part(s) as they see fit.

I was always really surprised nobody swiped (or reported swiping of) 2006's Saga Collection stands.  When I first heard there was going to be a "Greatest Hits" line I assumed (incorrectly) they'd have new stands with them, and found out it was supremely easy to remove just the stand from the packaging.  Thankfully, that didn't happen... but I'm sure I'm not the only one who did see lots of stolen coins last year.  The tape makes it harder to rip something open, but it's really easy to retape something if you're careful enough.

...and is anyone 100% positive which RA droid comes with which wave?  I'm sure we can assume it's going in order of release, from left to right... but you never know sometimes.   (And still, a new figure doesn't offer "a way out" if it's similar to an old one.  If that were the case we wouldn't have 50 or whatever Darth Vaders in our respective collections.)

242
The Legacy Collection / Re: Legacy Wave 3 - Repaints/Repacks
« on: July 18, 2008, 08:27 PM »
I didn't say I hated the wave-- it's just that the repacks are weak, especially in this context.  Jedi, OK, I can see that.  But taking existing figures and calling them something new is pretty lame.  If I wanted an Imperial Engineer, I can go to my Death Star Gunner, open the package, and tell him that he's going to be an engineer now, dammit, and he's going to like it.  Ditto Neyo and his generic cloneliness.  I like seeing new accessories, and I don't mind repacks to some extent, but in a build-a-droid wave?  That's ballsy.  If fans go out and re-buy the same figures with just a new droid part, I have a feeling I can guess what we can expect in 2010 and beyond.

Hopefully these repacks will have some nice extras, as merely calling them something new and packing a new droid part is really, really, really lame.  (I know build-a-droid is a marketing tool to encourage collecting, but yeesh, don't run us over in the process.)  This has nothing to do with the quality of figures, this has to do with the "let's call it something new and sell it again" angle.  Call it a DS Gunner.  Don't pretend it's something new if it isn't-- hopefully I'll be proven dead wrong and we'll see some new gizmos to go with them at the very least.  If Hasbro put out an individually carded Galactic Marine and called it a "Clone Commander," I'd probably feel the exact same way.  Renames suck, at least give it some EU deco or something, especially with the price increase to $8 at most stores.

One of my plastic pet peeves is in-store partial packaging theft, because I see the results on-shelf and it rarely gets cleaned up.  Figure sets have parts stolen out of them and the husk of the packaging remains for days, sometimes weeks.  I really hate the idea of seeing figures ripped open just to swipe the droid pieces, but if this is the best they can do with a repaint wave, I think it's a safe bet we're going to see it happen.  If these sit around, especially so.

(And don't think Hasbro isn't doing "skittle clones"-- they're just going to be in the cartoon style now.:) They're still obscenely popular.)

243
The Legacy Collection / Re: Legacy Wave 3 - Repaints/Repacks
« on: July 18, 2008, 01:19 PM »
Not bad for a repaint wave.  It seems like they put a little thought into this wave.

What, really? :)  By "more" do you mean "less"? :)   Two of the figures seem to be just renames-- RENAMES!-- unless they're holding back some accessories of an awesome nature.  Hasbro's done a lot with repaint waves, with ROTS, we got 2 of 'em, and they were all pretty fancy really.

With TSC, we technically got 2 if you count Wal-Mart's, and again it was pretty robust.  The astromech repaints and Aurra Sing were very nice, as were the new clones.

Dooku's pretty fancy for a holo figure-- the cape is from the 2002 Saga one (it seems), the body is from ROTS Evolutions, and I think they just up and dropped the "skirt."  Oh well, that's a downer.

TAC brought us R2-B1, another couple of Clones, a holographic Vader, the Naboo guy in red, it was pretty solid.

Here, we have a 2-pack repack, 2 more repacks, and 3 figures which are par for the course (token Clone, token Holo, and the I'm-quite-excited-for-it Jodo Kast.)

I'm usually the one who gets pretty excited for these things, but man, this is a letdown.  I'm glad you dig it, don't get me wrong, but if it weren't for the build-a-droid, I can't think of a reason for me to want to go near the "Imperial Engineer" and "Saleucami Trooper."  I've got those.  I've actually got a few of those. At least Jodo Kast is going to be cool.

244
The Legacy Collection / Re: Legacy Wave 4 - Revenge of the Sith
« on: July 18, 2008, 02:32 AM »
Have we seen that hooded clone in the past? He seems familiar.

He's basically a tweaked Commander Keller from the 2008 Wal-Mart comic packs, at least from the look of things.  That and the artwork has been all over the place.

245
The Legacy Collection / Re: Legacy Wave 4 - Revenge of the Sith
« on: July 17, 2008, 05:39 PM »
It's certainly an interesting lineup.  Happy to see Jodo Kast, and Faie's been on a lot of wishlists.  5D6 RA-7 and *squints* M8 RA-7 (?) both are going to be awesome.  Curses for them finding a way to make droid fans buy *everything.*  Oh baby, I'm so loving the droids.

I really hope this isn't it for the year.  They made good with numerous excellent Expanded Universe offerings (21 EU, I think?) so that's wonderful... but man, no new Cantina aliens yet?   

They seemed to hit all the important marks.  I guess on paper it's a really balanced line, but after Wave 2 (which we knew of for months), there's only a couple of new characters to be had.  Kind of a bummer.  And I'm no expert... but the renaming thing I don't much like.  Before he was Commander Neyo, now he's a Saleucami Trooper.  He was a Death Star Gunner, but now he's an Imperial Engineer.  I thought we were getting *new* figures for the build-a-droid waves.  ("New", I always thought, was a head, or a deco change.  I'm not seeing any obvious differences here aside from the names, am I missing them?)

It's certainly a weird mix.   I want to (and don't want to) complain all at once.  But... droids!  So many droids!

(I wonder if/when Hasbro will ever start to market and sell the displays they make for these photos.  It looks cool, I'd put one in my toy room.)

246
If my eyes are not mistaken the legs appear to be the same mold as the TAC Training Fatigue Clone Trooper. They have the same stupid stance too. Anyone else agree?

Yup.  I had the same reaction when I saw them this morning, and tried to squint and make a comparison, and it seems this is the case.  However, it looks like-- and maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me here-- that there are at least 2 unique torso sculpts, and possibly the arms are different as well?

(And where's the green dude?  Wookieepedia has one more named guy, they couldn't squeeze in greenie and dump the Emperor or something?)

I have to say this is a very easy pass and a very odd choice given that Crimson Empire is not that popular. (Maybe in the late 90's since there was not that much SW to go around)

Which is why it's "popular" in the sense that it has any level of awareness.  I won't say that it's great, but popular?  Yes, absolutely.  It's right up there with Heir to the Empire, Dark Empire, Shadows of the Empire (hey, there's a pattern here.)  Most Star Wars comic series just faded away into nothingness, yet fans kept talking this one up for quite some time.  As someone who picks up and reads all of these things since Dark Empire, I can say that a lot of them are extremely forgettable.  (Or at least, I forgot them.) Not so much Crimson Empire.

This one clicked.  OK, so you're not a fan, and I personally didn't much care for the human faces in the interior art, but it did introduce a bunch of neat looking characters and it seemed everybody and their brother made a custom Kir Kanos and/or Carnor Jax from when the series debuted until the release of the actual figures at the end of 2007.  For a miniseries that was "not that popular," it's probably one of the most widely known (and I assume widely read) series that Dark Horse put out.

This set is hardly essential, but as concept box sets go it's a pretty solid idea.   As comic series with any level of fan awareness go, Crimson Empire's near the top of a very short list.  The series was OK, but it really benefitted from gorgeous covers and amazing, memorable imagery.  You can blame these figures (and the three others so far from the series) on Dave Dorman's insane level of talent and the fallout from a few paintings he did like ten years ago.

Anyway, go go power rangers and such.  I hope they sneak in a cardboard Squall for them to fight on or something.

247
The Clone Wars '08-'13 / Re: Wal-Mart Republic Gunship
« on: July 11, 2008, 03:48 AM »
I wonder if the TRU is a re-release of the Old clone wars/Saga gunship.  It was their exclusive before.

In the past this price point was a "Gunship Assortment" which also included the ARC-170... so it doesn't necessarily mean that this line item is what it appears to be, or is even current-- it's possibly phantom data.  (I believe there was a single carded Ilum Padme in Target's system at one point in 2006, with a DPCI posted to these very boards.)

248
The Legacy Collection / Re: ICMG, Yarna...now what?
« on: July 11, 2008, 03:42 AM »
It seems Ackmeena is the only weirdo figure to have any genuine momentum behind her, but coming from the Holiday Special might make Lucasfilm shoot her down.  (Although we did get Boba, so... who knows.)

Fan momentum, positive or otherwise, did result in Wuher, BoShek, Gargan, and soon, the Ice Cream Maker Guy.  All movie characters, many of which were genuinely neat ideas for a figure, but mostly had a heavy ha-ha wouldn't-it-be-funny-if factor that helped fans demand it.   (And there was the vintage Gargan proto, which surely helped.)

If the Tonnika girls didn't have all this alleged legal baggage, I'm sure we'd have them and not even need to ask Hasbro to make them.  Heck, Galoob even made one of them.

Personally, I'd push hard for Vlix, but nobody else seems to be vocal about him.  Ackmeena is getting a lot of buzz, especially from Adam May over at GH, so I'd say if a fan rally were about to start, it'd definitely be her.  Bea Arthur absolutely has the smirk appeal that carried eyeballs to BoShek, Gargan, and ICMG, it's just such a weirdly appealing idea for a toy that it would seem extremely unlikely that fans will not start demanding this one over the next 18 months.  No matter how much sense Klaatu would make, or a super-articulated Rebel from Endor, the Tantive IV, or Hoth, or anything else... you can't out-weird Bea Arthur as a space bartender.  (Except maybe one of the Harvey Korman characters.)

249
The Clone Wars '08-'13 / Re: 2008 Clone Wars AT-TE
« on: July 9, 2008, 06:12 PM »
Just saw about 8 of these in a "dump" in the middle of an aisle at a Wal-Mart, with electronic blasters on the other half.  $99.96 a pop for the AT-TE.

250
The Clone Wars '08-'13 / Re: Animated OT Figures?
« on: July 8, 2008, 08:00 PM »
Hasbro doesn't need to "shift its focus" to OT, necessarily.  In Dark Horse's Clone Wars Adventures comics, there was at least one "flash forward" showing Darth Vader in the cartoony style without leaving the look, feel, and timeline they established.

There's no reason that an episode or two of the Clone Wars couldn't involve a flashback or flash forward of some sort, with (for example) Boba Fett finding an artifact in an epilogue, or a veteran smuggler in a cantina telling Han Solo a story from "the good old days."  Or perhaps Luke can tell the students of tomorrow a parable of the past.   TV producers love stunt casting and gimmicks for sweeps.   And Chewbacca's already hanging out on Kashyyyk, so they could just go there and show him. 

The nature of the series allows for original trilogy characters to be integrated into the Clone Wars toy line, and I dunno if any of you watched Young Indiana Jones, but they did find a way to shoehorn Harrison Ford into a bookend story on one episode.  It's absolutely possible (although not necessarily a sure thing) that they're going to find a way to make this happen.  I'd actually be pretty shocked if the whole thing came and went without a Darth Vader of some sort appearing in the cartoons, even if it's some sort of ghostly image of the future.  As they freaking LOVE foreshadowing.

251
I have to agree with the frustration, but I'm glad to say I learned something really important from ROTS.  Not that I like it, but if I want something, I can and should just wait.  Those insta-sell-through Holo Yodas and Emperors, Lava Vaders, and Target Clones are all practically worthless in 2008, and can be had for under $10 shipped each.  And they were $10 or more in 2005.

I want this Clone, and am fairly confident it will become non-exclusive in the future (as many clones do) or enough fans will buy scores of them and get sick of them down the road.   And like my cockroach ancestors, I'll be waiting.  (Unless I see it at retail, of course, in which case I'll cave immediately.)

I wonder when Hasbro will finally post the list of what exclusives are coming out in three weeks.  I mean, wouldn't it be a good idea to help their promotional partners inform potential customers where to go buy these things?

252
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: TRU Midnight Madness - It's official!
« on: July 2, 2008, 04:32 PM »
Who worries about the non-exclusives? :)  And stickers, of all things?   I feel for those who do want them, but really, first day of issue?  I didn't care for those when they did them with the Star Wars Galaxy Trading Cards, either.

For me, this is entirely, 100% about the exclusives.  Which I open.  As is the way of my people.

Based on 2005's launches, if you don't get Lava Vader/Target Clone/Holo Emperor/Holo Yoda on the first day early in the morning, you don't see them at retail, ever.  (Or so were my experiences in Phoenix and Los Angeles.)  Were they widely available in your market?  Just curious-- I didn't really hear a lot of people chatting about them last time around.

They can do their midnight launches-- heck, it's a sensible thing for them to do.  But a) I don't have to like it, and b) I'd rather they take place on different weekends.   So you're fine with it going on during Comic-Con-- OK, that's great.   I don't like it. :)

Of course the complaining is ridiculous.  Have you seen the things we as a group complain about? :)  "Not enough articulation, I won't buy anything that doesn't have 14 points or more!"  "I can't believe Hasbro isn't making more $10 Vintage figures!  I want to pay $10 for a toy that would be $7 in the basic assortment!"  "I want more mail-in figures even though we have to pay $7 for shipping and handling, thus making it the same as any basic figure!"  We're an eccentric bunch.  I just want to buy my figures at the store, preferably during my normal toy runs.  Which, in my experience, you can't do when they do these launches.

253
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: TRU Midnight Madness - It's official!
« on: July 2, 2008, 02:00 PM »
Don't you think that's just a little bit of a callous attitude. I don't at all think SDCC being the same time is going to impact this much. Here's why:

<snip>

Not all SDCC goers are SW fans, and not all of those SW fans are collectors. So how much impact is MM being on the same date going to make? Relatively NONE.

Heck, if everybody on this forum stopped buying the line, it wouldn't matter to the big picture.  That's not the point-- the point is that we're seeing a launch that prevents the most loyal customers from being able to get the latest and greatest, even if they're willing to travel, jump through hoops, stay up until the wee hours, and so forth.   And while none of it matters-- if I don't get my figures, if I don't go to the little sales frenzy, and so forth-- these things are just a pain to deal with.   It's just fluff, which I could stand to see less of in my collecting rounds.  I just want to see the stuff made available to anyone willing to open their wallets, preferably without the song-and-dance of the 12:01 "embargo."

254
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: TRU Midnight Madness - It's official!
« on: July 1, 2008, 09:24 PM »
I really wish this wasnt during SDCC. They should have done it the week before or after  :-\

I'd love to find out the thinking behind the date.  "You know that huge convention that a lot of the really hardcore and/or local collectors are going to be at and will be spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get to and enjoy?  Let's launch a brand new line with exclusive that weekend, so there's no possible chance they can get to them!  What a splendid idea!"  They kinda did the same thing with Celebration I in 1999-- I believe the night I came back from Denver was the night of Midnight Madness.

As far as Midnight Madness goes... I gotta say I'm against brick & mortar street dates in general.  There's no reason to have them-- a midnight one in particular-- other than to have some sort of power trip over stores and/or consumers.  "Wake up, fanboy!  You want these figures?  Then DANCE!"  We've been collecting for decades.  This sort of thing is tired and played out, and I hope this one is the last of them.

255
Looks pretty cool and like JT, I'm not getting one.  Waaaayyy too much coming out at the same time and really don't need yet another version of the exact same thing.  This might work on the $20 stuff like starfighters, but I just don't see a lot of demand for this.

On the contrary, I get a few emails every month from people asking when or if Hasbro is going to rerelease the gunship because they (or their kids, more often) still want one.  Every new release has been a consistent seller, so if the market forces are to be believed, there will be significant, positive demand for this.  And it's a Wal-Mart exclusive, so about 30% of us will never see it in the wild anyway.

...although as #5, yeah, I'm less than enthusiastic about getting yet another one, especially since I already have two of mine lacking in gun pods.  But I do dig the WWII-style illustrations, so I'm all over it.  Between this one and the 2006 Clone Wars one, I almost feel it was a waste to buy the first, ah, three.   Here's hoping they crank out pilots a-plenty to fill this thing.

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