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.)

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.