It was cool to see so much of the Seperatist arsenal arrayed in the battle scene.  The Retail Droids made another appearance.  The ranks looked imposing.  And by the same measure the electron bomb affected not only the Seperatist forces, but also a lot of the Republic gear.  The small detail of Anakin's robotic arm being affected was a nice touch.

The M*A*S*H* reference?  Very funny.  Once I heard "Trapper, Rex, Hawkeye" I nearly bust out laughing!  The homages to past material has been almost a little over the top.

As for the Zillo beast?  The Godzilla references were almost hamhanded.  But the storyline of what to do with the Zillo beast was interesting.  The clashing of the Jedi ideals with the Dugs plans added to the overall tension.  And when it came to Palpatine's reactions about the Zillo beast being impervious to a lightsaber?  That was one of the few insights we've seen in the Clone Wars about Palpatine's Sith inclinations.  It's nice to see a number of plot points being examined subtly in the series.

The main army builder bad guys have already been released in those $1 store unarticulated incarnations, and I assume the articulated versions are coming in the later waves.

Anyone who saw the trailers knows what I'm talking about, but for SPOILER reasons i'll be quiet now.

Hasbro identified that assortment as their "Emerging Markets" line.  It's designed to be low end stuff that can get more of a foothold internationally and at discount retail in the US.

Nice work JACK!  Is the black material foamcore?

I just can't get myself to find a 27 year old throne to be a reasonable stand-in for anything.  Nor can I get myself to get behind the idea that they can just pretty-up that 27 year old throne and have something that is anywhere near the quality level of the work they do now.

The vintage one is certainly a helluva lot better than the cardboard one that came out in the POTF2 pop-up Jabba's palace.  Otherwise, what are the alternatives?  There's vintage, then cardboard, then custom, and then nothing.

Daigo-Bah's work is amazing, but not exactly available on a mass scale.  Although you could start up a booming little cottage industry making Jabba's thrones...provided Uncle George doesn't slap you with a cease and desist order! 

What I don't understand is the need for so many different Iron Man figures in the early waves.  Yes to Mark I thru Mark VI and the War Machine, but that should have been it.  Then they could have put in Whiplish and Iron Monger as bad guys and called it a day until the later movie waves hit.  Crimson Dynamo was unexpected surprise and I like him in here as well as an alternate baddie.  Instead, we have Hydro Armor, Fireman Armor, Hypervelocity Armor, Basic Red & Gold Armor, and on and on and on - it's just too much of the same guy and pretty pointless versions of the armor.  Heck, I think I even saw a Mark VI Armor and a different MArk VI Light Armor...was that really necessary?  

There are more figures on the way in the movie assortment.  Specifically, Whiplash, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Iron Man with removable mask & War Machine with removable mask.  These were shown at the Toy Fair presentation.  But I agree, there are more than enough versions of the Iron Man armor available at retail right now.  I think what adds to the perception about all of the different Iron Man armors at retail is that they've done three different assortments:

-Movie Series
-Concept Series
-Comic Series

IMHO, the concept series only has a couple of really strong pieces in the Hyper Velocity armor and the Deep Dive armor.  Everything else in the concept series seems like a variation of the Mk III armor.  But the concept series does blend well with the movie series.  

The comic series has more potential.  But again, there really haven't been that many bad guys offered.  The only comic series villain I've seen so far is the Crimson Dynamo.  There's also supposed to be a comic series Iron Monger, Titanium Man and Guardsman on the way.  But the line definitely favors Iron Man and all of the specialty armors.

The spirit of fan driven polls seems to be picking out those characters that might not otherwise be considered for figures.  Isn't that what drove the ICMG poll for all those years?  Those of us who are involved with the day to day operations of collecting sites certainly have a little bit of insight into Hasbro's process, but that kind of rationale didn't impact my own choices for the AOTC poll. 

The AOTC poll results were not terribly inspiring as far as character choices go.  I think there are definitely some more visually interesting characters from Episode II that have fallen by the wayside.  And the poll didn't feature anywhere near enough Jedi.  Especially since the arena battle is the single biggest gathering of Jedi in the entire Saga.