Well, I never really wanted a Revan figure, but I'll have to buy him just to show support for the EU toys so someday I can get the ones I do want. (That being said, I would have held no ill will toward ICMG and would have bought him if produced.
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I'm happy that an EU figure won. Granted, Revan is an odd choice out of all the EU that has been produced to date, but no amount of griping and bitching from oldtimers is going to change the fact that EU is the wave of the future. Toy-wise, the OT is played out and the PT is getting there. People want EU figures. Some of you guys like Rob and Brent do have legitimate points about the size of the market, but at the same time, I can't see how such figures can fare any worse than some of the ultra-obscure background alien pegwarmer crap we've seen over the years.
People act like this is the end of the world. It's not like all the OT figures in production are going to be pulled and replaced with characters from the Ewok cartoon! You'll still get your precious Tatooine Lukes and your Han Solo re-re-repacks and your obscure Imperial flunkeys and your rubber-masked extras that were glimpsed in the deep background for 3 seconds. Be happy with your 60-80 figures per year, and don't begrudge us a handful of characters WE want to see.
I think anyone who believes someone like, say, the Tonnika Sisters will sell better than Revan (I mean on the normal retail market as a whole) is just kidding themselves. Even some kid who doesn't recognize either character is going to go for the armored dude with the lightsaber instead of the space whores in avocado pajamas with beehive hairdos. And It seems like even in the collecting community, very few people really want Hermi and Yarna.
And yes Slothus, EU is a HUGE force in online fandom. I don't intend to be at all harsh when I say this, for I state simple fact: anyone who doesn't see it is simply not visiting the right sites. There are scores of entire sites devoted to EU--for example, TheForce.net's Literature forum is a huge gathering place of EU fans, as are DarkHorse Comics' boards and TOS's Books Comics and TV forum, then there's The Unofficial SW Encyclopedia, Wookieepedia, CloneWarz.com, various New Jedi Order pages, the list goes on and on. We just don't come to collecting sites to talk EU, so that why those who only visit collecting sites just aren't getting the full picture of the fandom. These sites really are like echo chambers sometimes.
I'm not doubting those horror stories from SOTE, but remember that that was a full ten years ago, so using it as a predictor of 2007 success is shaky at best. It's 2006 and there's a LOT more to SW fandom than the 35-year-olds who grew up with the OT. You carried the torch in the '90s, but face it--you guys aren't the only ones anymore. The majority of today's children weren't born yet, many of today's teenagers were just toddlers, and half of today's adult collectors probably weren't collecting yet either. And anyone who got into SW in the last 10 or 5 or even the last year, is just as valid as someone who's been here since the '80s. Hardcore collectors who post on boards such as this aren't even representative of all SW collectors or all message board posters, let alone the fandom as a whole.
Not to mention the 1997-98 EU figures remain some of the rarest and most coveted SW figures today. The concept-art vehicles were pretty cool, and really aren't EU in any event. I never saw the Clone Wars Durge and Asajj Ventress figures--who were faithfully lifted straight from the comics and TV show--and they remain relatively tough to find 3 years later. And a good portion of the Clone Wars stuff was not even based on "real" EU at all--for example, Bandito Yoda bears zero resemblance to anything seen in the comics or games, and is really just something cooked up for the toy line. My personal opinions aside, KOTOR is one of the most popular SW games EVER, one of the most acclaimed and popular video games, period, from the last few years, and was successful enough to spawn a spinoff comic series and (so far) one sequel. Toys are the next logical extension.
EU is the future. Get over it. And neither OT nor PT figures are going anywhere, anyways, so don't act like EU is going to singlehandedly kill all your chances of getting those Holy Grail background figures (who were probably never seriously in the running at all).
I hope some of you dinosaurs enjoy your sour grapes while we whippersnappers that are destroying the hobby are having fun playing with our Kir Kanoses and Quinlan Voses and Mara Jades.
