My brief early opinions...
-Biker Scout... How can I NOT want 20 of these? I have 40 some Stormtroopers so I figure I want a 20 Scout squad to complement them. If they're incredibly abundant and/or clearanced or some such I'd consider more but the 20 seems a round number I could be happy with... Man, the more I keep thinking about this I'll want more, but 20's a goal. I set a goal with Stormies, I'll set a goal with Scouties too. 20.
-Luke... Depending on his height, if he comes a bit higher than Luke SHOULD be I'd consider picking quite a few up for customs. Articulation's looking sharp, I like the helmet... I'd be ok with the original head being used since it met the time frame and wasn't bad to me in likeness. He looks sharp though I think... I wasn't ever quite "content" with the Dutch sculpt though, it's a bit big and a bit under articulated in the arms so I'm looking forward to Luke as some bit of fodder anyway.
-Greedo... The pre-destined pegwarmer of the line I think we can all agree, but is he bad? Not by a long shot. Neither was Lando and there's about 12 at my local Toys R Us too.
Lando was cool but pegwarmed because he's Lando... Greedo is great looking, looks to have the best articulation... I don't personally mind the vest much but it could be better. I'm not a stickler for hating cloth, and since I have a dozen Greedo figures I can swap a plastic vest on if I really want to. I may not though, as I have always found new places to put my old Greedo's... Rodians abound in the films in those outfits with different colored vests so that's cool. To me he looks good and I like that we're FINALLY getting his correct pistol with him and a holster too. Other Greedo's are gonna just wind up as Jabba goons for me now and this one will be my "top" figure rendition of Greedo on my shelves.
-Sandperson... The Tusken looks pretty sharp I think, and packaged cloth figures are tough to sit there and judge. I know I've cut down the seams inside cloth and made it tremendously less bulky and sit better on the figure. For instance Palpy's Evolutions figure has a slightly thick cloak that doesn't sit right immediately, so with some work I got it to look pretty great actually. Same with some other robes so I'm not too concerned on the Tusken... Plus the material appears to be a gauzey material like the Jedi women's skirts were in 2005. I like that we get two accessories with him too, I just hope he is super articulated under the robes, unlike say VOTC Obi-Wan who was pretty shoddy actually.
-Han... Personally I don't think Hasbro would have ever delivered the quality 21st Century does. They wouldn't have given us two sets of super articulated arms that pop on and off the torso to show Han with the coat on and off. We'd have gotten maybe a pre-posed set and a poseable set if we were lucky, so I'm not expecting that and I'm pretty happy we got cloth personally. I just hope Han's SA underneath... The head it would be nice if it wasn't a reused one since Solo looks different in ROTJ than ANH quite a bit but whatever. I'm glad to finally have a good Endor Han coming... So far Saga and POTF2 versions have sucked, so it'll be nice to have something new and better. And again I can't tell what the texture and feel of the fabric is by looking at it. It could be very easy to make it look ok on the figure when you open it so I reserve judgment on its bulkiness till I open one up.
As far as pricing goes, I'm not happy with $10 and I think these are $5 figures on $5 packaging... Hasbro's gotta spend a little on these special cards and the clamshells afterall, but at the same time I'd really prefer these figures were basic prices of course. Since that isn't gonna happen though, I'm more happy to get a GOOD figure out of this line that embodies what the line should be striving for in every figure.
-Good sculpt
-Good paint job
-Good accessories/features (where applicable)
-Good articulation... And that is compared with other toy lines, not Hasbro's own idea of what they feel is "good enough" for us.
Now, the basic line is most of those most of the time, but articulation (and to a lesser degree, accessories) tend to fall short of anything close to "competitive". It's tough to look at the local toy shelves and say Hasbro is delivering quality there... I'm not happy to pay $10 a figure to get it, but I'm happy to get these figures and some (if not all) of them in multiples... I just wish Hasbro would take a look at the basic line and really improve it too instead of having it fluctuate in quality like it does. One figure's great, one is ok, one is flat out terrible... You just never know what you're gonna get and at the same time Hasbro's releasing plenty of old figures on new cards saving a lot in the process and we see price increases with qualty cut-backs.
To me then the VOTC is a breath of fresh air at a horrible price though. It's what I want, minus the packaging, but it is costing a lot more than it should unfortunately.
