First of all, I'd like to commend the fine people at JD.com for doing such cool giveaways. One more reason why this is the best forum/site for SW collectors around.
Okay, getting away from my blatant asskissing, the thing about the cut scenes/canon debate that muddies the issue anymore is that the vast majority of the cut material is actually in the scripts (at least for the prequels). I finally got to read the official script of ROTS yesterday, and there is A LOT of stuff that we see in the toy line (Senators, in particular) that showed up in the script and was shot/completed but wound up getting cut. Same thing with AOTC: all of the Padme's family stuff is in the script, was shot, and completed (and then included on the DVD), so how it could be any less "canon" than anything else is beyond me. That's just my opinion though.
As for the Target Clone, the funny thing is that there is such a fuss over this and the fact that the 12" Clone is the exact same thing is going almost completely unnoticed. As a 4" Target exclusive I can't see the fuss, considering it was a short run novelty item for one particular retailer (and the paint scheme, you have to admit, is very similar to what you would imagine a Target store on Coruscant would have as its logo, hee hee), while the 12" doll was an open market release and has been seen by a lot more people.
That being said, it's a Clone that has different markings and it would have fit in with the actual film since it was actually developed for the film, so that's good enough for me to have one in my collection.
