So, what toys did you buy or get this week?

[Ran]

Got the new wave of SW figures. The build-a-droid is pretty cool. The Hoth Trooper has soft goods material around his waist. I was comparing the new Ugnaught to the POTF2 version. It is much more articulated, but the POTF2 Ugnaughts has held up pretty well over time. Its not often you can say that about the POTF2 line.

[Diabolical]

Picked up the Marvel 3.75 Hulk and revised Punisher.

The Punisher looks far, far better than the first one, even though the hairline is receding a little more than it should. And this one actually has a neck.
Hulk on the other hand is friggin' awesome! He dwarfs every other figure in the 3.27 scale. And he's such a massive figure that he bulges the back of the card a bit. The only thing I wish they'd done is articulate the hands a little.

After seeing Green Goblin and Thing, I want both, along with a Spidey and Human Torch to go with them.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Got the new wave of SW figures. The build-a-droid is pretty cool. The Hoth Trooper has soft goods material around his waist. I was comparing the new Ugnaught to the POTF2 version. It is much more articulated, but the POTF2 Ugnaughts has held up pretty well over time. Its not often you can say that about the POTF2 line.

Did you get them in a store or online? I still have nothing from this wave.

[Ran]

At Wal-mart. Haven't been desperate enough to buy them online yet. Every other Wal-mart I've been to pretty much all Clone Wars. It looks like they must have put at least 2 cases of this wave out. First time I've bought SW from Walmart in quite a while. I usually find them at Target first.

[anarky]

I occasionally see an old Obi-Wan or Trinto, but, otherwise, nothing OT for a long, long time.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

At Wal-mart. Haven't been desperate enough to buy them online yet. Every other Wal-mart I've been to pretty much all Clone Wars. It looks like they must have put at least 2 cases of this wave out. First time I've bought SW from Walmart in quite a while. I usually find them at Target first.

Ah, okay. I'd only heard of people finding them at Target, so I won't give hope at Walmart yet.

In other news, I opened the Legends Snowtrooper that I finally found as well as the Yavin set. I wish that Red Leader was taller and that Ryan Stiles the Rebel technician could hold the controls better, but overall I really like the set. It's nice to finally have the droid for the X-wing that came out six years ago, not to mention a non-shitty Garven Dreis.

[anarky]

Finally broke down and got the Breha Organa yesterday. Anyone need a random droid leg?

Maybe those of us picking and choosing should pool out parts and make some hideous Frankendroid.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Finally broke down and got the Breha Organa yesterday. Anyone need a random droid leg?

Maybe those of us picking and choosing should pool out parts and make some hideous Frankendroid.

You could do that yourself if you have a few different parts, since they have universal connectors.

I got the Vulture Droid and Magnaguard Fighter today but haven't opened them yet. Still no sign of wave 6 and it's pissing me off.

[Ran]

I have 2 incomplete droids from the Yarna wave. I'm missing most of the black astromech (I might only have the torso). I'm only missing the head & center leg of the other one. The picture I saw of it had a triangle eye on the head instead of the usual circle.

My kids actually had fun putting the build a droids together. They had even more fun when they figured out you could put them together wrong.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I have 2 incomplete droids from the Yarna wave. I'm missing most of the black astromech (I might only have the torso). I'm only missing the head & center leg of the other one. The picture I saw of it had a triangle eye on the head instead of the usual circle.

It's an R7 droid, which is why it looks different. There was one in that wave as well as one in the Tartakovsky CW wave that followed.

[anarky]

I rather wish the droids were actually associated with the figures in a wave if they're going for film-specific waves. Like including the Death Star Droid in the ANH wave instead of the ROTS wave. I know they're trying to get people to buy figures they otherwise wouldn't, but, in that case, you either end up with people pissed off because they had to buy Grievous #435 who still isn't quite right, or people who are pissed because they passed on the wave and missed the droid because they couldn't justify dropping $42 for one droid.

[Ran]

Honestly, I on the fence on buying the Medical Frigate Luke & Leia. The R5 droid did sway my opinion. Didn't really care about the silver U-P30 or whatever its name was, but I wanted all of those figures. But, I won't buy figures from the prequels/clone wars to get the pieces. Hell, I skipped the ROTJ Deleted Scene figures.

I didn't have the droid factory from the vintage line, but one of my friends did. I barely remember it. The only thing I do remember about it was the brown base and the R2-D2 with the third leg. If they released a new droid factory set with all of the build a droid pieces, I'd probably buy it.

[anarky]

There are still some prequel figures I'd get. But from that whole ROTS wave, Breha was the only one I was seriously considering, and it took me until this week to find one with a paint job that didn't look like ass. The Grievous was slightly tempting, being in the proper scale finally, but I just know there's a version with a cape coming by the end of 2010.

I've still not seen any ESB figures or even remnants that show they were there. I keep passing on the Yavin Battlepack, which looks cool, but $25 for one new figure and accessory?

Slightly off-subject, but it really seems from the Hasbro answers in their GIJoe Q&A that they're planning on the Rise of Cobra figures to bomb and kill the line, and are trying to minimalize their losses. "We didn't make more Resolute figures because of limited budget, so we just repainted an old Gung Ho and said he was Resolute, even though it's inaccurate and we certainly had enough time. And half of the ROC line is repainted 25th Anniversary figures from the past year as 'off-camera' characters."

[Ran]

I got the Yavin pack. The way I look at it, part of the military is uniformity. Yeah, it is the same pilot body with a new head an helmet. I'm ok with that. Being 4" scale, does it really matter if the guy isn't a millimeter taller? And there is no way I could make a custom R4 like that.

The Indiana Jones figures bombed, and that movie probably has a wider appeal than GI Joe. So why wouldn't the GI Joe bomb? They've probably seen the movie and know it sucks. Let it die and bring back the 25th anniversary line. And while they are killing lines, kill the movie Transformers lines and bring back the old line.

[anarky]

True. But the 25A line is doing well, aside from major issues with distribution and a real hard-on for Snake Eyes and Duke reissues. Honestly, man, after all the lines they've handled, why doesn't Hasbro realize they need to release army builders to satisfy geeks (and kids with money) and secondary characters in addition to the main characters? I'm surprised they didn't get fucking blue hockey mask Snake Eyes in the line before it died out.

A huge part of the Indiana Jones failure was their insane number of Indy and Mutt figures. Each wave was a separate movie (were there two Crystal Skull waves?), and each wave had at least one new Indy figure, in addition to reissues of older Indy and Mutt figures. It got into the problem Hasbro had with Batman: it's no fun having thirty versions of the hero and no supporting cast or villains. It took forever for me to see Henry Sr, one of the figures I wanted, and, by that time, I knew the line was dead and passed. Factor in that Crystal Skull was widely seen as a mediocre movie that no one wanted figures for, combined with Hasbro's serious Shia Letalentlessshithead fetish, and the line was doomed. Especially when the paint sucked.

I wanted a fucking Short Round figure. The way they spread shit out by movie, Temple of Doom stuff was pretty nonexistent. Shorty is fucking awesome, but he's not $50 awesome.

Should've looked more like this, assuming 12 figures per case:

WAVE 1:
3x Raiders Indy
2x Marion Ravenwood
2x Henry Jones
3x Nazi Soldier
2x Toht

WAVE 2:
1x Raiders Indy
1x Professor Indy
2x Short Round
2x Mola Ram
2x Elsa Schneider
2x Sallah
2x Thugee Warrior

WAVE 3 (all KOTCS except one reissue):
2x Old Fart Indy
1x Raiders Indy
2x Mutt Williams
1x Irina Spalko
2x Antonin Dovchenko
2x whatever the South American skullfaced warriors are called

WAVE 4:
1x Raiders Indy
1x Marcus Brody
1x Thugee Indy
1x Indy in Nazi Disguise
2x Willie Scott
2x Cairo Swordsman
2x Rene Belloq
2x Kazim

WAVE 5:
1x Irina Spalko
1x Indy in Nazi Disguise
2x Satipo
2x Young Indy
2x Nazi Soldier
3x Soviet Soldier
1x Thugee Warrior

WAVE 6:
1x Marcus Brody
1x Thugee Indy
1x Raiders Indy
2x whatever the South American skullfaced warriors are called
1x Lao Che
1x Wu Han
1x Katanga
2x Marion in dress
2x "Monkey Man"

See? Just off the top of my head, a good mix of characters in a more realistic progression. I went to six waves assuming this would sell better than Hasbro's "all Indy and Mutt, all the time" clusterfuck.

Rather than reissue, say, Cantina Han 50-11 times, why not keep them in some form of production for longer periods? In the 1980s, the standard for Joe and Transformers was two years, with a few exceptions lasting longer. At no time was any Joe available in multiple uniforms at once, barring some really old merchandise on pegs. It seemed to work pretty well back then.