PICTURE POST!

[thestrangequark]

Thanks for indulging in my need to share these photos of my sweet brother, everyone. I just feel that the more people who see him, and how his personality just shines through his smile, his eyes, and his pores, the more alive he is. Here is one when he was little. He and I looked a lot alike as tots:

Me at the same age:

And here he is looking beautiful. He was the only one who got my mom's curls:

 

[Kira's Mom]

He looks like he was a hell of a guy, tsq. Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

These pics might interest OdoWanKenobi since we both collect some of the same things. This the newest wave of Hasbro's STAR WARS "Vintage Collection" action figures that I just acquired through my buddy at the local toy shop. These haven't hit retail yet in the United States...my friend got them through a trade with a collector/dealer he knows in California who sometimes gets brand new figures early. It'll probably be a few more weeks or so before these start showing up in any stores. I hope OdoWan likes these...the figure on the far right is the Sith Lord Darth Malgus from the recent OLD REPUBLIC video game and will be very, very hard to find for a lot of people. He'll be packed just one figure per case assortment of 12 and is going to be released just once.

So let's see: Another Vader, probably a repack but I can't tell from here. Clone Wars Anakin in realistic style. That's cool. I love troopers, so the navy commander is up my alley. I might be tempted to get the Hoth Luke. The one I have is currently hanging upside down from the Wampa dio, and is likely to stay that way. Be nice to have another one that can stand with the rest of my Hoth guys. As for Malgus, well I havn't played TOR, but that is one damn cool looking Sith. I'll probably have to pick him up regardless.

Oh wait....I live in the middle of nowhere and will never see a single one of these on the shelves at all. Never mind.

 

[Davros]

Good thing they come already assembled.

 

[SantaEddie74]

So let's see: Another Vader, probably a repack but I can't tell from here. Clone Wars Anakin in realistic style. That's cool. I love troopers, so the navy commander is up my alley. I might be tempted to get the Hoth Luke. The one I have is currently hanging upside down from the Wampa dio, and is likely to stay that way. Be nice to have another one that can stand with the rest of my Hoth guys. As for Malgus, well I havn't played TOR, but that is one damn cool looking Sith. I'll probably have to pick him up regardless.

Oh wait....I live in the middle of nowhere and will never see a single one of these on the shelves at all. Never mind.

Actually the Vader is a completely brand new sculpt based on his appearance in A NEW HOPE...all original parts, man. He just looks like a shameless repack to save a few tooling dollars. Malgus will probably be the hardest figure of all these to find. He's going to be in just one case assortment and that's it, so if you don't see him in stores or have a friend and connection you can take advantage of then it'll probably be eBay for ya, and nobody wants to spend sixty or seventy dollars on one brand new action figure unless they're loopier than a bowl of fruity breakfast cereal.

And the "live in the middle of nowhere...I'll never see these" comment proves once and for all you're a true, blue blooded collector. Only a genuine and devoted SW collector would know how absolutely shitty Hasbro's distribution can be. You have proven yourself in my eyes. I salute you, sir. We're not only brother Bronies...we are fellow Jedi. Our midichlorian count is strong.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

I think the only reason the Wal-Mart in my area even got the recent Episode I waves in is because they did section resets, so everything got new stuff in. Of course, they still decided not to stock the new Marvel Legends. Grrrrr.....I am stuck with an armless Terrax because I never found a Ghostrider, and for some stupid reason Hasbro started shipping wave 2 to places less than a month after wave 1 hit.

I thought myself extremely lucky that I managed to find a lone Bastilla and Ponda Baba....at a Wal-Mart 35 miles away. Never did find Nom Anor. Grinds my gears, that one. Oh, and don't even get me started on the Build-a-droid from a couple years back. Never saw one single solitary figure from the wave with HK-47. My favorite KOTOR character, and I had absolutely no opportunity to have him.

 

[SantaEddie74]

Actually, I have good news for you...Nom Anor hasn't been released yet. He doesn't come out until the next wave after the one I just bought. That wave is due sometime in May and will contain five brand new figures:

Nom Anor
Kithaba (Skiff Guard)
501st Legion Clone Trooper
Aayla Secura
Dr. Evazan

And last year's almost-impossible-to-find Wedge Antilles is being repacked in that case assortment so collectors will have a second shot at him at retail. As for Ponda Baba and Bastila Shan, I have two of the first figure and one of the second, but I had to resort to getting Bastila through the same friend's toy shop I used for my brand new figures. She was nowhere to be seen here, and the Ponda Baba wave showed up just one single time back in October, never to surface again.

Wanna see something truly sickening to the eyes of a SW collector? Check out this photo of a Walmart action figure aisle from some unreported location in the country. Remember how we had trouble finding this wave?

Some didn't have that trouble.

I'll give you time to regain consciousness before I continue.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Well that's good. Could have sworn Nom Anor was supposed to be out months ago. I honestly haven't been watching Star Wars stuff as close as I used to. The endless repacks, the terrible distribution, and the flood of Clone Wars stuff has just dulled my interest. It's so rare that I actually find something I want, that I just don't bother as much.

That picture though......I want to know who this bastard is and hunt his ass down, and then beg him to buy me toys. Oh well, I got my Bastilla and my Ponda, so I'm maybe not quite as angry as I should be. That's ridiculous though, and proof positive of Hasbro's idiotic distribution. Oh, and Wedge is being repacked? Thank god.

Again though, all of this moot as I'll never see them.

 

[SantaEddie74]

I know. People like you and I had to settle for seeing little or nothing of this wave but stores like this had enough to supply an entire Comic Con. Pathetic. Hasbro's distribution must be handled by a blind monkey trapped inside a box, because any moderately intelligent creature with opposable thumbs and functioning eyesight could see how bad the company's distribution has been and could come up with some way to resolve it for the sake of customers.

Here are the new figures in the next three waves(2012 Waves three, four and five) if you wanted to know:

WAVE 3 (mid-to-late April?)
___________________________

Clone Wars Anakin Skywalker
Darth Vader(ANH)
Imperial Navy Commander
Luke Skywalker(Hoth Outfit)
Darth Malgus

WAVE 4 (May?)
_______________

Dr. Evazan
Kithaba(Skiff Guard)
501st Legion Clone Trooper
Aayla Secura
Nom Anor


WAVE 5 (June?)
_______________

Grand Moff Tarkin
Nikto(Skiff Guard)
Odd Ball(Clone Pilot)
Starkiller(Galen Marek; Vader's Apprentice)
Shae Vizla(Old Republic Bounty Hunter)

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Tarkin? About freaking time. He hasn't had a figure since POTF2, has he? Pretty major character to have never had an update in all that time. (The ROTS version does not count.)

 

[SantaEddie74]

Yep! Here's the first official photo of what his Vintage packaging will look like. The figure has a soft goods fabric bottom to his uniform jacket, not molded plastic like all past Imperial officers.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Looks like he's got the same legs as the others, though. No knee articulation, again, which is really defeating the purpose of the soft goods if he can't sit down.

Then again, oooh a mouse droid!

 

[SantaEddie74]

Actually, if you look closely near where his kneecaps would be located(right above the rims of his boots) it appears there are little crescent-shaped slits that could be cut joints. So I could be mistaken, but I think the new Tarkin has the ability to bend his knees and sit. I'd prefer them to be ball or swivel joints, but cut joints work all the same even if they're clunkier and more difficult to position correctly in order to put a figure in a sitting position.

Most collectors are complaining about the soft goods fabric at the bottom of his jacket. When he was revealed at the New York Toy Fair the collecting websites lit up like a supernova over the soft goods. Lots of people don't like them and wanted Hasbro to make him all-plastic, and a few of the more hardcore and even spoiled collectors say they're gonna boycott this Tarkin because they think Hasbro screwed him up.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Obligatory "I can't boycott what I can't find" comment.

You can list me as one of the people that hate soft-goods. They never look right in this scale. In fact, most of the time they look cheap and ugly. The worst recent example is the General Lando. That cape was atrocious. But given the choice between Tarkin with soft-goods, and no Tarkin at all I'll take the former.

 

[SantaEddie74]

I'm mixed on soft goods. They work in some cases, fail utterly in others. The Vintage Episode I Darth Sidious and Darth Maul have soft goods robes and cloaks but molded plastic hoods, so they look much better with rigid hoods over their heads than they would with unsightly, baggy fabric wrapped around them. Soft goods cowls and hoods always look like complete shit, so I have to give Hasbro some credit for mixing things up a bit by making parts of outfits plastic and other parts fabric. The new Darth Sidious actually looks pretty good overall...one of his only downsides is that Hasbro never seems to remember to paint any silver highlights on the Sith neck clasp on Sidious and Emperor figures. They're usually black or dark blue, which doesn't match the movie costume and stands out like a sore thumb.

He might not be perfect like this, but imagine how uber-crappy he'd be with a ridiculous, puffy and wrinkly soft goods hood that would be four times the size of his head. Ugggh.

Oh, while I'm thinking of it here's a good quality carded photo of Nom Anor. You might already be aware of what his packaging is supposed to look like because it was originally designed in 2011 and scheduled for release last summer, but I think it always deserves another look. I'm not the biggest fan of the Yuuzhan Vong stories set 25 years after RETURN OF THE JEDI, but Nom Anor is one creepy and badass looking mo-fo. He'll no doubt be a top seller. And in case you were wondering? Yep. One per case. Typical.

 

[SPOCKED]

My son graduated Navy boot camp last Friday and is classing up for his first school in Pensacola. This was the first picture we got from him over facebook

He has an infectious and positive attitude and loves everything about serving. I really thought he'd do well in the service but didn't realize how perfect a fit it would turn out to be. It took a lot to get him from where he was a year ago to where he is now - I'm incredibly proud of him for getting on with his life in such a positive way. His first goal, now that he's settled in, is to catch up on the last 6 episodes of The Walking Dead since he left for the Navy just days before the final 6 episodes.

 

[ares93]

^ Nice! Good luck to him.

I pulled some strings and if it all pans out, I start basic training right after the summer. They've been dragging their heels despite the fact that I passed medical (messed up knee).

 

[SantaEddie74]

Another picture for OdoWan. I don't know if you ever saw these mockups that never made it to final retail, but quite a few of the early 2000 and 2001 Power of the Jedi figures were originally slated for release in the POTF2 and Episode I lines had those not been axed in favor of merging all the different movies into one convenient retail line. Characters like Senate Speaker Mas Amedda were supposed to have their own redesigned, oval-shaped COMMTech chips containing dialogue from whichever film they were in. I don't know about you, man, but I think these packages with chips would have been better than the Power of the Jedi ones that actually made it to stores.

 

[Amaris]

Another picture for OdoWan. I don't know if you ever saw these mockups that never made it to final retail, but quite a few of the early 2000 and 2001 Power of the Jedi figures were originally slated for release in the POTF2 and Episode I lines had those not been axed in favor of merging all the different movies into one convenient retail line. Characters like Senate Speaker Mas Amedda were supposed to have their own redesigned, oval-shaped COMMTech chips containing dialogue from whichever film they were in. I don't know about you, man, but I think these packages with chips would have been better than the Power of the Jedi ones that actually made it to stores.

To be honest, the first thing I saw when I looked at the picture was "Star Wars: Episode I figure! Now with more talking!"

 

[1001001]

Yep! Here's the first official photo of what his Vintage packaging will look like. The figure has a soft goods fabric bottom to his uniform jacket, not molded plastic like all past Imperial officers.

And of course, be sure to get the Owen and Beru action figures...