Star Wars Black Series

[docsilence]

I can see a sad montage of a droid making his way through the galaxy losing parts one at a time and replacing them with whatever he can find. He's the perpetually put upon scrappy underdog your heart goes out to through the use of clever editing and music choices and goddammit I'm going to buy this thing aren't I?

It just keeps splash cutting to him getting blasted to shit and then doing some self-repairs. Starts out as a pristine but aging battle droid, ends up looking like concept art from Chappie

 

[joshsquash729]

You know, it kind of didn't hit me back when they were revealed, but Dogma and Hardcase are coming out as a 2 pack. And we have had Pong Krell rumored for quite some time. Dogma and Hardcase were in the Pong Krell episode. I wonder if that is just a further clue Krell is on the way? That Hasbro is letting Dogma and Hardcase out as a Wal-Mart exclusive two pack to maybe coincide with Krell's release. I hope he is finally revealed at SDCC.

I think I somehow missed that pack being announced/leaked. I just looked it up and have no memory of seeing that before. I got Hardcase a while back from Veils Toys, so I'm not entirely sure I'd need a second one, but I do admittedly like that un-helmeted head. Maybe I'll snag it when it goes up, and try and turn my original one into another Clone; I've never attempted any sort of Clone customization.

I agree on the Mercenary Droid- there's just something really cool about him. All the Merc Droids, really- I hope we see at least the Super Battle Droid one and maybe one other- would be cool to see them re-use the L3 head again. I wanna say this one was the one we saw super quickly in the pilot seat during the air battle at the end, but I could be wrong. If it even matters- there were so many of them, there was undoubtedly a couple that looked exactly the same. Much as I'd love to army build these guys, for money purposes, I can't. I'm using the "well, they were all cobbled together, so none of them would look exactly the same" excuse to justify not getting more than 1.

But it does make me smile whenever Hasbro does a background character anymore, especially one as "intricate" as this one. I miss the good old days when everyone got a figure

 

[JakeEkiss]

Something that never gets old on toy forums is watching people talk themselves into buying things in real time.

I think I'm going to take a risk and assume that because he's a no-name character from a film that underperformed he's going to go on deep discount int he next few months. I'm going to roll the dice on him. If it works out, Enfys Nest gets another teammate on the shelf.

It just keeps splash cutting to him getting blasted to shit and then doing some self-repairs. Starts out as a pristine but aging battle droid, ends up looking like concept art from Chappie

At some point you get a version of this scene from 8th MS Ground Team:

 

[docsilence]

I think I'm going to take a risk and assume that because he's a no-name character from a film that underperformed he's going to go on deep discount int he next few months. I'm going to roll the dice on him. If it works out, Enfys Nest gets another teammate on the shelf.

At some point you get a version of this scene from 8th MS Ground Team:

That's a safe bet - Amazon discounted him by almost 4 bucks before he even shipped for me.

 

[Reefer Shark]

I think I'm going to take a risk and assume that because he's a no-name character from a film that underperformed he's going to go on deep discount int he next few months. I'm going to roll the dice on him. If it works out, Enfys Nest gets another teammate on the shelf.

At some point you get a version of this scene from 8th MS Ground Team:

Classic! I could watch 08th MS Team gifs all day

 

[JakeEkiss]

That's a safe bet - Amazon discounted him by almost 4 bucks before he even shipped for me.

He's already below the threshold where I could just get him for "free" using Amazon credit, so I always have the choice to impulse buy him if I want. But I'm going to see what SDCC stuff looks like first.

 

[docsilence]

He's already below the threshold where I could just get him for "free" using Amazon credit, so I always have the choice to impulse buy him if I want. But I'm going to see what SDCC stuff looks like first.

You just reminded me I have an insane amount of Amazon points because that's the card I use for book/convention expenses and household supplies, so it's just steadily building up points. I got the Lego X-Mansion last year for like 30 bucks after I had to put in my booth supply expenses.

 

[Schizm]

Walmart listed the second movie Mando wave at $24.97 which is why Amazon pricematched all of them, except for Zeb, I think.

I haven't had a chance to see the movie yet for like a billion reasons and I"m sure he's a nothingburger of a character but he's a droid in a cape! He's got parts from like nine or ten droids! He's seen ten star systems of bad road! He needs a name. (I had the same feeling with Guavian Enforcer and the Pike soldier. I kinda want a shelf the Nobodies mercenaries for Star Wars some day.

I am not a fan of unnamed characters - but there is something about *only* Star Wars where the background characters almost deserve a shelf. The galaxy is so big and the designs are always so well-done (even if the character ends up sucking) that I don't mind creating a shelf of just cool toys that look like they belong together - that phrase may be the key. All Star Wars toys look like they belong together. Maybe Hasbro was right to not make TBS animated figures faithful.

I think this is one of the reasons Holdo really didn't vibe with audiences - nothing about her looked Star Warsy.

I can see a sad montage of a droid making his way through the galaxy losing parts one at a time and replacing them with whatever he can find. He's the perpetually put upon scrappy underdog your heart goes out to through the use of clever editing and music choices and goddammit I'm going to buy this thing aren't I?

The episode of Rebels where all Chopper wants is a matching leg surprised me by how rude everyone was to him about it and how none of them figured he would just steal it.

 

[JakeEkiss]

I think this is one of the reasons Holdo really didn't vibe with audiences - nothing about her looked Star Warsy.

I disagree with that. She's wearing a costume that's very (intentionally) similar to Leia's New Hope outfit and Mon Mothma's RotJ outfit. Just a big swatch of featureless drapey fabric. Hers even fits her better in the film version. Arguably she's extremely Star Wars, she's just dressed like an OT woman (slave girls in Jabba's palace excepted) instead of anyone else. I think audiences didn't take to her for the way her role was written and (uggh, I hate that I'm certain this is true) her pink hair. Audiences don't like it when a character ostensibly on the heroes' side is chastising them, and chuds think women with dyed hair are a representation of rabid feminists and the same dudes who say that hate feminists (not supposition, I've seen shitty dudes say this).

The figure isn't great either, but for the same reason I don't think New Hope Leia figures look good. It's really hard to render "a big swatch of featureless drapey fabric" in 1/12 scale. She looks plenty Star Wars, she just doesn't translate well to the medium in soft goods. After New Hope they've largely moved away from that sort of costuming except for her, and I do think that's a good idea. Mon Mothma got waaaay more interesting outfits in Andor.

 

[joshsquash729]

Agreed- I've always dug Holdo, and think she works just fine in the universe. While there certainly are things that aren't Star Wars-y, it's a rather large net at this point, considering we've had space biker teen hooligans and whatnot. I think anything short of modern graphic tees would fit into Star Wars, and heck, even then, there's been plenty of somewhat big modern brands that have had their clothes reworked into a costume.

The argument I always see brought up is the one Jake mentioned- the colored hair. Obviously that's not their only problem with the character, but I feel like that one trait is mentioned more than anything else.

Not that I think they'd ever redo Holdo in the line, but I think they should go the route they did with the recent Leia and give us a soft plastic dress. Sculpted folds and wrinkles, at least in that regard- a full dress- I think look better than the big hunk of fabric with some unseemly stitch lines.

 

[Schizm]

It's a hideous combo of color, cut and hair. I don't see any resemblance to Leia's ANH look aside from an attempt at drape-y spacewear.

I've had the figure's colors in my head for so long I just looked at actual screenshots and I think the figure's color scheme is actually an improvement. It's slight, but warmer than the drab purple/brown onscreen.

 

[JakeEkiss]

considering we've had space biker teen hooligans and whatnot

See that works for me because it's a reference to Lucas's American Graffiti days. It's a new corner of Star Wars, but he already did a version of the drag racers with Phantom Menace and they feel like an outgrowth of that.

I think their main flaw is the show they were in was underwritten, and so there's no characters there you're interested in enough to attach to. And that's a shame, because Sophie Thatcher could definitely pull it off if she was given better material.

It's a hideous combo of color, cut and hair. I don't see any resemblance to Leia's ANH look aside from an attempt at drape-y spacewear.

Obviously, all a matter of taste, I think the drapey spacewear in general feels very dated now. The hair I have no strong feelings about. If Holdo had been in a different movie with a different look, I could see us getting Andor style early life looks at her the same way we did Mothma. I think most of the Star Wars women in political positions start as sort of cardboard and then get filled out later when a writer remembers that politics can be dramatic. Leia's sort of the exception because she starts off as such a firecracker.