Swords and Spaceships

Amazing how life gets in the way of something so simple as a silly little toy blog. Going to try and remedy that, again. Stay tuned.

So that's it then. Toys R Us went into liquidation today, effectively the end of the big box toy store in America. Apparently, in Canada the chain is staying afloat, but who knows for how long. I'm kind of saddened by this, but for other reasons. Mostly that my niece and nephew will probably never know what it's like to go into a store like Toys R Us and be overwhelmed by the size of it all. And that 33,000 working people lose their jobs. That's the worst part. And now the founder of the chain has passed away. I'm sure it's heartbreaking to watch a bunch of vultures swoop in and destroy the company you worked your entire life to build. I'm indifferent as to what this does for collectors. My local TRU closed after Christmas 2014, and though I made several trips to the Cedar Rapids or Des Moines locations since, I don't think I've actually purchased anything at a TRU store since the GI Joe 50th Anniversary line offered the Battle Below Zero set. Or...

Big Damn Barge Hasbro revealed this bad boy at Toy Fair this year, Jabba's Sail Barge scaled for your 3.75" Star Wars figures. 4 feet long, and enough space for all the Jabba's menagerie figures you've collected since 1983. It's incredible, and possibly could be another jewel in the Star Wars crown. It's an interesting experiment- Hasbro is seeking 5000 backers in the US only (so far) at $500 each to get one of these that will ship in April 2019. It's a Kickstarter model, and therefore Hasbro wants their money April 4th of THIS year. Otherwise, it doesn't get made. I can't blame Hasbro for mitigating their risk by asking for their money now. $2.5 million is a lot of money, and I'm willing to bet the tooling costs more than that. I'd love to have one, obviously. I think the window is too short, but if they made it too long, it wouldn't happen. If there was an option to split up payments, I'd be in already. The GI Joe Collector...

Just got back from the midnight release for The Last Jedi merchandise. I am sorely disappointed. Went to the two local Wal-Mart stores to find Jedi Master Luke, a figure I've been waiting 35 years for. I count myself lucky to find it at the second store, since Hasbro saw fit to pack this figure one-per-case of twelve. And these stores have received exactly one case of this series so far. There are going to be a lot of incredibly disappointed people this weekend. So I have to wonder- why bother with this super-hyped release date at all? The product isn't there, so why bother going for all this press coverage when nothing is there to be purchased? These last three launches have been awful. It's taking what little fun is left in collecting Star Wars toys and destroying it. Social media is blowing up with stories of scant product offering, unless of course you collect the Hot Wheels or Funko POP things. I understand Disney wants to make it an event and I appreciate the eff...

Here's some proof that Hasbro could get away with ANYTHING ten years ago. 2007 was probably the best year to collect Star Wars action figures. The stuff Hasbro was willing to try was amazing, the prices were reasonable, the vehicles were works of art, and you could, y'know, actually find the product. Around this timeframe, Hasbro began offering Comic Packs- two figures plus a reprint of either a Marvel or Dark Horse comic book, the figures featured in the package from the included book.The idea was incredibly appealing to me, since I read the comics as well as bought the toys. These pictured here are from probably my favorite series they ever released, based on the first six issues of the Marvel series that ran from 1977 to 1986. What sets these apart, obviously, are the absurd colors they're painted in. The strange shading on the Stormtrooper armor not to mention the red lenses on the helmets, the far-from-final Imperial uniform on Grand Moff Tarkin, a Chewbacca w...

or He-Man 2.0 if you prefer. Mattel offered this guy last year, and I missed it. I picked it up on eBay for a ridiculous markup, but so it goes, amirite? I always hoped Mattel would offer toys that looked more like the Filmation cartoon from the 1980s, and now their licensee Super 7 is going to town with that idea. More on that later. This figure went on sale around February of last year, and as I said, I missed it. Mattel sold these exclusively through their MattyCollector.Com website, and more customers went away empty-handed than acquired the figure. Mattel relied on forced scarcity to sell these, and since 2009 I've collected this line. I made more purchases from eBay, Amazon, and online retailers than I did Mattel, because they were so hard to acquire. Most of these purchases were well after the figure had been released, and I bought most for far less than what Mattel charged for them. (You can see why the Matty website has folded and a boutique toymaker called Super 7 ...

Finally acquired the Blu-Ray for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Soaked the movie in again, so hey, time to write a bunch of words about it that four people will read. I think I'll start with Darth Vader, because why not. I was thinking as I watched it that the original idea was to save him for the end, where he ignited his lightsaber and took out all those Rebels while he was chasing down the Death Star plans. The meeting with Director Krennic seemed superfluous, though I guess it would have cheated us out of seeing Vader's ridiculously melodramatic castle on Mustafar, which has been something I've wanted to see for a while. Some concept art for Return of the Jedi featured an Imperial castle on a planet called Had Abbadon, and that was where all the stuff between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor was going to take place. Obviously, the idea was scrapped and all the action moved to the Death Star. Lucasfilm is well-known for reusing concepts later on, and I was stoked to see Dar...