Author Archives: Thomas

I am up very early so you folks can read all about last night’s episode of The Acolyte. The offensive, lore-breaking episode that will forever ruin Star Wars, steal your girlfriend away and crash your car … In truth, none of that actually is accurate. The episode is not offensive, it’s not lore-breaking and it does not ruin Star Wars. Instead it may just waste your time, insult your intelligence and leave you wondering what the effing eff you just watched. But make no mistake: none of it is offensive. Other than offensively stupid maybe.

So yes, there are lots of things to talk about. Click here or on the banner to read my very spoilery spoiler review of “Destiny”, the Acolyte episode that does NOT ruin Star Wars forever or redefines the Force and makes it female. Some people really need to get a life. Whatever. Let’s discuss!

UPDATE: I rewatched a few scenes and found definitive proof of what is going on in this episode and that The Acolyte will indeed copy the movie Roshomon, i.e. episode 3 is not the full story and we will get a second flashback that shows us the real events / the full version, because episode 3 leaves out many key events and the new detail I found proves it. I updated the review to discuss this additional detail.

Let’s make this quick. Hasbro revealed various new things today!

The Black Series:

• Osha (accessories are her little droid companion and a backpack)
• Shin Hati with a new hat, no with cloth cape, a Target exclusive figure

The Vintage Collection:

• Osha with her droid and backpack and some other stuff

Retro:

• Sol, Jecki, Yord, Osha, Mae, Aniseya 6-pack!

Preorders should open tomorrow at 1 pm!

Click through for some photos!

TVC Osha Aniseya

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After reporting pointless day 1 numbers for the first episode of The Acolyte (because they never did so for anything before), Disney released 5-day numbers last night, just like they did for Ahsoka. And the first episode of The Acolyte had 11.1 million views worldwide, according to Disney. Which makes it the second least watched Star Wars series premiere on Disney+. Click through for more!

Fandom lovingy dubbed this guy “Order 66 Chicken McNuggets”. At least his name is not “Porkins”…

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While there is virtually zero doubt that the Cantina HasLab will get funded, it is still interesting to compare the current campaign to the Ghost and the Razor Crest HasLabs. And when you do you cannot fail but notice how the 2024 crowdfunding campaign is off to a much slower start than the either the Ghost or the Razor Crest. What does that mean? How do the numbers compare? Click through for more!

UPDATED!

Not as sexy maybe?

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… at least as far as auctions of rare toys are concerned. Until recently a Barbie doll with diamond necklace, that sold for $302,500 in 2010 in an auction, was the single most expensive toy in the world. But not anymore.

A short while ago Heritage Auctions managed to sell a rocket firing Boba Fett handpainted prototype figure from 1979 for an astounding $525,000. So, who of you was it? And you do know it belongs in a museum, right?

But this is once more proof that Star Wars can still be at the top. The pop cultural impact of the first movies and the classic Kenner toys should never be underestimated. Let’s see what a Rose Tico figure may sell for in 2060…

Here you can look at the listing on the Heritage Auctions website! Apparently the new owner is accepting offers, but you have to fork out at least $787,500. Maybe now is the time to play the lottery.

The most expensive toy in the world

The Acolyte… much was talked about this show before. Some delusional idiot claimed it’s not even a real project and that it will never be released… others read what showrunner Headland and various actors have to say and were somewhat suspicious of what on Earth they will make. But the wait is over and we have the first two episodes of The Acolyte. So what’s it like? I will say this: “Boring” & “Stupid”.  Whereas even bad Obi-Wan Kenobi and bad The Book of Boba Fett episodes at least had some charm and likable characters. Also, if you like the Jedi you should probably watch something else. Headland was not kidding when she said her show won’t be kind to the Jedi. If you want to know more or discuss the first two episodes click here or on the banner for my review of the first two episodes.

This happens 5 minutes into the show… so not even a spoiler really

If you follow Star Wars news you probably already know about statements Kathleen Kennedy made about Star Wars fans, male fans specifically, and how women in Star Wars often suffer more from attacks and have it harder in Star Wars because of the male fanbase. I believe this deserves a discussion. So grab your popcorn and click through for some thoughts about all this.

A typical male Star Wars fan?

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SHF is still releasing Star Wars action figures. In April they teased and finally revealed their version of Jar Jar Binks which is infinitely superior to the Black Series version, because SHF remembered that Jar Jar is a pretty goofy character and not really a warrior. So he gets a goofy face with his tongue hanging out, a “thumbs up” hand, even the frog thingy he tries to eat on Tatooine.

And today SHF announced another four releases. Unfortunately, even though it is the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace and SHF still has a few unreleased prequel protoype figures (a glorious Queen Amidala in her Theed outfit and a Super Battle Droid) they instead chose to release four A New Hope figures, three of which are basically straight rereleases and one of which is basically the same figure as before, only with one changed detail.

The rereleases are

• R2-D2
• C-3PO (the figure seems to have a somewhat updated vac metal finish, based on promo photos and looks more like the Bandai model kit now but is otherwise using the exact same sculpt as the previously released figure)
• Stormtrooper

The barely new figure is an A New Hope Darth Vader which seems to be basically the Kenobi Vader figure, however the cape seems to be new-ish (it looks longer and somewhat better) and the inner tunic is movie accurate and now above the shoulder armor.

Jar Jar is still available for pre-order, he is a web exclusive, so that means aftermarket prices or buying after release will be very expensive. The other figures will go up for pre-order soon – on June 4th – on the usual Japanese websites selling these (Nin Nin, Amiami etc).

3PO seems to have a better chrome finish, but is otherwise the same figure as before

I originally did not want to review Tales of the Empire, because the previous season, Tales of the Jedi, felt like a waste of my time, with good ideas here and there… never explored and resulting in episodes that were more infuriating than good, because you could tell that the basic ideas were ok or even good… but were never fleshed out and ultimately the episodes felt like pointless filler. With the worst offender the Ahsoka as a baby episode that no one needed.

But Barriss Offee, while a minor character overall, is still one of the better known prequel Jedi (padawans), I liked her character for much of The Clone Wars, until they made her evil towards the end (it came out of nowhere). So I decided to give the Barriss Offee “Tale” a try… and I believe it’s high time we talk about that, even if the few who will ever bother to watch this already watched it over the weekend probably. Anyway… Barriss Offee’s “Tale of the Empire” makes me fear for the very worst when it comes to the future of Star Wars under Dave Filoni. It had good ideas, just like Ahsoka had a few good ideas… but horribly executed, with nonsensical things happening and a character twist that literally makes no sense. The entire format makes no sense to me and I wish Lucasfilm would spend their money on better projects… a proper six to ten episode Barriss mini series could have been really great. What we got instead is a new low point in Star Wars in my opinion. And it pains me to say this. I really wanted to like this. I like Barriss as a character. And then we get “this”. Click here or on the banner to read my review and discussion of Barriss Offee’s story in “Tales of the Empire”.

She’ll certainly get better

Hasbro’s May the 4th (on May 3rd…) livestream was mostly a nothingburger, unfortunately, especially with the HasLab announcement being delayed until further notice. The Black Series mostly gets kitbashes, refreshes or rereleases.

• Darth Sidious (Revenge of the Sith)
• Qui-Gon / Obi-Wan / Darth Maul 3-pack
• Yoda and Commander Gree 2-pack
• Super Battle Droid
• Captain Enoch and Nighttrooper 2-pack (Walmart Exclusive in the US and Canada)

The figures will be released in fall 2024, the Enoch/Nighttrooper 2-pack will go up for pre-order tomorow, May 4th at 10 am ET on Walmart. All other sets will go up for pre-order at 1pm ET, as usual you can find everything on Pulse.

There was also a pipeline reveal and my reaction was “WTF?”. Click through for the details!

Multipacks are apparently very popular at Hasbro

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I skipped last week’s episode “Flash Strike”, because it was just part one of the big finale of The Bad Batch and I wanted to talk about it all at the same time, so reviewing last week’s episode seemed a bit redundant. So today I will talk about the 70 minute finale which is mostly the 48 minute final episode The Cavalry Has Arrived (with last week’s 22 minute episode added you get the 70 minute finale)… and I will also look back and give my final verdict on The Bad Batch.
Also… in case you really need to know now before you click through… does the series have an actual conclusion? Is the finale a satisfying ending? I would say mostly “yes”, but you can tell the showrunners were probably caught on the wrong foot when they were told that season 3 is the final one. But they tried their best and I would say as far as endings for cancelled series go The Bad Batch absolutely has one of the better ones. But the tacked on epilogue reeks of last minute addition. So there is a lot to talk about, one last time, read my spoiler review for The Bad Batch series finale by clicking here or on the banner!

Wall Street is celebrating Hasbro’s latest earnings report. The company posted an operating profit of $116.2 million. The stock price is up by almost 12% as I write this. And then you look at the report and you wonder what on earth these people are partying over. And Star Wars? Not worth a mention at all. You want to know why Hasbro no longer talks about Star Wars? Click through for more!

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks at the earnings presentation (symbol photo)

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Only one more week to go! As The Bad Batch is approaching the series finale the Bad Batch still have to find Tantiss, so they can watch how Omega single handedly takes down the secret outpost and escapes with her fellow prisoners and space dogs and maybe even captured clones. So this week is all about the Bad Batch finally finding a way to get to Tantiss. Omega meanwhile is already busy plotting her escape and things unfold exactly like you think they would. Still, “Into The Breach” was actually fun, because the infiltration of the Imperial orbital station with a reluctant former vice admiral Rampart was pretty entertaining. Click through for the full spoiler review of the episode and let’s discuss the penultimate The Bad Batch entry!

In the past few days news have made the round that on new Target planograms no shelf space is alotted for The Vintage collection and that there is not even a DPCI number for TVC in Target’s system anymore. What is going on? Click through for the full story!

He may have something to do with it

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Anyone familar with “Betteridges’ Law of Headlines” will immediately know the answer to the question… so spoiler: no. They haven’t. Sure, they made money with Star Wars, quite a bit, but they paid $4.05 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, which has to be recouped before you can talk about actual profits. For the first time (I believe it is the first time) it’s not some YouTuber who is eternally angry which can be used as a source for this, but Forbes magazine! However, since Forbes only covers the movies I will add other things like merchandise, video games and, well, everything!

All the Star Wars movies and many Disney+ shows are produced in the UK. The reason for that is tax incentives. However, this also means Disney has to provide detailed financial statements in the UK  and those are public, i.e. if you know the names of the production companies (think Blue Harvest) you can easily look up how much money Disney/Lucasfilm actually spent on something, and this includes all the movies and various shows. And those numbers are quite… something. If you thought movie budgets at Disney and Lucasfilm are out of control… you ain’t seen nothing yet!

So click through for a detailed breakdown of the movie budgets and learn why Disney, even after 12 long years, has not even recouped the cost of buying Lucasfilm in 2012 with all Star Wars projects combined.

Money sinkhole

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Things go boom in this week’s episode of The Bad Batch! In “Juggernaut” the team once again tries to find out the location of Tantiss, for the n-th time this season, but this time for reals! It turns out Crosshair knows of yet another way to locate Tantiss… something he failed to mention all this time before “because”. So off we go! Meanwhile Omega is back in the lab on Tantiss and gets a full tour of the facility by Dr Hemlock who turns out to be a graduate of the Dr Evil Medical School for Aspiring Villains. And someone please give Emerie Carr a long, long hug, this episode proves she needs one! So there are things to talk about this week… primarily about how stupid (Disney) Star Wars can be… even if entertaining on the surface! Click here or on the banner for the my full spoiler review of Juggernaut and let’s discuss the latest The Bad Batch episode!

Ubisoft dropped their brand new story trailer for Star Wars: Outlaws today! Release date for the open world (galaxy…) game is August 30th!

The trailer tells you about the basic setup, Kay crossed some underworld bigwig and yet another scoundrel wants her to steal something from him to buy her freedom. But the trailer also hints at being more to Kay than meets the eye… The trailer is mostly about the very basic setup, we also know now when the game is set: between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Which means Kay could cross paths with a few famous people in her adventures… In fact, one (technically speaking two) are already seen in the trailer, Han in Carbonite and Jabba, whom Kay meets on Tatooine.

Ubisoft will offer three day early access if you buy the ultimate or gold edition of the game which will also come with the season pass. I remember a time when early access aka “beta testing” was free… now it’s a privilege. Anyway… in my opinion the game looks very, very promising, Ubisoft can be accused of many things, but open world design is usually their forte, even if recent missteps like Skull & Bones were pretty disastrous, but if Outlaws is anything like the Assassin’s Creed / Watch Dogs / Far Cry games (only with better (side) quest design and less repetitive) this could be the Star Wars game people have been looking for.

Are you interested in Outlaws? Will you want to play the game? Click through for the trailer!

They REALLY love Tatooine…

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Another The Bad Batch double feature this week! And a lot of things happen for a change. We even get the best season 3 episode thus far, and of course it’s about someone other than Omega or the Bad Batch (just like in season 2). And the series also goes full circle… so there’s lots to discuss this week! Click on the banner or here to read my spoiler review of Identity Crisis / Point Of No Return and let’s discuss the latest two episodes!

There is a LOT to talk about this week. Not just about The Bad Batch and the return of Asajj Ventress (which comes as no surprise, they showed her in the trailers) and certain revelations, but I feel it’s also high time to talk about Star Wars as a whole, because “The Harbinger” is a perfect showcase for everything that is both good and beautiful and just plain silly and bad in Star Wars. So click here or on the banner for my spoiler review of “The Harbinger” and let’s discuss it all!

With this week’s episode we are past the halfway point for the last season of The Bad Batch and things are slowly coming together. While this week is mostly more setup for the finale, “Bad Territory” is an entertaining episode. Much of that can be attributed to the inclusion of Fennec Shand. So click here or on the banner for my spoiler review of “Bad Territory” and lets’s discuss the latest The Bad Batch episode!

Well, that was a very pleasant surprise and probably the best Hasbro Star Wars livestream in literal ages! Not just when it comes to the number of reveals, but also the presentation felt much more alive this time, less scripted, less teleprompter reading and actually, just like five people having fun with the reveals… Anyway, much to my own surprise Hasbro revealed a ton of The Acolyte figures, which will all be released in Fall 2024!

• Jedi Master Sol
• Padawan Jecki Lon
• Jedi Knight Yord Fandar
• Jedi Master Indara
• Mae (Assassin)

ALL figures come with their robes and each has a unique lightsaber! Only Mae comes with various knives/daggers instead, but she too has her purple cloak. All the figures are mainline items in the US and Fan Channel / Amazon / Pulse items in Europe and everything revealed today will be available for pre-order on March 21st at 1 pm ET!

On top of that a new Darth Maul holocomm figure was revealed as well and there will also be a new Moff Gideon roleplay helmet

There are also quite a few exciting pipeline reveals! Stay tuned for the update coming very soon with all the photos and some discussion!

Click through for all the photos and a discussion!

So much new stuff!

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Hasbro will make action figures for The Acolyte. Now the only question is what figures they should or could make…. based on the first trailer I have some suggestions for Hasbro. So click through for my take on what Acolyte figures Hasbro should make.

So many Jedi

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The new trailer for The Acolyte has dropped. Click through to watch it and also for an analysis and discussion of the trailer! You can also check out the second teaser poster. 

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In a movie with many iconic scenes, “Apology accepted, Captain Needa!” is certainly one of those memorable moments, when a sadistic Darth Vader once again disposes of one of his officers like a used paper tissue in The Empire Strikes Back.

And sadly, the actor portraying Captain Needa, Michael Culver, has passed away on February 27th 2024 at the age of 85, news of his death however only broke yesterday. Michael Culver did not appear in all that many Hollywood movies, but like many other accomplished British actors he had a very extensive theatre career and Culver was also always in high demand on British television, where he regularly appeared in various series until 2008, only after that did his tv career slowly wind down, but Culver would still narrate a few documentaries in later years.

So let’s all remember Michael Culver who will never be forgotten by the Star Wars community as the officer who would take full responsibility for losing track of Han Solo, only to become another one of Darth Vader’s victims. But as mentioned above, it would be wrong to limit Michael Culver’s long career to this one movie, some of the series he starred in that you may have heard of outside of Britain are Space 1999, The Professionals or the classic The Avengers.

Rest in peace!

Apology accepted, Captain Needa!

This week we get a The Bad Batch double feature with Infiltration and Extraction. And the two episodes are the best of season 3 thus far. One reason for that is that the focus this week is mostly on Rex, Crosshair, Howzer and Wolffe with some interesting cameos, even the action is above standard, no alien monsters this week, instead we get an intense escape sequence when a deadly clone assassin and squads of clone troopers under the command of Wolffe, who try to capture Omega, raid Rex’ hideout. So click here or on the banner to read my spoiler review and let’s discuss this week’s two-parter!