The Coming Storm

General Kenobi, Commander Bly

The Clone Wars are taking their toll on the Jedi. Their numbers are dwindling against the Separatist armies, and the pall of the dark side of the Force clouds everything. Even so they fight on, securing victory after victory, and the tide of the war is slowly turning. Yet as General Kenobi leads his battalion to secure yet another stronghold, he would never foresee the betrayal that awaits him...

The Clone Wars are almost over. The Great Purge is coming.

*

OK, moody scene-setting aside, the purge really is coming to the Mos Espa Collection; and given how sprawling my collection is becoming, that's only a good thing. SDCC this year was a watershed moment for fans of Hasbro's Star Wars line, I think. Fan outrage over the direction of the 'classic' figure line is not a new thing (or fan outrage about anything, for that matter), but I'm getting the impression that the SA 3 3/4" approach is winding its way down now, and that's going to affect a lot of people's collections. The new Saga Legends looks like the template for a continued line, and it's a move I fully applaud - these are toys with great character likenesses that are also sturdy and can stand up to rigorous adventures. These are the kind of toys that I wanted as a kid, and I'm glad that they're there for kids today; whether they're entirely something I would want as an adult today I'll come to in a minute. The fact that I'm not the target demographic aside though, these figures are also seeing release at a reasonable price point, which has been the most off-putting aspect of new Star Wars figures for a few years now. If reducing the articulation allows the line to survive until the new trilogy, then Hasbro should absolutely go for it, and fie on any collector who can't understand that.

I don't get it either.

So, where does that leave collectors? It's been theorised in a few places that the new 3 3/4" Black Series line is a way for Hasbro to release existing (but unreleased) sculpts and simple kit bashes as a way of clearing the line out completely ahead of 2015's sequel trilogy push, and that makes a lot of sense to me. The upcoming figures, both rumoured and confirmed, are ones that have been mooted (and some even shown) for release in previous lines and others are fairly simple updates to older releases. I'm basing this on nothing but speculation, but if, after years of missteps, you have your toy line for children finally in working order, why would you continue to sell a misfiring line to a smaller audience, that's more expensive to produce and harder to sell? Furthermore, why do this when there's very few characters in this line left to make? It's been eight years since ROTS hit cinemas, and there really isn't much left to do in this scale (and I'm a bigger fan than most, but I have yet to see one decent argument for why a Toryn Farr action figure is required at all, by anybody, as a mass-market release. Online collector exclusive is a different matter).

The future's black...

And so, we come to the 6" Black Series, and the future of Star Wars action figures. Following the lead of the re-branded Marvel Legends line, the Black Series introduces a new scale to Star Wars action figures, with superior sculpting, more articulation than you can shake a well-spoken stick at and a long future of first-release main characters to come. I think those doubting this line's ability to last should look at the success (and there is no other word for it) of the SDCC/Celebration exclusive Boba Fett with Han Solo in Carbonite, which sold out in a day despite the inflated price and is now trading for as much as £200 on Ebay. People, not just collectors but real-life people want these toys, and the buzz around them is the highest it's been for a Star Wars line since at least the Episode I merchandising launch. With this weekend's wave two reveals at SDCC, I can now say that I am beyond doubt amongst the converted.

Captain of the Millennium Falcon, woot!

What struck me about the Saga Legends line when I reviewed the Super Battle Droid last week was that they're good toys, and I fully support the line and its reasons for existing, but they're not figures that I personally want to spend money on because I've been there before. I will pick up select figures based on aesthetics or whimsy, but for my tastes, and for the level of quality that's on offer, I intend to migrate fully to the 6" Black Series with an Episode III-VI focus, because frankly these toys really sate my desire for high quality, affordable Star Wars action figures. To do this I'll need to create space and funds, and that means selling off a chunk of my 3 3/4" collection. This in turn means deciding what each figure means to me, which I think is going to be a revelatory process and one that I'm looking forward to starting. It's also a process that I'm going to cover here on the blog (as well as continuing reviews, Vintage Wednesdays and LoEB contributions), because I think it'll be interesting to look at how much of figure collecting is about the purchasing, rather than the enjoyment of owning that figure. Hopefully that'll be something many of us can relate to, so it'd be great if anybody can relate similar experiences over the course of 'the purge'.

And every now and then I may remember that I occasionally cover Transformers too.

Thanks for reading!