Big E's Best and Worst of 2003!!!
Posted by: Big E 12.10.03 12:01am
It's getting close to the end of the year and it's time to put together the Best & Worst list, through my eyes, of the Star Wars world.

Last year I said that 2002 was a really good year, and it was. It was a movie year, we had Celebration II and we had a ton of new collectibles that were easy to find in stores. Midnight Madness wasn't quite what it was for Episode 1, but you could still get out to a Wal-Mart Supercenter or the odd Toys-R-Us at midnight on April 23rd to get your Attack of the Clones toy fix. This year things were different. There were quite a few good things, but collecting toys wasn't the best through the middle part of the year.

There have been quite a few exclusive collectibles over the last couple of years and this year I decided to add a new category to the list. Best and worst exclusive of the year. This could be toys or non-toys, basically anything that was an exclusive in one way or another. I added it when I found myself putting something in the non-toy section basically because it was a bad exclusive and because it didn't fit anywhere else. But, man, if this list keeps adding categories I may have to hire someone to write it next year!

As always, read through the list and agree or disagree with me. Drop by the forums to discuss or send me an email with why you think I'm right or wrong as the case may be.

Best

Figure 3 3/4"

Coleman Trebor - This figure is big and well detailed. He comes with a lightsaber, which is always cool, and a base to stand on. He has some cool articulation and just looks great.
Wat Tambor - Again, a great sculpt and the base he comes with works well with the War Room Screen Scenes that also came out this year. Aliens and secondary characters quite often make the best figures.
Padme Lars Homestead - I loved the outfit in the film, even though it didn't get a lot of screen time, and the figure turned out well...watch to make sure you get a good paint job though.
Jedi Children - All three of them, Ashla, Jempa and Chian. They are unique, cute, Jedi and Chian even comes with a new Yoda figure that also looks pretty good.
McQuarrie Stormtrooper - The newest Fan Choice figure made it out just shy of the end of the year, but it's anything but "shy" of being a great figure. Well sculpted, it looks a lot like the McQuarrie art. His accessories include a blaster w/ holster, shield and a cool lightsaber that has a glow-in-the-dark center with blue outside. Plenty of arm and shoulder articulation and a base to stand on. Very cool figure.
Clone Trooper super articulation - Wah? An army builder that has surpassed the CommTech/Troop Builder set Stormtrooper? You betcha. A great figure with tons of articulation. Now, if Hasbro would only ship a solid case of this figure...
Hoth sets - Although I don't have them in hand yet, judging by the pictures the Wampa and General Rieekan Ultra figures need a mention. The coolest feature of these figures is the fact that they interact with the regular carded figures. Luke Hoth combines with the Wampa to form a cave section, how cool is that?
Honorable mention goes to the Clone Wars multi-packs and value packs. Five different Clone Trooper 3-packs kept everyone running this year but if you want a Clone army, this was the way to do it. Also the Clone Wars value packs at $5 each...3 sets with blue, yellow and white troopers packed with Anakin, Yoda and an ARC Trooper respectively. Very cool idea on Hasbro's part.

Figure 12"

Yoda - There weren't very many 12" scale figures this year and the ones that did come out were very hard to find. Yoda is amazing though. Well sculpted, comes with a ton of accessories and it's Yoda!
Biker Scout, Leia w/ Speederbike and Lando Skiff Guard- Honorable mention to these three figures. Lando is on the new GI Joe CC body and the Scout Trooper looked good....in pictures. Leia also looks pretty good and comes with (still) the best 12" accessory to date, the Speederbike. I would have made them more than just "honorable mention" figures but find me a Scout or Lando in stores...And Leia? Well, that price point is still just a little too high especially since Hasbro has already made money back on the molds for the Speederbike..

Vehicle or Playset

Hailfire Droid - This Clone Wars vehicle is very cool. It looks a lot like the vehicle in the movie. It comes with a ton of missiles, half of which fire, and rolls well on carpet with its wheels. A nice toy in a non-movie year.
Republic Gunship - HAHA! I put it on last year and since it was re-released with a Clone Wars paint deco I can put it on again! I love this ship. Big, bold and beautiful. A lot of play value and the new price point at $29.99 makes it affordable.
Imperial Shuttle - Arguably the single most asked for vehicle to be redone from the vintage line. Originally an FAO exclusive, this toy uses the vintage molds and has an updated paint scheme. Finally shipping in 2003, the toy did make a lot of fans very happy.
Screen Scenes - The Geonosian War Room and Jedi Council are pseudo playsets but very cool. Coming in two pieces, the War Room chamber came with 6 figures, 4 of which were brand new. The ability to interact with the Wat Tambor figure adds to it's genius. The Jedi council set is basically just chairs with some section of floor, but out of 6 figures only 1, Mace, was a resculpt. Five new Jedi rocks! The price point of $19.99 at Target was about $5 high but still, cool sets.

Lego

Mini Sets - Four mini sets, Millennium Falcon, Republic Gunship, MTT and AT-AT. These things are great and the bonus ship, a Y-Wing, by collecting all 4 ships was brilliant. They are cool, fun, affordable and I hope they continue.
Bespin - The Shop@Home exclusive playset is very cool and also includes the first Lando minifig. At $100 it's not on everyone's list but still a very cool set.

Non-Toy Collectible

Kubricks - Technically a toy, these didn't quite fit in above. Series 1 may have technically made it out in 2002, but series 2 is breaking now. The bounty hunters in the first series all rocked and the second series gives us a Sandtrooper, Han, Bith band member, Obi-Wan, Greedo and Tusken Raider. The chase figure of Indiana Jones is genius!
Boba Fett by Gentle Giants - This bust is totally cool. Great detail, perfect paint and sculpt and looks like one of the baddest mo-fo's ever invented...just as Boba should.
Millennium Falcon by Code 3 - The detail that Code 3 puts into their die-cast collectibles is insane. The Millennium, clocking in around $300, is worth every penny. Moving parts, replaceable details, a great case...what else could you ask for? How about an X-Wing? It's coming now.

Best Exclusive

Santa Yoda - The Fan Club exclusive compatriot to last years Wal-Mart C-3PO and R2-D2 holiday gift set is very cool. Taken from Ralph McQuarrie Christmas card art, Yoda dressed as Santa carrying a pack of goodies comes in a cool bubble package and, for openers, a holiday card. He sold for $12 each (and shipping) and members could buy up to 4 figures. A well planned and executed exclusive figure.
Silver Boba Fett - Available at the summer conventions (except Wizard World Philly which better get a SW exclusive next year!) as well as the Mexican collector con and the Fan Club, the silver 300th edition Fett is pretty cool. The packaging mixes well with the Toy Fair Vader and vac-metalized R2-D2 from last year. The Fan Club ordering process had some glitches but it all worked out well in the end. The Star Wars 25th Anniversary figures last year were well timed and even though I like the Fett, I would also like to see the silver figures moved away from. Exclusives are cool but I liked the thought of reserving these silver figures for the anniversary.

Best Events

Clone Wars Cartoon - Ten episodes in the first half of the season and 10 more to come in the spring. The 3 minute length, although just a tease, still makes for a fun viewing. And Star Wars on TV in a non-movie year rocks!

Worst

Figure 3 3/4"

R2-D2 Droid Factory Flight - It's really hard to screw up R2 but Hasbro pulled it off in spectacular form in 2003. Zero articulation, an attempt at a cool action feature that fell short and a painted dome all added up to a turd of a figure.
Repack figures. Yeah, they are supposed to be for the kids and new collectors but their choices were shady: Jango Fett Kamino Escape and Darth Maul Theed Hanger Duel? Come on, peg warmers both, and easy scores on the secondary market for less than retail.

Figure 12"

Han Solo - That face sculpt...eww.
Boushh - Honorable mention just because of the price point. Granted, it's a good looking figure but about $20 to expensive.

Vehicle or Playset

Geonosian Starfighter - Sort of. It's not a bad toy, but it's not that great. The soft plastic on the front ends let it bow a little and the pack-in figure really doesn't fit that well in the cockpit. If you're going to pack in a figure, make it fit the damn vehicle.
Imperial Shuttle - Yes, I know I put it in the "Best" list but it deserves to go here for a couple reasons. FAO being the first. The oft-delayed toy rang in at a hefty $125 plus shipping and they couldn't even toss in a figure...or get the wing guns on in the right direction. It was touted as being uber-limited (5000 pieces) and well worth the cost and delay. Until KB Toys showed up with it at $99.99 just a month or so after it finally shipped from FAO. Add to that the KB/Sears team-up on Christmas toy offerings got you another shot at the toy from the Sears Wishbook. The KB sale ($50?) really hurt the wallet. Congratulations to those of you that waited to buy it, but those of us that ponied up the cash to FAO, we aren't that mad that you're in Chapter 11.
TIE Fighter - Yes, the toy looks good and came with the ubiquitous TIE Pilot figure. No, the $29.99 price was not that great. The re-sculpt on the center cockpit looks good but is the only difference from the vintage or POTF2 toy. Hasbro had the opportunity to resculpt the cockpit and give us wing panels closer to scale that would have made the toy a huge hit. It would have also worked well with the TRU and FX X-Wing fighter. Get this on sale but, KB/Hasbro, please try to be a little nicer to us in the future.

Lego

Geonosian Starfighter - I actually liked the laser gun accessory better than the vehicle. It was kind of a poor design over all, didn't look that good and didn't do anything for me. At $19.99 it wasn't affordable either, glad I got it on sale.
AT-AT - Honorable for this one. Overall I don't hate it, it looks good standing on the table but the construction is kind of flimsy and easily comes apart just moving it around. I'd hate to see a kid try to really play with it And again, it wasn't cheap, $99.99.
Another honorable mention to the high-priced sets this year. There is a serious lack of interesting sets in the $9.99, $14.99 and $19.99 price ranges. The majority of the sets are $29 and up with several sets at $49. Very expensive year for SW Lego.

Non-Toy Collectible

I couldn't come up with a non-toy collectible to put on this list this year.

Worst Exclusive

Blue Clone Trooper by Gentle Giants - Making 1000 busts to be distributed between San Diego Comicon and Wizard World Chicago wasn't the bad idea, the constantly changing policy on distribution was what sucked. On GG's side, they never said how many busts would be available at each con, but they handed out almost 900 of them at San Diego and caused a frenzy at WW Chicago. Continue to do exclusives, just learn from the mistakes in 2003 and have a better sales policy heading into the new year.

Worst Events

Jedi Master Points auction - This thing just wasn't executed very well. I can't say that I have a better option but I'm pretty sure that a mail-away would have been better. I've argued it several times and basically it comes down to the fact that I don't need exclusive toys or figures, I just want something cool. Have a couple different levels of points for different things and make them things they already have like extra weapons, figure stands or promotion material like figure posters and such.
Toy store stock - Did you find anything new from January to August? I didn't find much. Everyone points the finger in a different direction but between Hasbro and the retailers someone screwed the pooch in 2003. There was a ton of Saga items that never showed in stores at all in places (Deluxe Super Battle Droid builder or Spider Droid anyone?) as well as figures that never showed until Hasbro released a refresh case (Padme Droid Factory, Fett Carkoon, Mace Total Control). Fans were not happy this year and even though the Clone Wars stuff has come around, I find it hard to forgive Hasbro yet. They made some bad choices this year.
Bitching Fans - I'm guilty of whining at times in 2003 when, between Hasbro and the retailers, I couldn't find toys at retail. But, I felt I had every right to that, there was no good excuse for it. What I do find irritating though is the constant whining on the forums (Rebelscum.com being the worst) about exclusives and other high priced collectibles. Everyone feels that they are entitled to every SW collectible at original price and that if enough of something isn't made, more should be produced. The Blue Clone Trooper and Chrome Vader mini busts from Gentle Giants are good examples of this. Hasbro figures should be around, these other types of collectibles are exclusive and hard to come by, that's the way it is. You can't have everything and you aren't entitled to it all.