Week of: Aug. 7th, 2000

Sunday, Aug. 13th:

GenCon 2000

GenCon proved to be a lot of fun for the Star Wars enthusiast. There were a number of presentations to see. One was the Star Wars Roadshow (Antiques Roadshow knock-off) with Steven Sansweet, Gus Lopez, and Chris Fawcett doing the honors. Others included a Q&A with Anthony Daniels, a look back & ahead presentation done by Steven Sansweet where several nice video clips were shown, and finally a Q&A with Hasbro. Hasbro really seems like they are trying and several times noted how they botched EP1 and snubbed the collectors. If you went to four of the shows (and got your "passport" stamped), you received a gift bag. This turned out to be pretty good. Mine included a BD Destroyer Droid figure, the EP1 Trivia Pursuit (that I never saw at retail), a T-shirt, the Vector Prime paperback, Death Star II starter pack, some magazines, and more. If I had known that it would be so cool, I would have had my wife get one as well.

There were several people to get autographs from. Anthony Daniels had a huge line, Michonne Bourriague (Aurra Sing), Shannon Baska (Mara Jade), Michael A. Stockpole (Rogue Squadron author), and Steven Sansweet.

Hasbro had a booth where you could see some of the upcoming toys. There was a boxed 12" Dewback on display, this is awesome! The Dewback is articulated at the legs, tail, neck, and maybe mouth. The Sandtrooper has a black shoulder patch. The whole thing is bigger than the Speederbike box and they don't have the Sandtrooper riding the Dewback. The 12" Darth Maul with Sith Speeder was on display unboxed. It looked pretty cool, but it was dwafted in size by the Speederbike and the Dewback. Rounding out the 12" figures were the next wave including Boss Nass, Anakin Pilot, and Sebulba. Moving down is scale, they had two of the Mega figures. These are the ones that are 5 1/2" tall. They looked OK, but I had higher hopes for them as far as articulation goes. On the other hand, they said that the Destroyer Droid (not shown) would fold up into a ball. The small figures all looked pretty nice. I can't remember every one that they had, but the Porkens figure is dead on.

I was able to pick up some other useful information from the Hasbro Q&A. Firstly, they had no idea that the Eopie hasn't shipped to the US. My take on this is that it may never ship here at retail. They are looking for a retailer to take the 12" Kaadu with Captain Tarpals. It doesn't look good if they haven't found a taker by now. Hasbro is working with Target to get more Skiffs out. It sounds like Target has more coming and they have even committed to putting 2000 on their WEB site. Both Collection 1 & 2 POTJ figures are now shipping, plus the first wave of the Mega figures is also shipping. No figure will be packed at one per case in its first assortment, specifically the Gungan Warrior figure. The guy who answered that question is the one who sets the case assortments. The Battle Droid Security is an all new sculpt having a lever on the back that causes him to draw his gun as well as being able to almost fold up. On the Action Fleet front, it sounds like there won't be much until EP2. Otherwise, much of the time was used to discuss the distribution problems and how they are trying to do thing differently.

I would like to thank Goblin23, FFuzz, and the rest for making this a fun convention to be at.

12" Chancellor Valorum & Senate Guard

My order with the Fan Club for these has changed to "Shipped". I would guess that they would arrive sometime this week. Thanks to Beth for the heads-up on this one.

Tuesday, Aug. 8th:

POTJ Figures

Chris P. reports finding the Collection 2 figures at Target west in Madison this morning. He was able to get one of each.