The Hasbro Star Wars team was back again with another Fanstream and struggled mightily to cram their Acolyte reveals into the “Imperial March” theme to amusing effect. It was a good show if you were excited by the Acolyte trailer yesterday, but not so much if you weren’t. Let’s take a look!
One of the highlights for me of the whole thing was some cool shots from Shooting the Galaxy of Vader and Troopers in the Tantavive IV hallway set as well as dio shots of newly revealed R2 and Leia. Always nice to see more shots from him, even though I don’t collect this line. It helps with the fomo to see stuff I don’t collect photographed well. I also really like the sculpted robes on Leia and wouldn’t mind seeing that done in the Black Series.
Speaking of FOMO, I didn’t go in on the Ghost Haslab, so these awesome images are bittersweat. Hopefully there are ton more to come so I can vicariously enjoy this Haslab from my Favorite Star Wars show. There’s another TVC Haslab coming May the 4th.
They did announce a new Bounty Puck figure with Darth Maul. These don’t do anything for me, but I understand the need for them to do these kind of mold-reuse repaints to hit whatever profit margins they need to keep making the new figures I actually do want. I don’t know if these are getting the sales they need based on my anecdotal evidence they sit around and do not move in my area.
The meat of the presentation was new Black Series figures from The Acolyte. I do love this stage of a new Star Wars thing where I barely recognize the new characters and really don’t know the names at all. The wave is four Jedi and the lead character, Mae. Three of the Jedi have very similarly styled robes, so they are a little less exciting to me, but I love that the Padawan is a cool looking alien (a Theelin/Human!). I especially love the pose of her tossing the robes aside to start a fight! The soft goods robes are in line with what we are seeing from this line, so not fantastic, but a nice inclusion. I do like that there were more Jedi with Yellow Sabers in the trailer, so I was glad to see that represented in a figure.
The highlight Jedi for me was Indara just because I loved her fight with Mae in the trailer and it’s Trinity in Star Wars! The likeness looks nice and so does the movement, though I wish they would include a swappable force push hand for more Jedi characters, especially ones like this who seem to use a force push fighting style.
Finally, the star of the trailer, Mae is looking really good. I’m interested in finding out her story, and I dig her armor design. I see some metal and almost wood like material on that chest plate and the writer on the show mentioned she was bringing in EU lore, so I wonder if we might be seeing some Cortosis (a lightsaber resistant material) in this show. I’m pleased with this initial group of figures, the only other one that I really wanted to see from the trailer is the Wookiee Jedi, Kelnacca.
The figures will be available in the fall, which is not exactly timely for a summer released show, but also closer than a lot of stuff gets released lately. Preoders are tomorrow at 10AM Pacific. They also showed a Moff Gideon roleplay helmet which just made me annoyed I don’t have a Black Series version of armored Gideon.
TVC is also getting Acolyte figures. It’s always interesting to me to see the card backs in TVC style for new stuff. Finally they showed some pipeline reveals for TVC and Black Series.
I am so Jealous that the TVC is getting a Blurrg set. I want one so badly for Black Series! Dedra is a great release for me since I loved that show and enjoyed rooting for and alternately hating her from scene to scene. The Imperial Commando is a fun army builder and Ahsoka the White is also a needed figure for me. I am a little annoyed that Enoch and the Night Trooper is a two-pack because it’s not great for army building, but I have to think they will do more army-builder friendly versions of the Night Trooper down the line. Yoda and Gree are fine, but I found it more interesting that Yoda would come with his Jedi Council chair. I have a great Figuarts prequel Yoda, but I’m curious to see how this will compare to that.
Overall I enjoyed this Fanstream, but I do have to say I wish they could give a little more emphasis to OT figures that aren’t Vader or Stormtroopers in the Black Series going forward. I am jonesing for Ewoks and Cantina Aliens!
