Oh, but meanwhile… Let's talk toys.

Cool factoid (that I'm not sure I've seen elsewhere) – the new BaR2-D2 features removable cups (that attach to pegs on the "bar" part). That's so much cooler than I ever imagined, and I hope the factory can pull off the sturdier (but not brittle) "bar" piece to make this the best R2-D2 ever. [Hasbro, please consider selling the more "rugged" BaR2-D2 directly to the collector market (via HasbroToyShop.com and other e-tailers.) We'll be gentle. Note that's not a paid/sponsored link.]

Is the new modern/Vintage Collection C-3PO made with the removable face/mask so that a future update (probably exclusive) can feature the face of Anthony Daniels behind the mask? I doubt that we'll see it in time for Comic-Con 2011, but there was a whisper campaign about the very cool idea (especially considering that Anthony Daniels has graciously hosted so much for fans/collectors).

Who isn't getting an exclusive one-of-a-kind figure these days??? I happily welcome Jon Stewart and Mr. Howard Roffman to the club. At Toy Fair 2008 I ramblingly thanked Mr. Roffman for his amazing contribution to the hobby, and his foresight that took a little "space movie" and turned it into the very messy roommate that seems to leave its mark all over my house. (Is it too late to ask LFL to hire someone to archive and organize my collection as a prize?) Bugger…

So… the Droid Factory Galactic Swap Meet was a notable success. Kids LOVED it. Collectors brought parts that I'd never imagine they would part with. I stood by (a lot) watching and getting a kick out of seeing children beam with happiness when they traded a part to finish that one droid that they really needed to finish. (Star Wars kids are sharp and very precocious. I was stunned to see that they have such determination and focus.) It was one of the few things that could be done for FREE at the big show, and Hasbro really stepped up to the plate to make the Droid Factory Galactic Swap Meet a great experience. At the end of the show, I had traded enough that I was just handing out droids to kids.

That said, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that Hasbro will whip up a Droid Factory/Build-A-Droid playset (which can be mostly cardboard even). I think the Droid Factory Galactic Swap Meet was proof that kids and collectors LOVE building droids. Also, Team Hasbro was asked repeatedly if the Droid Factory Galactic Swap Meet would "open up swap" at future events, and I think we might see the Jawas from Rhode Island haul out their Sandcrawler (and its treasure trove) for future events. Maybe we can convince them to make an exclusive droid (paint job) that is ONLY available by swapping pieces? [Blogger's Note: I like droids, what can I say?]

As always, feel free to comment, and we'll hope that Hasbro will hear our pleas and create a Droid Factory set (but don't call it a playset). I think the p-word is the kiss-of-death.

So here’s the breakdown — I live in “Hotlanta” now, but I was born and braised in Florida. My partner and I lived in Orlando (tip — don’t call it “O-Town”) and I’m going to cut through all of the shiny, sunny public relations spiel to give you advice that you’ll need to survive and enjoy Star Wars Celebration V.

Having been to events at the Convention Center, it is problematic (at best) to keep the venue cooled at the peak of summer heat. Being anywhere in Florida, in August, it’s swelteringly hot. It is really up to you to stay cool. If someone doesn’t gauge the HVAC to combat the blistering heat outside, then add in a throng of "unconventional conventionists" (to borrow a phrase) and things can become rather uncomfortable.

#1. Hydration — You know all those studies that have said that caffeinated drinks lead to dehydration? They were paid for by companies that want to sell you bottled water. Even a caffeinated drink can give your body vital fluids. That Coke Zero Cherry (my choice) will give you ample hydration, but, as with every other drink, you'll need to keep a constant supply flowing through your body. A soda loaded with HFCS, though, will put a strain on your body as it processes that mess, and it's not going to do you much good at all.

Top picks to keep your body happily hydrated include Power Ade Zero — avoid the red and blue ones — which has no calories and all the basics that one looks for in a "sports drink", Vitamin Water Zero (which has kept me out of the hospital at least once) and, naturally, WATER. (Gatorade, which was invented at the University of Florida, and its "lower calorie" G2 varieties are are still sweetened with sugar and HFCS. Read your labels!)

I assume that we're all adults here, and if you indulge too much, drink TWICE the "hydrating beverage" and keep it flowing. In the summer heat, a hangover can lead to the hospital very quickly. I'm never one to turn down a cocktail, but my "after-party" is always followed by a heavy flush of liquids that aren't going to make my innards turn against me.

#2. Fans — Those little battery-powered fans (even old-fashioned hand-fans) are great, but they aren't air-conditioners. Some even have little "water misting" devices for that extra bit of cool – and it keeps your "face" on if you're wearing make-up. I still recommend grabbing one (and they're available most anywhere) just for that little waft of breeze that offers that little extra bit of comfort. I don't care if I look like an old church lady, I bust out the little fan, and if I could, I'd have a Jawa with a giant palm-frond fanning me, Jabba The Hutt-style. (Well, not a Jawa, but Jake Gyllenhaal won't even wave his restraining order at me.)

#3. Hygiene — Use a deodorant with antiperspirant. We all want to smell clean and fresh, but a river of sweat is your body forcing water out to cool you down, depriving your inner organs. (See #1.) Unless your dermatologist has diagnosed you with hyper-hydrosis, profuse sweating is a sign that you need to slow your pace and gulp down about two pints of water STAT.

I also recommend Comme des Garçons Incense Avignon Series 3 and No. 88 by Czech and Speake, but I'm a scent snob. (Guys! Ditch that Axe stuff. It's made for teenage boys, not grown men.)

Bonus Tip! Dusting your pits and parts (that sweat) with Gold Bond or even regular baby powder can reduce profuse sweating (and stains). Just be careful not to get white streaks all over your clothes.

#4. Relax — It is practically impossible to see and do everything you want to do at a Star Wars Celebration. When you find that little extra bit of free time, take a break! Sit, hydrate, fan, chill, etc. Your body is a machine, and if you don't pace yourself you'll be in for a world of hurt when you go back to your hotel. Unless you regularly run marathons, you may be able to rush around and do a lot, but you'll suffer the consequences sooner or later.

#5. Health — In any massive hive of scum and villainy, the chance that you'll catch some random bug increases substantially. Take your vitamins. A chewable multi-vitamin will be absorbed by your body better than a lumpy pill that your digestive system won't completely process. Two childrens chewable vitamins will actually give you more vitamins than an adult a-to-zinc pill. (For my fellow vegetarians and vegans, sorry, but the chewables on regular store shelves are likely to have gelatin, so check your veg-friendly or health food store for options.)

If you think you're falling ill… I'm sure you'll know what to do. (That is where my advice ends, and your need to see a doctor begins.)

Please print this friendly bit of opinionated advice out, and when you see your friendly Galactic Blogger nursing a hangover, you can use the print out to fan me whilst calling me a hypocrite. (I did say I used to live in Orlando, but I'm not telling you where the party's at.)*

*I am as pure as driven sludge, but I can promise you that I won't stink. I'll also be doing everything I can to stay cool. (No-hipster.)

Hasbro

OK, so… as far as we (collector types) have heard, the concept of a Build-A-Droid playset fizzled. I know that you (Hasbro as a whole) tried to pull together a set that would appeal to collectors, kids, and parents. For some reason (STUPID RETAIL BUYERS) it just didn’t happen. It has even been whispered into my nearly deaf left-ear (that’s not a joke) that a Build-A-Droid concept was pitched as an "Ultimate Battle Pack" (one as a Jawa-themed set, and one as Jabba The Hutt’s Droid Dungeon). Sadly, Jabba The Hutt’s association (as an exclusive) with another retailer doomed the most promising concept. (It makes no sense to me. I’d piggyback on their promotion with a cool item in a bigger box with more stuff.)

What to do? What to do? Oh yeah… all of those great Build-A-Droid parts can still be boxed up to make a really amazing value-priced gift set in time for the Holiday Gifting Season. Repaint them Astromechs, give the Protocol Droids new shiny deco. Make a new 8D8 out of the new BG-J38 body (since they only have different heads). If you want to go all out and send some love to the dedicated collectors, throw in the prototype "bug head" Death Star Droid. (See mock-up image. Head courtesy of the Star Wars Collectors Archive.) Now wouldn’t that be cool, kids?

Parents LOVE a value-priced set with lots of pieces. Kids love "robots" (droids to us). Collectors (see: Pawlus, Adam) love droids. Hasbro loves using existing tooling to maximize profit (and enhance shareholder value — yes, I read that book). What am I missing? Is it because semi-generic droids lack the push of The Clone Wars TV toon? There are droids everywhere in the Star Wars universe, and we can always use at least a half-dozen more (with options to create even more if we buy multiple sets).

While I’ve got a little rant going, we’ve hosted (on our own bandwidth) two of Hasbro’s super-cool promotional spots (for the AT-TE* and the Turbo Tank, respectively). What’s to stop Team Hasbro from shooting some quick digital video coolness to promote waves of figures, figures with vehicles, mainline vehicles, and (naturally) the amazing monster-sized vehicles. (I can’t wait to see the Big Arsenal Imperial AT-AT Walker super deluxe vehicle promotional spot.)

It’s going to be a very long summer.

*For some reason GooTube removed the AT-TE promotional spot (despite receiving an official copy the commercial). We will relocate it as soon as possible. For the record, I either didn’t know or forgot that it was on GooTube. It was meant to be hosted on our servers. Oy vey!

Much like you, most of us (not pointing fingers to those who get freebies months in advance — as if we don’t know) hunt down stuff with the same level of exasperation that most readers have over exclusives and "rare" figures. This weekend, the painful search for the Star Wars — Expanded Universe wave (exclusive to Toys’R'Us stores) left many of us (myself included) empty-handed and exasperated.

First off, this should have been posted on SATURDAY (because of the rich heritage of cool Star Wars action figure and toy commercials) but AT&T decided to have a day of digital schizophrenia (i.e. home connection went up and down and all-around).

After writing a brief and not-too-kind rundown of toys from The Clone Wars action figure line, by Hasbro, I read and re-read the piece. It felt like a summary dismissal. So I busted out every ‘toon toy that I could find, and I had a blast with them. Since my motto is, "DisPLAY with your toys!" I started setting up a cool display for them, and — as we slide into American International Toy Fair 2010 — I’m going to feature the fun that I found just by taking the time to have some fun with a pretty incredible (and vast — it’s Clones-A-Go-Go around here) toy line. Just ignore any obvious hot glue, please.

So… to kick things off, here’s the official Turbo Tank commercial from the coolness-makers at Hasbro. [Please note that this commercial was produced by Hasbro, and is presented here by GalacticHunter in HD resolution for your viewing pleasure.]

Here’s a short link to share this with your friends: http://bit.ly/9oMBkF (kids get your parents’ permission, etc. etc.) and have fun! Why the heck didn’t I find an HD version of this on YouTube???

Tying up some of 2009′s loose ends, I think we’ve seen the last of Q&A until Toy Fair 2010. (Save the date — all the sites — will be working hard for you on/around/through St. Valentine’s Day.) I bit my tongue holding back (and hoping) that Imperial Scanning Crewman #2 would miraculously appear, but eventually Hasbro relayed the bad news. Sometimes in passing one of those non-Q&A questions will be answered.

So there you have it. If you’ve wondered… go forth and be creative. Feel free to send in photos (adam@galacticblogger.com) to show your support for the BEST pack-in we’ve had in the entire run of Star Wars toys. [By sending in photography, you permit GalacticBlogger.com to use photographs in the capacity of this Internet blog/column. You retain your ownership and copyright.] Extremely creative Astro-modders may be picked for nifty prize-like things that are cluttering up the GalacticBlogger.com toybox/home-office. [Kids get your parents' permission before doing ANYTHING.]

The new Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker figure is now showing up in stores along with the rest of the Empire Strikes Back wave.  I’ve wanted this particular version for years, but until now Hasbro has always come short of offering an accurate quality version of this figure.

The original POTF2-era “X-Wing Luke Skywalker” released in 1995 was actually his Empire Strikes Back Snowspeeder outfit with the cold-weather jacket with puffy collar sculpted onto the upper body, but it had a terrible POTF2-era buffed-up body sculpt and limited articulation compared to the current Hasbro aesthetic.

The next incarnation of Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker was in 2004 as part of the Collectible Cup with Figure releases, but this version was just a repaint of the POTF2-era “X-Wing Luke Skywalker” with a new puffy jacket collar piece added to his upper torso.  Still not 100% accurate, and it definitely did not live up to 2004 standards.

In 2006, Hasbro produced a new improved Snowspeeder Pilot when they gave us the Target-exclusive Snowspeeder with Zev Senesca figure.  Zev Senesca had an accurate cold-weather pilot’s jacket which looked much better than the POTF2 version, but he still had limited articulation and an inaccurate style of boots, so his body wasn’t quite perfect when Hasbro re-purposed it for a new Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker kit-bash in the 2007 Target exclusive Battle of Hoth Ultimate Battle Pack.  The shade of orange on the legs didn’t match the upper body, and the boots were not the Hoth style, making this a lackluster upgrade.  They also used the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection Luke Skywalker headsculpt, which doesn’t fit the look of the post-Wampa attacked, scarred likeness.

Following that in 2008 we finally got a 100% accurate Snowspeeder Pilot sculpt for Wes Janson and Kesin Ommis in the Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker sets.  Upon seeing those, it was only a matter of time for Hasbro to re-use the new body sculpt and give us a real Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker.

Surprisingly, they chose to sculpt a brand new body from the ground-up rather than re-use the already flawless Evolutions Asst. body.  So now after more than 14 years Hasbro has finally given us the perfect Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker. Or have they??

The new figure has an accurately sculpted Snowspeeder Pilot’s outfit with plenty of articulation, and it works well enough for Skywalker when he’s on Hoth taking on AT-AT Walkers both in and out of his Snowspeeder. However, they overlooked one important detail – a peg hole for his saber hilt. Why include a lightsaber hilt with a peg on it when you can’t attach it to his belt (as seen in the film)? Since this Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker figure is a new sculpt, it’s disappointing that he’s missing this one small detail which would have perfected the figure.

Now moving beyond the idea of a perfect Hoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker, let’s consider the possibility of Hasbro re-releasing him in the future as the version we see crash-landing on Dagobah in his X-Wing Fighter.  What’s the difference?  Well he’s in the same Snowspeeder outfit, but now he’s added his brown utility belt with blaster holster strapped to his leg (the same belt/holster we see on his Bespin outfit later in the film). A Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker sporting his gun holster with a lightsaber clipped to his belt would be a nice upgrade from what’s already a great looking figure.  In fact, I was so eager to have this version that I spent an hour customizing my own soon after picking up the new Hoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker at Walmart this week.Here’s a few pictures to give an idea of how Hasbro could turn a great figure into something even better:

Putting it together was not as simple as it looks.  The easiest part was putting the 2007 Vintage 30^th Anniversary Collection Bespin Luke Skywalker head on the body and repainting the neck to match his face’s skin tone.  Next I drilled a hole in his belt just above where the saber clip should have been so that the lightsaber hilt could easily plug into it (as seen both on Hoth and Dagobah). 

After that, I cut the Vintage 30th Anniversary Collection Bespin Luke Skywalker gun holster and leg strap away from the rest of his belt so that I could glue it onto the current Hoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker belt just behind his right-sided belt pouch.  Before gluing, however, I repainted the belt and holster a matching shade of brown to resemble the belt he wore on Dagobah.

The final step of this custom project was to swap the Hoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker gloved hands with those from an extra Evolutions Wes Janson figure because for some reason the current Hoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker hands are sculpted at a downward angle that makes holding a blaster gun look awkward.  I assume Hasbro sculpted his hands more for holding the grappling hook/harpoon gun than actually wielding a blaster. The Wes JansonHoth Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker gloved hands are more suited to hold a blaster and are easy to swap onto the arms with a quick boil-and-pop.

So with that, we have a nearly perfect “Dagobah Crash Luke Skywalker”.  The only thing that would make it 100% perfect is glove-less arms since we see Luke removing his gloves almost immediately after crashing on Dagobah in the film just before he climbs out of his X-Wing.  I didn’t want to attempt this type of custom, but the solution would be to repaint the 30^th Anniversary Collection Celebration Luke Skywalker yellow jacket arms and put them on the Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker body.  The ribbed design on the yellow jacket sleeves are identical to the orange sleeves on the Snowspeeder Pilot cold-weather jackets, and therefore requires no new sculpting.

Anyway, enjoy this friendly customizing tip and hopefully Hasbro will take notice and consider it for a future upgrade to their wonderful Snowspeeder Luke Skywalker! [Kids get your parents' permission!]