Holiday Droid Factory

Holiday Droid Factory

Disney Exclusive

There’s no Christmas in Star Wars, so I’m just going to assume that these festive lil buckets of bolts are celebrating Life Day even longer!  This four-pack is a Disney exclusive, and it sold out pretty early in the season.  

As far as the Droid Factory premise goes, you can expect the same old sculpts and same old interchangeable parts scheme.  The holiday charm comes from the special paint decos, winter hats and scarves, and a few seasonal accessories.

“Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it, but a kiss can be-”  “BACK OFF, NERF-HERDER!”

This is the same drink service tray that came with R2-D2 from Jabba’s sail barge, but more colorful.  

Hoth chocolate, anyone?  Hey, who spiked the blue milk?

And featuring Chewbacca’s family!  *Harvey Korman not included*

This set is $35 if you can find it.  Maybe eBay prices will come down after Christmas?  

As a special treat, enjoy this year’s Tree of Life - featuring hand-painted Holiday Special ornaments from my pal, Eddie Warren!

  

 

Happy Life Day, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Tantive IV Hallway Playset

 Tantive IV Hallway Playset

Hasbro - The Vintage Collection

I've been sitting on this one for a while...over half a year. There are a couple of reasons why.  Tantive IV (the Rebel Blockade Runner) has been one of my most wanted Star Wars ships since the beginning of my collecting days.  Yes, scale would always be an issue, but Kenner/Hasbro used to be masters of adapting large concepts to maximum playability and affordability.  Even if it only fit three to five figures, like the not-too-long-ago unearthed Kenner mock-up, I wanted it.  I get that Hasbro is a money making company that likes to maximize their profits as much as the rest, but I'm never going to be convinced that the market doesn't exist for a scale between Haslab's crowdfunded behemoths (Sail Barge, Razor Crest) and "bite-sized Vintage" (aka - Mission Series).  Maybe the designers honestly feel it shouldn't be done any other way?  Choosing to go the route of playset form for the size-problematic Death Star, and not the goofy-but-fun Star Destroyer?

Any which way, after all this time, we have to settle for a hallway.  It's a nice looking hallway.  But this is nothing I could not have already had from 3D printers.  It's nothing special, but I suppose it saves one a little money ($50 for a good chunk) and time (no painting, gluing, or sanding) packaging it up this way.  You can buy multiple sets to make more hallways...or longer hallways...but that's about it.  The questionably angled design on the right end pretty much says "link four together for a square."  Wow...the possibilities are endless!

The back side isn't detailed at all, but does have these "metal" sections seen in the parts where Princess Leia gives R2-D2 the Death Star Plans and gets "stunned."  An updated escape pod would have been nice here.  Or maybe sections and seats of the conference room from Revenge of the Sith?  Hasbro: "Nah...good enuff for 'em.  They got opening and closing doors, after all."

Yoda: "In your solitude on Tattooine, 3D printing job I have for you."

The pack-in bonus is a Rebel Trooper.  Army building is great and all, but this is the exact same figure that I think has been released to the vintage series twice now?  They aren't clones...how about a different head or multiple heads?  The only change here is that they are featured in vintage packaging within the boxed set.  Why would anyone be buying this not to take it out of the box?  I suppose there are sad people out their that don't play with their toys...but can they resist opening a box to be able to display the figure inside in it's box?  Maybe that's why Hasbro went with "Rogue One" packaging on the figure....only dopes would believe anything was worth keeping pristine about that turd of a movie.  What a slap in the face to vintage collector's wanting any representation of this ship, thinking that it needs current Star Wars garbage to sell it.  Packaging is trash, just like Rogue One.

Darth Vader would like to add: "No ignited lightsabers necessary, nay, allowed on this playset!"

Even with all this negativity, I did have a good time positioning the 15 or so Rebel Troopers I have (who have been oh-so patiently awaiting their demise aboard the Star Tours speeder for many years) on this "playset".  I am enjoying it for what it is, coming to terms with this being all there is for the Tantive IV.  At least, I'm hoping that a coffee table sized Haslab behemoth isn't coming...but considering the success of the others, I wouldn't be surprised.  And I wouldn't be surprised to see Hasbro pushing that dollar sign even higher...$700?  $800?  Make it an even grand?  

Droid Factory Playset

 Droid Factory Playset

Disney - Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Shop Disney continues to deliver the goods to Star Wars fans in the flyover states!  The Droid Factory playset is a new spin on the vintage Kenner Droid Factory.  I guess Disney figured they had done the build-a-droid thing to death and decided that water and color change features should be the ticket?  Meh.  I’m not so sure about the gimmick....but the set still looks nice.

I like the cleaner shape and colors.  Not as dingy as the used-universe model, but still sci-fi and tech-y.  There are some nice, clear markings designating the various stages of torture cleaning you can put your slaves droids through.  I take that last strike through back...you can’t sugar coat the “restraining bolt” station.

Your droids first go up a ramp to a conveyor belt and some sort of detector gate.  Are they scanning for breakages to address repairs?  Weapons?  Secret messages for the Empire/Rebellion?  Who knows...but it’s fun, and triggers some sound and light features when rolling the belt along.

From there, I guess some droids are allowed to walk or roll to the next area on their own.  Or a crane comes in for those in dire need of attention.  Either way, bath time!

There are two tanks.  One has a lowering mechanism, with robo-arms to assist in access and cleaning.  The other just straight up dunks them like clowns at a county fair.  “Thank the Maker!  This oil bath is going to feel-“ *DING!* *SPLOOSH!”

 

Now drag your metal carcass out of there and get over the drying fans!  There is a drip pan under the playset to catch water, but the fans dont actually move on their own.  This may be the one detractor.  It would have been nice to have some motorized fan action, even if they dont necessarily get the drying done.

Final station, as mentioned before, is the restraining bolt area.  They keep this one out around back as to not disturb the public with any metallic screams, or the unsightly business of having to shock or remotely restrain a droid during application.  Also on the back is the conveyor belt dial and several buttons that have a multitude of factory sounds and droid beeps and whistles.  You have to supply the screams, though.

The set comes with a gonk droid, but I purchased one of two offered 4-packs to get more out of the color-changing “fun.”  Not so much fun when your droid only goes from gray to dark blue or blue to black...cant see much of a difference.  Drastic changes, like white to red is where its at.  Overall, I would have preferred less solid washes for the color-changing.  Instead, I would have liked smaller applications resembling dirt, rubbing, carbon scoring...battle damage, if you will, that “washes” away with warm water.

    

The gimmick may leave you cold (or at least room temp), but at least the droids have the pull-apart build-a-droid components to swap around. This is still available online at $50.  I feel that is about $10 too much for what you get, but they do often run some good sales deals.  I think I got mine for 30-something.  Overall, I’m glad to see any play sets on the market.  Like some of the larger ships/park exclusives, one thing Disney is doing right with Star Wars is filling some gaps for us old school 3 3/4 inch figure collectors.

Take a look back at a couple of Disney exclusive ships/play sets:

https://terribletoyman.blogspot.com/search?q=Sandcrawler

Hondo Ohnaka’s Slightly-Used Droid Depot

Hondo Ohnaka’s Slightly-Used Droid Depot

Disney - Hasbro

Times must be tough when Disney starts selling park exclusive merch to us fly over fans without us having to leave the state...or even the couch!  Some of these droid sets I have picked up at a local Disney Store, others on their website.  Some of them were deals...what?!  Who would have thought merch from “The Last Jedi” wouldn’t fly off the shelves?  Oh, Rian...still subverting our expectations....Anyway, Hondo Ohnaka (a recent Vintage Collection pick-up that I only really bought because of his neat animatronic at Galaxy’s Edge) is here to showcase these new droids...along with my entire collection of astromechs from years of collecting!

Two Frankensteined droids from extra droid parts. Droid: “Kill Meee....”

Let’s get Last Jedi out of the way...here are the all green and white resistance bots that came sold as a set.  Not sure where they appear in the movie.  Trailing Holdo, carrying her royal highness’s matched luggage in the background while she is scolding Poe, no doubt.

Next, some of the very few figures produced for Rise of Skywalker. (Thanks, again Rian...you too, Kathy!)  The blues aren’t that exciting, but the metallic sheen is nice.  Red and white has my fave color scheme...reminiscent of R5-D4.  D-O is a nice pack-in, but not when he’s taking the place of what should be a droid with more plastic to it.  Outside of these and returning characters, I think the only other new figure from this movie was Zori Bliss?  Sad...at least we have The Mandalorian, right?

BB-H20 was a Disney Shop online pick-up.  He’s different than the previous BBs from Target.  He has a port for customization on top of his head, but not much head motion due to a peg system.  The ball splits in two to reveal a removable silver do-dad.  This is his “Weeble-Wobble” system:  a weight that allows him to weeble and wobble but not fall down.  Because of this, he doesn’t have a flat spot on his ball for support like the others do.  Interesting...I wonder if this is the set up they have at the Disney parks’ build a droid area?

After complaining about missing out on them at Target in my area, two more Target stops way outside of town nabbed me the rest of their current exclusives.  Red has an extra dome I have misplaced.  Both the jets and serving tray have been borrowed from older R2-D2 releases.  The Halloween Special, as I call him, is obviously my favorite.  I dig his colors and his semi-translucent dome.

The rest of the Astromech gang comes from various points of the saga, collected from the Phantom Menace on:

The doomed crew of the Royal Naboo Starship - Red:  “Wait, you have the wrong Red!!!”

The guy with the triangle eye in the front might be my fave.

“It’s not the years, honey...it’s the mileage.”

Bucket was missing from the group because I covered him previously...and he’s on Star Tours Duty with Captain REX:

Bucket astromech droid

And you can look back at my ever-growing BB unit collection:

BB Units