A Star Wars Action Figure Archive

Just like the previous year, 2010 had a lot in store for Star Wars collectors and fans of all ages. From events like Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, Disney's Star Wars Weekends and the Clone Wars TV show, plus toys, high-end collectibles, video games and books, there was something for everyone.

The most exciting news for Star Wars Fans was probably the announcement of all the Star Wars movies coming to theaters in 3-D in 2012. As long as Lucasfilm is keeping the franchise alive, Hasbro will be making the figures we all love! Add to that the release of the movies on blu-ray in 2011, a new Star Tours Ride at Disney Parks, plus another season of the Clone Wars TV show, it looks as if Star Wars AND collecting Star Wars is far from over!

A quick overview

2010 was the year where Hasbro phased out the fantastic Legacy Collection and put down to rest their best pack-in idea yet, the droid factory pieces. Hopefully Hasbro will resurrect this idea again in a future line, because it gave us collectors the chance to add more obscure and side-characters to the collection! And, who doesn't want more droids in their collections?

After the Legacy Collection was phased out, Hasbro launched their new lines in Fall for The Clone Wars figures, The Shadow Of The Dark Side, and The Vintage Collection!

Some of the items which stood out to us were:

• Newly re-designed AT-AT
• Newly re-designed Slave I (Clone Wars deco)
• Newly re-designed Snowspeeder
• Newly re-designed Cloud Car (hey, we all asked for this one for several years!)
• Newly re-designed Jabba The Hutt with new Oola and new throne!

These vehicles/figures stood out and were on collector's wish lists for years, and it truly is amazing that Hasbro released all of these within several months. Before we dive into our favorite Star Wars figures for 2010, let's take a look at how the entire year played out.

2010 from the beginning

The first half of 2010 was extremely slow with hardly any new Star Wars figures being released. The only go-to-place for Star Wars figures during Spring/Summer time was Toys'R'Us, which not only had the last wave of The Legacy Collection as an exclusive, but they also had The Force Unleashed multipacks exclusively.

Like with every line which is being phased-out, the last wave is hard to find. This was also the case with The Clone Wars and The Legacy Collection this year.

Then, the wait began. And, it was a long wait. There was nothing new to be found on shelves for months. We've seen years like this before where Hasbro just didn't release anything new, but every time this happens, it frustrates. Collecting Star Wars figures is an active hobby, with toy runs, browsing online stores ready to click the "order now" button. But, there was nothing new to order or buy in stores. This is a problem which we complain about every year, but 2010 seemed to have one of the worst dry-spells we have seen yet.

Then in August we saw the first new, Shadow Of The Dark Side packaging on store shelves. However, the real crazyness started in October, when Target put out their exclusives. They literally put out everything they had to offer in one day (except for the exclusive 9-pack), and if you picked up everything, you were looking north of $300 for Star Wars figures in a single trip.

One of the hottest items in Fall of 2010 was the Walmart exclusive Jabba The Hutt, which at first was very hard to find and collectors were very eager to get their hands on it.

The Return Of Vintage-style Packaging

Hasbro decided to bring back vintage-style packaging for their action figures. This not only included Star Wars figures from the original trilogy, but for the first time, all six movies. The only packaging style which has not yet been revealed is The Phantom Menace, and the packaging for Expanded Universe figures.

The entire vintage line was very well received by fans. Not only was the packaging-style fantastic, but the figures Hasbro released were top-notch. Out of the three waves released in 2010 (ESB/ROTS/JEDI), the Return Of The Jedi wave took the crown, with brilliant updated sculpts and a fantastic selection of characters.

Celebrating The Empire Strikes Back

Hasbro approached the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back differently than the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of ANH, Hasbro celebrated all the Star Wars movies, including the expanded universe without giving figures their specific original vintage or 30th tribute Star Wars packaging.

For the 30th anniversary of "Empire", Hasbro pulled out the vintage-style packaging, and released several items with vintage ESB logo on it. In addition to that, they released the Rocket Firing Boba Fett as a mail-away exclusive!

Some of our favorite, realistic-style figures from 2010

There were a lot of figures this year which were top notch. Figures like Camie and Fixer were awesome (fans of the OT appreciated those for sure!), plus the battle-damaged Darth Maul rocked as well. Hasbro managed to update quite a few figures with fantastic sculpts, like the new Hoth Leia or the Cloud Car Pilot. They even managed to crank out a never before released Han Solo! And, it really seems as if the days are gone when we needed to call a figure super articulated, because almost every Star Wars figure released nowadays has very likely more than 10 joints, if not 14.

So, we know everyone has their own favorites for one reason or another, and while you might not agree with our choices, here is our list with a short explanation underneath.

Here are some of our favorite figures from 2010!

• Gamorrean Guard - All around fantastic, in-scale, super articulated, great paint job, lots of weapons, spot-on! Great army-builder too!
• Luke Skywalker - Jedi Knight - The best Luke Jedi yet. This figure is Mark Hamill in small! Sure, no jedi robe, but that's not a biggie.
• Wicket - Definite version, plus extra Ewok cartoon outfit for old-school fans. It doesn't get better than this.
• Proxy - Lots of screen time in The Force Unleashed games. Super-articulated, all around fantastic representation of the character!
• Admiral Ackbar - Definite version. Looks like Ackbar, this was a much needed and wanted for years update from the POTF2 release.
• Darth Vader - Definite pre-armor version of Vader. Awesome head-sculpt, super-articulated. Evil Annie spot-on in 4-inch, perfect!
• Teek - Fantastic tribute to the so-much fun, classic Star Tours ride, and interesting for fans of the Ewok movies.
• BG-J38 - Never-before-done, obscure, fantastic addition to a Jabba display!
• Hoth Rebel Trooper - We love the Battle Of Hoth. The more variety the better. This was a much needed trooper!
• Shaak Ti - Super articulated, exotic, all around cool Jedi figure based on a fun game!

Note that we picked four figures from the last wave of the Vintage Collection, that's how much we liked that ROTJ wave! Let's hope Hasbro can keep this quality level up in 2011!

Here are some of our favorite Clone Wars figures from 2010!

The Clone Wars line saw a lot of cool figures in 2010, and a lot of cool mini-rig deluxe vehicles. The basic vehicle assortment was also fantastic, with such great releases like the Xanadu Blood, Plo Koon's Jedi Starfighter and the Clone Swamp Speeder just to name a few. Figure-wise, there were cool, ultra-articulated Mandalorian Warriors, lots of Clone Troopers, and lots of Bounty Hunters! We also very much appreciated that Hasbro made an effort to release Clone Wars figures based on the McQuarrie inspired "Trespass" episode, which is still one of our favorites here at J-B.

We love exotic looking figures and characters, we think they are refreshing, and add a much needed contrast to all the clone troopers. So, here are our picks for the top 10 spots in the Clone Wars line in 2010!

• Bossk - One of the coolest Bounty Hunters in super articulated, animated-style! What's not to like?
• Robonino - Exotic, lots of gadets, just super cool looking on display!
• Pre Vizsla - Dark saber wielding, Mandalorian bad-ass! Super articulated, ueber-cool looking figure!
• Embo - Great looking sculpt, very cool character!
• Shaak Ti - Spot on, absolutely fantastic representation of the Clone Wars version!
• Darth Sidious - We haven't seen much of Sidious in the Clone Wars, so this one is a welcome addition!
• Thi-Sen - Big, tall, great sculpt! Army-builder potential if you were able to find it in the stores.
• Kul Teska - Twice as expensive, yes. But also twice the figure! Cool looking ueber-bad-guy!!
• Manalorian Warrior with Speeder - Ultra articulated Mandalorian with Speeder Bike from the Clone Wars! A fantastic Death Watch army builder!
• Hondo Ohnaka - Very cool looking figure, and a great example that super articulation isn't everything! Comes with Salacious-like monkey lizard, what's not to like?

We'd like to point out that Quinlan Vos and Cato Parasitti were also very high on our lists, together with little Boba Fett.

Artwork

Back in the days, Kenner managed to capture children's imagination with very engaging artwork on the packaging. It was colorful, and showed familiar characters in phantasy situations and battles. Ever since the modern toy-line was rebooted in 1995, we felt that this aspect lacked. This has all changed now, and Hasbro has released some very cool artwork on their packaging. We loved the images on the Target exclusive Hoth battle packs, or on the Walmart exclusive Jabba The Hutt. To show you what we are talking about, we uploaded a small gallery for you:

Hasbro Star Wars Team - Interview, Conventions, Q&A's

We'd like to thank the Star Wars team at Hasbro for doing the Q&A sessions and for having Jedi-Business on board for it! It allows us and our readers to add some input and overall contribute to the collecting community. Besides the Q&A sessions, it was great to see team Hasbro doing a two-part interview in the Star Wars Insider magazine, which brought the team a little closer to us fans and put some light on the thought process behind some older figures. We also heard that team Hasbro is very approachable at conventions, and the idea of having fans meet at their convention booth to swap Legacy droid parts was genius!

So, overall, how was 2010?

Well, we think the product released was fantastic, but the availability of new product on the shelf throughout the entire year was lacking. Hasbro made sure that old-school fans felt that they have not been forgotten. Figures such as Wicket with an additional green outfit, Camie and Fixer and the Rocket Firing Boba Fett along with the vintage look really brought back the fun that a lot of long-time collectors had been missing for a while.

If they can figure out how to supply new product on a more consistent basis, then there would be just very little to complain about.

Last, but not least

We'd like to say thank you for all the fantastic feedback we've received this year. To be honest, it's quite overwhelming how much interest you all have shown in the website, and how much you all seem to like our format. So, thank you all for that!

As you know, we are not focused on news, but we are posting up-coming and official Hasbro pictures on our facebook page, so if you'd like to see site updates and up-coming figure news in your Facebook feed, make sure you like us! :)

We also have a lot of ideas already in the works for future site sections, and we'll continue to add content so the site will keep growing gradually. So, thank you again, and we hope you keep coming back if you need to look up some Star Wars figures!

May The Force Be With You!