On the date of publication of this review, it’s the day before Thanksgiving in 2025.  Thanksgiving weekend is my favorite weekend of the year.  Christmas is my favorite holiday, but it’s also the end of the holiday season, which makes me sad.  Thanksgiving kicks off the bacchanalia, so I love it.  Plus, it marks the end of the hateful fall lawn chores.  It’s effectively my first weekend off since Labor Day.  I get to lay around, eat leftovers, maybe crack the occasional Sam Adams Winter White Ale, and watch four consecutive days of football including my favorite regular season college football game of the year (Ohio State vs Michigan).  I’m not sure I can distinguish heaven from what I’ve just described.

All of this puts me in good humor, so I want the content today to reflect that.  I’m reviewing a figure that is at the center of one of my absolute favorite times in the hobby.  You should know now that this review will have absolutely nothing to do with the figure itself, which is just a repack of 1996’s Luke Skywlaker (Jedi Knight) release on a special card.  If I had my act together, I would have reviewed that main line offering first, but there’s a slight hold up with that.  There is a major variation of that 1996 Luke Jedi that I feel is essential to document as part of any such review, and I haven’t tracked down the carded and loose samples yet.  So I’m jumping the gun and essentially reviewing the event surrounding this commemorative re-release in 1997.

As you all know, the original trilogy was re-released into theaters for the 20th anniversary of A New Hope:

It was the most fun I had in the theater since my first time seeing the Original Trilogy in theaters.  The crowds were raucous in a good way and celebratory.  At the time the internet wasn’t widely adopted. It wouldn’t become common in homes for another year or so.  There was no social media.  Most fans still got their hobby news from print media.  As for me, I was one of the hepcats who had already been online for a couple of years.  I got my news from an e-mail newsletter from one of the hobby’s early luminaries, Mr. Adam Pawlus whom you may know from Galactic Hunter (and Entertainment Earth).

I still remember the feeling I got when I opened the latest edition of the Adam Pawlus e-mail newsletter that dropped in my inbox.  In it I learned that select theaters would be giving away specially carded commemorative edition Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker figures to the first 25 or 50 (depending on theater size) fans attending the 7PM showing of the the Return of the Jedi Special Edition on opening night.  I was torn between excitement and dread.  I was ecstatic about the chance to acquire a special release of my favorite version of my favorite character, and nervous to the point of vomiting about failing to do so.  I was a lowly enlisted Airman at the time, and the secondary market would be out of my reach.  As soon as the news broke, collectors on Usenet bulletin boards were offering triple digit bounties for anyone who could secure them this gem.  I was priced out before the bidding even began.  My only shot was to get it directly, so I took a day of leave and planned to camp out at the theater all day waiting for the 7PM showing.

My friends and I selected the theater we felt offered our best shot.  Fortunately for me, my friends were pushier than I am.  They had been calling the theater in advance and confirmed that they actually had the figures on-hand, and that this theater would be getting 50.  They devised a plan to bring our pre-purchased 7PM tickets to the manager the night before to see if we could secure the figures without waiting all day.  I brought a Star Case with me in case this plan worked.  It didn’t, but that Star Case ended up playing a key part in a stroke of genius I’d have later.  The manager couldn’t have been nicer, but he was worried about getting in trouble if he gave out the figures early.  That’s when inspiration stuck.  I asked if I could pick out my sample and have him put it in the Star Case to hold for me until the following evening.  He had no problem with this. I got my pick of the litter, and a semi-guarantee that it was being held for me.

The next day, we showed up before noon, and hung out in the theater all day.  They would not let us form a line for the 7PM showing until the 5PM showing sat.  This was making me extremely nervous because it didn’t acknowledge those who showed up first.  If the line didn’t form until 5PM and more than fifty people were waiting, having camped out all day wouldn’t have mattered.  It would still be a free for all.  As is often the case, I was worried about nothing.  Once the 5PM showing sat, there were maybe thirty people waiting for the 7PM show.  We casually formed a line, and the manager started distributing our early POTF2 grails from the shipping case.  When he got to me, he produced my minty mint Star Cased figure and it was a collecting high that I’ve been chasing since.

I went to a local toy show the following day.  As expected, the scalpers dealers all seemed to have at least one Theater Edition Luke, and the prices were all north of $100.  And they all seemed to sell within the first hour.  This made me doubly relieved that I was able to secure one at the budget friendly price of a movie ticket. Once AFA came along, I got my sample graded and it came back at a respectable 90.  But I no longer have that one.  When I sold my collection in 2005, that piece left my possession.  My exit from the hobby lasted a whole six months.  2006’s Saga Collection pulled my back in hard.  As my collection started to get more and more reconstituted, the lack of a Theater Edition Luke weighed on me.  I was able to secure a very high un-graded sample for the might sum of $27.  It’s the one in the carded shots above.

Here’s the kicker.  Even though the figure itself is identical to the general POTF2 release, the loose figure above is also a Theater Edition Luke.  I found it at a local consignment shop. You can see it here before I opened it:

(click for the full sized image)

You will notice the crease by the j-tab and the bubble starting to pull away from the card in the upper left. This is a massive problem with Theater Edition Lukes.  They are at the forefront of the bubble failure problem what would come to a head in 2012 (and again in 2018).  The bubble soon slid off the card, but I’m not worried about it.  The price I paid for that sample was $5.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  Yesterday’s grail is tomorrow’s flea market close out.