Dude, Where’s My Ugnaught?

Has anyone made the Dude, Where's My Car joke on a Star Wars fan site recently? No? Another win for Milosh!

With the announcement of Bespin Guards Helder Spinoza and Isdam Edian, our Carbon Freezing Chamber play sets have taken a big step towards completion with updated figures. Since the set's release, we've also gotten needed updates in the form of VC187 - Princess Leia (Bespin Escape), VC205 - Lando Calrissian, and VC223 - Lobot (review pending).

When the Carbon Freezing Chamber was released, I was neither underwhelmed or overwhelmed. I was just whelmed, but as these complimentary pieces are getting released, I'm enjoying it more and more. I can't wait to have it on permanent display once my man cave gets completed (fingers crossed for some time in April). There is one Original 96 figure that is critical to this scene, and its omission form the line is becoming increasingly conspicuous, especially since all of the tooling exists (or existed at one time). The BD43 - Ugnaught was released in 2009, and then that sculpt was partially retooled for a second version that was released in 2010 as BD28 - Ugnaught.

Fans need access to these figures for the Freezing Chambers, but the secondary market is not practical. The 2009 figure fetches $50 and up loose, and the 2008 figure is around $30 loose. Considering you'd need three or four, that is too costly for many collectors. They need to rely on Hasbro to re-release these figures so the platform can be populated more economically. It seems like a slam dunk, right? These are O96 figures and no new tooling is required. Yet, we continue to wait. There is an undercurrent of frustration simmering in the community over this.

In addition to that swirling frustration, there is also a rumor being whispered in darkened corners. It states that the tooling for any 2008 - 2009 figure that was not re-released during TVC 1.0, has either been lost or has degraded to the point of being unusable. If this is true, Hasbro should get in front of it. Sure, the memers will go into full righteous indignation mode, but they're going to do that anyway. Reasonable collectors will understand, which is better than feeling like Hasbro is ignoring their requests for repacks. The Ugnaughts aren't the only figures in this 2008-2009 category that need re-release. There's also:

2008 HK-47 (BAD)
2009 BD21 - Giran
2009 BD23 - Nikto Gunner (Nysad)
2009 BD33 - Hrchek Kal Fas
2009 BD34 - Leesub Sirln

Just to name a few. I could keep going deeper on Comic Pack and Battle Pack figures. Fans need an explanation why these figures remain inaccessibly expensive on the secondary market while figures with only tepid demand are happily re-released.

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