Nomadscout’s Collection Part XV

You will now view images of some things that I collect...

Previous parts can be found here if you missed them or are interested in looking again:
PART I: CIS Droids
PART II: CIS Factions and Leadership
PART III: Naboo
PART IV: Coruscant
PART V: Clone Troopers (Phase I)
PART VI: Jedi
PART VII: Clone Troopers (Phase II)
PART VIII: GAR Vehicles
PART IX: Republic Navy
PART X: Jedi Starfighters
PART XI: Kashyyyk and Utapau
PART XII: Solo
PART XIII: Rogue One
PART XIV: Four pre-OT TV Series

Last time I wrote a lot of words. Like...A LOT...of words. For whatever reason, I was inspired to write about multi-packs in TVC. There wasn't much of a point to it all, but the words just flowed. Apparently, it was too much. So I'm going to try to balance the scales and limit the verbosity today. I don't think that will be a problem because I'm not particularly inspired by today's topic. And I'm certainly not trying to open any toxic discussion about whether or not someone should be punched in the face if the either like or don't like the Sequel Trilogy. We'll see how it goes.

So. Sequel Trilogy. Yay! I'm honestly not a true hater of the ST. It has some redeeming qualities, but a lot of it fell flat to me. Everyone has an opinion on this topic, and I'm no different. But this isn't hate. It's just...disappointment. And as time goes on, I can barely even muster enough interest to continue my disappointment. For me, the ST merely exists. I believe that there were 3 main reasons for my apathy. First and foremost was that the storyline was jarringly unexpected almost right out of the gates. I thoroughly enjoyed everything from Act I of The Force Awakens. But when it was clear that the post-Endor political situation was absurdly different from what I expected, I was taken out of the moment instead of thrillingly surprised, as I'm sure was intended by JJ and Disney. The second thing that bothered me was that it seemed like the story was almost in an alternate reality. While every SW film would introduce new and exotic aliens from the film before it, it seemed TFA went out of its way to try to blow your mind with a completely new variety of sentient life and droid styles - at the near-total expense of the species that were depicted as "common" in the galaxy. Rodians, Weequay, Sullustans, Quarren, Twi'leks, Trandoshans, Klatooinians...almost nowhere to be found. It was...weird. And finally, there is no doubt in my mind that the lack of articulation in the action figures of the day made things pretty uninspiring. I've said before that when I watch a film (or TV show) for the first time, about 50% of my attention is on the characters, aliens, outfits, beasts, ships, etc. that I imagine in 3.75" scale. Since the line was in full swing of being dumbed down and cheapened with 5POA figures and simply-detailed vehicles (many of which had some gimmick), it was hard for me to get excited.

In today's feature, there are a total of 23 photos to show off the entirety (unless I missed something) of the offerings for the sequel trilogy, and that includes 5POA as well as collector-oriented releases. That's it. I have an entire room devoted to my OT and PT collection, and half of a second room devoted to everything else. In that second room, the ST takes up the equivalent of 3 shelves. Big whoop.

I can't say I'm all that upset about it, either. There really isn't anything from the ST that I'm feeling like I need to add to my collection. That said, there are definitely some head-scratchers that we are missing. No TVC Rey in her main gray outfit from TLJ. No TVC Poe in anything other than his flight suit. No Finn other than TFA. We got the wrong versions of Han and Leia in TVC, and both Luke figures are pretty weak (the one from TLJ is pretty awful). No unmasked Kylo Ren, and no Hux in TVC. And we (in)famously got the poster child for context-less action figures: a Knight of Ren from TROS.

As frustrating as the 5POA line was (and I would dump it all in a heartbeat in exchange for 25% of them them in TVC instead), we did get a bunch of neat backgrounders. In order to have a decent display (which is counterintuitive because 5POA is inherently not OK), you'd have to mix in the two lines into your dioramas. As such, I've decided to add them to the images above, as I did previously for my Rogue One and Solo features.

We got some cool aliens from Jakku and Maz's castle, and a few of the bandits from the rathtar chase scene. We also got a bunch of Resistance pilots. I must give credit where it's due: the 5POA figure of Paige Tico is probably the best one ever, and the face/removable helmet/separate oxygen mask is a work of art that is as good, if not better, than anything in TVC. It's a unicorn figure, at least from the neck up.

There are tons of First Order troopers, although most of the variants are in the 5POA line. We've also got different Praetorian Guards (again, most in 5POA), and Sith Troopers from TROS, which got a lot more pre-release hype than was deserved with their handful of frames on screen.

The main characters get most of the important wardrobe changes in the 5POA line, with just a few that made it into TVC. A few important characters, like Maz, Lando, Hux, Holdo, R2, C-3PO, BB-8, and zombie Palpatine don't have any representation in TVC - some don't even exist in 5POA.

The vehicles got a nice showing. While lacking some detail, they are pretty decent overall. Poe's X-Wing from TROS is the only TVC vehicle, with everything else coming from the 5POA line. The TIE fighters and other X-Wings are all undersized, but look okay (aside from the warping TIE panels). My favorite vehicle is Kylo's TIE. The weirdest one is the Canto Bight police speeder.

And if any one item would be the king of the ST confusion, it would be the super odd BB-8 transforming playset. In a nutshell, it's...weird. It's a giant BB-8 (cut in half vertically) that changes into some combination of a star destroyer and Starkiller Base playset, without really satisfying any of those things. It's another head-scratcher, and it's big and was expensive. I couldn't be bothered to try to transform it for this photoshoot, so I added in a lazy image of the playset mode from our 2017 review.

So in the end, I'm not inspired, and would be completely fine as a collector if we never got another figure or toy from the ST. If Hasbro, for some reason, wanted to revisit the ST, I would hope that they either just stick to a particular scene that we can flesh out (like the Praetorian battle or Maz's castle), or just give us a few of the mains that they missed and call it a day.

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