Updating EP1: Vehicles, Playsets, and More - Part III

Man, Episode I had a lot of stuff that Hasbro never bothered to updated...

But before I even get into that, what a disappointment for Eli Manning. I mean, I get it. I'm not shocked. But still disappointing. There weren't even any other QB's in the group of finalists. He'll get in eventually, but he missed his one shot at being a First Ballot guy. Bummer.

Anyway, I'm consistently surprised about how much 20th century and In The Year Two Thousand-era stuff we must tolerate looking at on our shelves. So here's Part III of this apparently never-ending series.

Once again, The Rules: Episode I Figures and Toys that haven't been updated... yada, yada yada...they're still in our displays.


For reference:
Collection 1
Collection 2
Collection 3
Vehicles, Playsets, and More PART I
Vehicles, Playsets, and More PART II

Here's more stuff.










1. Two-Headed Announcer: No, this isn't Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. It's not even Fode and Beed. It's apparently based on an earlier CGI model that Hasbro had been given, but it was changed before the final cut. The likeness is obviously way off because of that. It looks like a couple of clown heads compared to the finished model - which still isn't. I never really liked the character, because as a sports fan, I found the excitement generated for the pod race scene to be lacking in drama. The pod race itself wasn't bad, but the crowd reactions and this announcer schmuck just failed to elevate the feeling that you were supposed to be watching a premiere event with a shocking result. I get taken out of the moment in sports movies if the surrounding hoopla isn't convincing. It can be hard to succeed at this, no doubt. And Lucas wasn't exactly trying to make Rocky here, They should have just gotten Pat Summerall and John Madden to be the voices. Anyway, as an actual figure, it's not so bad. It has 9 points of articulation, including both heads, all 4 arms, both legs, and the tail. We didn't have to wait very long, as the POTJ line gave us an updated screen-accurate Fode and Beed. It's better sculpted and painted by a mile, and has one additional articulation point at the base of the joined neck. The reason I have this guy in this series is because he's just like the original Episode I Yoda, in that he's basically from a deleted scene. In the meantime, if you're a wingnut, you can add this one to your Cantina weirdos as a random Troig. That's right. He's a Troig. I bet Tannith is the only one reading this who knew that.

2. Desert Base from Tatooine Showdown Cinema Scene: At the time of purchase, I thought the included figures were awesome, at least Maul and Qui-Gon. Mind you, this was at a time when 6-8 POA was the norm, so coaxing dynamic poses out of figures was difficult. Hasbro seemed to use this as the model for many of their figures in 2002's Blue Saga figures, and it quickly became a bore. We needed more articulation, not more scene-specific mini-statues. Obviously new Mauls and Qui-Gons have rendered these moot, and Anakin was basically the same as the basic figure but in a slight lunging pose. But what can still serve a bit of a purpose today is the base of the cinema scene. Like the POTF2 Power FX Electronic R2-D2 with the magnetic rocky base, you can find good use for this thing in various scenes or photo shoots. I hadn't even thought of this as it was packed away for a long time until I just recently unearthed it. There's a little bit of value here, for sure.

3. Gungan Scout Sub: This is essentially a mini-rig, and is part of the Invasion Force line, as is the Gungan Assault Cannon we discussed yesterday. You know, the thing that's not really a cannon but is supposed to be the other thing on the back of the other Fambaa. On its own merit, it's nonsense, and is not nearly as fun as a just-off screen mini-rig might be. I think the main reason I dislike it is because it comes with Obi-Wan as the pack-in figure. It should have come with Random Not-Jar Jar Gungan. It's clearly supposed to remind one of the SioBibble-TriFribble that Hasbro never made. I was honestly surprised they never made the sub at launch. I think it would have been cool to have, and probably would have sold well - at least until the film came out. So the reason I keep it around is because I use it as Opee's chew toy. Obviously nothing there is to scale.

4. Pit Droids: There was a lot of drama here for me. From almost the beginning (1999), I was a completist. Many overseas markets balked at whatever toy rules and regulations surrounded the comm-tech chips, so Hasbro substituted the chip with a pack-in figure. They did Battle Droids and Pit Droids. The Battle Droids were awful. They were completely unpainted, had the E-5 blaster sculpted into the right hand, had only 5 points of articulation, and was in a walking stance that made it hard to stand up. There was only a single droid made, with no variants. Acquiring one was fairly easy via Ebay.

On the other hand, the Pit droids were a nightmare. There were 3 different colors and 3 different poses, resulting in 6 variants - along with 2 different types of box accessories. Each was packed with various figures over time (Curto had some good archived shots of the different packs that can be found on Rebelscum). Acquiring all the variations was a huge chore, and not cheap for the time. I managed to do so, and have kept all 6 carded to this day.

But then in 2007, in response to Fans Choice polling, Hasbro decided to re-release these guys. Again, Curto provides the details. Hasbro tried to put the "standing" and "sitting" sculpts together in a two pack in a single color, and then do the same for the other 2 colors. But for whatever reason, they couldn't locate the molds for the sitting version, so they issued a pair of standing droids in each pack. Fans persisted, and Hasbro said they would either locate the "sitting" mold, or re-manufacture the molds. I don't know which was the actual result, but a little while later, Hasbro issued 3 more 2-packs, with each consisting of a pair of "sitting" droids. The first set included dug up the molds and re-issued them in 6 different variants in the TAC Saga Legends line. Also, the first wave (standing) included the hexagonal "power converter" box, but it was painted shiny silver, unlike the more detailed original scheme. The second wave (sitting), included the flatter/wider "storage locker" which was more or less the same as the original one.

I picked up all 6 of these sets, but that didn't mean I was off the hook. Since the hexagonal box is painted very differently, I have to keep close tabs on that version in my carded collection. There's a picture of one of them above, where you can see the difference. The original is far superior.

But wait, there's more! For just 53 cents a day, the price of a cup of coffee, you can see Part IV later! It's 10pm, do you know where your children are?

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