One of the markets I pay attention to for Project Arcturus is the Star Wars action figure market, which is just huge. Over the last few years, Hasbro has released hundreds of different figures, ususally in lots of 60 to 80 released over the course of a year, often similar popular characters are released several times with slight variants…Vader with a cape, Vader with a remove able helmet, Vader with the crates he force threw at Luke during their battle at Cloud City, lava scorched Vader, ect. Surprisingly, (or maybe not given the appeal of Star Wars and the avarice of Star Wars collectors), most of the figures do sell evenutally. From last year's the Revenge of the Sith (ROTS for those in the know) collections, almost all the figures sold out in my local stores fairly quickly with the exception of the some of the more obscure/wussy characters, such as Aayla Secura, (the female Jedi knight with two blue tentacles for hair) and Shaak Ti, (another female Jedi knight who has horns and tentacles for hair with a clown like face), or Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits).
The hottest part of the market is for the various forms of clone trooper that often come in color variants (such a battalion dressings such as the white and orange clone trooper that fought with Obi-Wan or the blue and white clone trooper that Vader led at the massacre the Jedi Temple, which come with boots stained with Jedi blood).
Characters who where on screen for less than 5 seconds (such as Imperial Galactic Marine Commander Bacara seen here on the left), will have their own figure and some retailers get exclusive colors/versions of figures that are only available at Target or Toy R Us. Typically, many of the commanding officers are the more rare characters (ie, there will be only one of that figure in a retail case, while there will be 2 or 3 identical common characters in that case) and many people try to buy multiple clone troopers to build up their own personal clone army…which also results in their scarcity on the retail shelf, even when they are not less common figures.
But I think Hasbro must be running out of ideas, since they are planning to release a set based on the scene in the Imperial briefing room on the Death Star…the one where the various officers talk about what is the best way to use the death star, and one of them calls out Vader (“Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel’s hidden fortress…”) and Vader reminds him of the power of the force by force choking him for a while until Grand Moff Tarkin calls him off.
Imperial Briefing Room Boxed Setthough not fully operational, the Death Star was already an imposing presence, dwarfing its Star Destroyer escort as it cruised through deep space during its final pre-operations check. Even as the final systems check progressed flawlessly, the Imperial officers in command of the battle station met in their first strategy session to plot the total destruction of the Rebel Alliance, and the continued domination of the Emperor. This boxed set includes one each of these 3.75" figures: Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Admiral Motti, General Tagge, Chief Bast, Officer Cass, and Colonel Wullf Yularen along with various blasters and Darth Vader's LightsaberI guess all those 3 of those Wullf Uyklaren fans out there will be now, finally, satisfied.
