Star Wars defined the toy collecting hobby with its insanely valuable toys that were still in thier packages. Toys R Us is more than aware of this market demographic and is having a little Star Wars celebration of its own for the upcoming Clone Wars animated feature.
Starting this week, Toys “R” Us is mounting digital clocks in all 585 of its stores that will count down to July 26, when more than 225 of those stores will open at midnight to begin selling toys from the latest “Star Wars” film, “The Clone Wars,” an animated movie that opens in the United States on Aug. 15. Two of the retailer’s flagship outlets, in Mission Bay in San Diego and in Times Square, will hold costume and trivia contests that night as well, and will give away limited-edition “Star Wars” toys with every purchase.
I used to be an avid collector of these things and would rush out on the first day but not at midnight. Id get all the ones I wanted and display my treasures proudly.
Then I had kids. Do you know how hard it is to explain to a four year old that those toys are NOT toys?? Yeah. Collection ended up trashed and mixed in with his other toys. Oh well. They likely wont have any value now that a million people are attempting to recreate the phenom of the original trilogy toy collections.
One warning for those brave collectors out there. If you avoiding spoilers, this is a risk. John was avoiding spoilers for Episode 1 like mad. He didn’t even watch a trailer. He would all but assault you if you wanted to talk about something you heard from Star Wars. Then he walks into Toys R Us and picks up one of the action figures. No worries there right. Just a toy. Well this was a talking toy of Padme, and when he held it up to the device that makes it talk, she spoke “I AM Queen Amidala!” Oops.
Interestingly enough this is the first time Mc Donalds will have a Happy Meal promotion to promote a Star Wars film. The last time they had any promotion were Star Wars collectible Glasses – but never in a Happy Meal toy. I have some Empire Strikes Back glasses.
I tell you, Rod, when I was ten…if the freaking Kenner Greedo doll lost his gun I’d freak. As it was, I went through three Greedos and all of them got “decapitated”. I was ticked off by number #3, but then I figured…I had the cantina set…so Han Solo simply blows his head off. Problem solved.
Of course, that cardboard backing sucked eggs.
By the way, nothing, nothing NOTHING beats The Droid Factory.