You can't go back again

[JediTricks]

Yesterday, during my packing for this move, I came across a bin of old POTF2 figures and had to make the decision of whether or not to keep them. They were carded figures, mostly from 96 and 97, bought during clearances and such.

Tycho and I nearly every conversation of the last 12 years have talked about replacing older figures with new versions as they come out. Tycho doesn't do it, he feels older figures will serve his particular needs, to which I refer to those figures as "chess pieces", since it doesn't seem to matter to him what they actually look like. I tend to think of hose older figures as only useful for background figs, especially with army builders who can bolster legions.

However, yesterday in those bins, I found a number of royal guards and snowtroopers and a few others. At first I started to pack them up, but looking closely at them, I realized just how bad they truly are. The royal guard is barely anything beyond arms, and the snowtroopers have the thickest sculpting and a totally misshapen helmet with big buggy eyes like spider-man. They are not useful in any modern context, nor are they classic enough to have value that way. New likeness Leia, Tarkin, the deluxe stormtrooper, and a few others were just sitting around being of no use to a collector like me, taking up my limited space while offering me false hopes of a day when they'd be useful, a day that would never come. I never liked the snowtrooper figure from that era but didn't know why until now: it's junk.

We've come a long way, some of the older POTF2 stuff holds up, but more than I was expecting in a modern context can only be destined for the donation pile.

[El Chuxter]

...the deluxe stormtrooper, and a few others were just sitting around being of no use to a collector like me, taking up my limited space while offering me false hopes of a day when they'd be useful, a day that would never come.
YOU TAKE THAT BACK! That Crowd-Control Stormtrooper would be the greatest Star Wars figure of all time if not for Combat R5-D4 and the Cruisemissile Trooper! :mad:

(I started to add on Monkey-Faced Leia, but that waste of plastic doesn't even have the inherent humor value of an AT-AT Driver strapped to a rocket or an R5-D4 who opens to reveal a proton torpedo launcher.)

[bigbarada]

For me, with only a few minor exceptions (like Ephant Mon, FX-7, etc.), every figure made prior to 2004 is hopelessly outdated and needs an update. About 90% of figures made between 2004-2007, could also use an update. I don't think all figures in the line need to be SA, but I do believe that things like ball-joint elbows, knees and ankles need to be standard (where appropriate - obviously) throughout the line.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

I wonder if George Lucas is reading this thread and smiling. "Now they all know my displeasure with inferior products..."

[sith_killer_99]

JT is right, some of the older figures still hold up, but most do not. The old "He-Man" style POTF2 stuff was just bad. Once Hasbro got the hang of molding pants and shirts like pants and shirts and dropped the whole shape his pants like muscular legs and shape his shirt like a body builder, things got much better (no one in Star Wars wore skin tight spandex for crying out loud). I still say EP1 was the real turning point in terms of sculpting, there was much greater focus on sculpting clothes that looked like clothes.