Who purposely avoided Midnight the 23rd?

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Me. And most of my friends, who by May 4th of 1999, had each figure, sometimes in multiples. What kept you away?

I copied this from the News here at SSG:

At a Toys R Us in Los Angeles, about 100 fans were lined up by midnight to grab their ``Star Wars'' products first thing Tuesday.

Carla DellaGatta, 26, was a little alarmed to be one of the few people in costume for the event - especially since it was 57 degrees and she was wearing a custom-made Princess Leia ``slave girl'' bikini from ``Return of the Jedi.'' Luckily, she had a black topcoat.

Ivan Munguia, 30, was first in line, waiting with his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, his mother and his wife - who was sleeping in the car.

I don't know if that's "true-fan" status. I wore a costume to TPM's opening day, not for toys. And leaving your family to sleep in a car? Kinda sad. I wonder if "the experience" is not so great anymore, as far a SW collecting goes...

[Sith Vicious]

I did. I waited until this afternoon. I have no desire to go and wrestle other people for figures that aren't going to be that hard to find. I admit that there were about 10 figures that I didn't see at either the TRU or Wal-Mart I went to, but I'm not worried about getting them eventually. From what I hear, several people that did attend MM had a hard time finding several of the figures.

[Jargo]

There was a rare MM event in the TRU in Warrington that i could have gone to but when I heard that a friend had got together a bunch of mates and hired a minibus to take them all there i just had visions of hordes of burly guys stampeding to get hold of stuff and so i passed it up to wait until the morning when hopefully they would still be sleeping off the madness and thus afford me a casual stroll to the display to pick through what my even more local store had put out. As it turns out I chose the right path to figure happiness and got most of what i wanted in one fell swoop. There were only two other people stood at the display looking dejected because there was no Dooku or deluxe figures out. I had a clear run at the pegs and being a short arse that was a good thing. Why TRU sticks things so high in a toy store I do not know but anyway. Midnight madness is great as far as I'm concerned. let people have it and go mad so I can get up early the following morning and shop in peace and quiet while listening to the haunting soundtrack played via the display stand. Also, not having people in the store while I was there afforded me the opportunity to flirt with the lady assistant and get some useful info about what stock they had and didn't have and when the rest would be in store that wasn't already out. Couldn't have done that with hordes of burly guys milling around fighting like girls over the one and only Count Dooku figure on the pegs could I?

[eliwankenobi]

I skipped all the MM events in my area for two reasons: one, I just don't have the interest and/or patience to fight over toys; and two, my toy budget doesn't allow me to drop a couple hundred bucks at once on this stuff.
Besides, I just figure that there will be plenty of AOTC toys and figures on the shelves for quite a while - especially since this is Hasbro's 2002 goldmine, and the marketing for this film is told to be more focused on traditional toys and figures, instead of splattering SW all over everything, so they can focus on a good selection of the stuff people want (hopefully), not the garbage.
On my lunch hour today i got to go to TRU and picked up a Jango Fett and Padme and was quite happy with those two. I also checked the Target down the street but they didn't have crap.
I'll probably wait until the film and base my collecting on that. Since TPM, I've been much more of a "Classic" SW collector.

[derek]

i was gonna go last night, but after seinfeld, i was getting kinda tired at 11:30, so i just went to sleep. i got up at about 5:30 this morning and headed off to wal-mart. they had everything except the geneosian warrior and dexter jettster. it was cool. i was the only one there and had an entire cart filled up, before my senses got the better of me. i instead got about 10 figures and the two sabers and headed off to work.

it sure is great seeing 30 feet of nothing but star wars stuff. just think, this is only going to happen one more time.

[Jargo]

Wow, thirty feet? Biggest display i saw was TRU and that was about six feet. Do you have to do everything bigger in the states? Not that I'm jealous or anything........

[derek]

jargo,

when i first got there this morning all i saw was a 4 foot end cap filled with figures, which was OK, but i got to looking around and thinking, "where is all the rest of the stuff?" well, i snaked around a few aisles, and BOOM, a whole asile of stuff! probably enough stuff for all the regular forum members to each get a complete set.

this particular wal mart near my house always sells out quick, so i won't be suprised if it's all gone soon.

[SithDroid]

I skipped it because TRU here never had one, but Wal-Mart had them at midnite. The only thing I missed out on was Yoda, Anakin Hangar Duel, and Count Dooku. I'm not too worried because I think that they will show up later.

[waboritas]

I agree. There are going to be plenty. I am going to wait until the first sale which I expect will be next month and do my shopping. I think TRU marked all the figures down to 2.99 or 3.99 in May '99. This first wave is not going to be the one with the rare figures. I am really tempted to wait and see what happens. Remember in '99 right before Christmas the Fan Club had every figure marked down to $1.99 and the vehicles were at least 50% off if not more. Now the subsequent waves after the movie dies down at the end of the summer will be a different story, although even in '99 there were plenty. It is clear it is the figures from the first three movies that were never figures are the ones that capture our imagination and are the ones that are in the most demand. That said my kids will one day have an incredible collection. They will get to see the movies in the right order and have the toys to play with along with them as I did for the first three only there's will be a lot better. I can't wait!!!

[hamsterboy]

I walked into Target's this afternoon and it didn't look like they sold much. Maybe a couple of the 12" figures,that's it. I glad I'm going to wait.