Thursday, October 04, 2007

Reckon it took about twenty minutes, after returning from California and settling back into my secret sanctum, to get a cold. First cold of the season, and I had bags under my eyes when I wandered into the bathroom this afternoon. Charming.

Though he's still in need of some tests, the Youngest is starting on rice milk, and so far so good. I had been pretty worried that he would spot the difference, but he seems to like it right fine. The Wife also made him some muffins that fit what he's going to need to eat from now on, and he had three and a half. Good start there.

I thought about keeping him in package, but I bent the bottom corners getting him home.So I'm dogging it a little today, but let's take a quick look at one of my little souvenirs from Disneyland. (And as usual, click pictures to enlarge, hopefully.) I usually like to pick up something I couldn't get at home, and Donald Duck as Han Solo is a park exclusive, so he qualifies. Besides, as the clerk pointed out, it's just weird to see Donald with hair. Looks like another Donald, Trump.

Try to imagine Harrison Ford's voice coming out of that mouth. You can't do it for more than a few seconds. I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid, although I don't buy as many anymore. The last big batch I bought was probably the first wave of Attack of the Clones. Aside from those, a few G.I. Joes, and the Indiana Jones figure my wife got me from Disneyland a few years back; almost all the toys I've bought in recent years have been roughly the same scale as a Marvel Legend or DC Direct figure, or close enough for display purposes. The standard scale Star Wars toys seem tiny in comparison, although that size lends itself to vehicles much more easily; we'll almost certainly never see a good, Legends-scale Quinjet or Blackbird.

Some cosplayers just look better, that's all there is to it. That said, I probably have about a dozen different Han Solo figures. Aside from Donald there, the last I remember buying is the Force Battler version, which came with...a not terribly convincing Stormtrooper disguise, but at least they were trying to add some play value there. Also, squeeze his legs and his arms draw. Or flail. Again, trying.

I liked this line a lot, although the distribution and case packs were a little spotty: a lot of Obi-Wan's and Anakin's and Palpatine's clogging the racks, while most of the other figures I was lucky to see one of, ever. There was a Clone Trooper that wasn't great, but wasn't terrible; but I didn't want to have one lone Trooper: I imagine like a lot of kids, I had one Stormtrooper figure when I was young, and he wasn't very imposing against like three Lukes and a couple Hans. The Yoda was surprisingly out-of-scale to the rest of the line, and I skipped that one as well. Maybe we'll look at the ones I did buy some other time. Still, I don't know if the semi-anime style of the Force Battler figures didn't catch on, or if the bad case packs killed it, or if Star Wars fans gave the idea of another scale the collective finger.

Would the Beast as Chewbacca be too on the nose? While Donald's a neat little figure, I wonder if the floodgates are going to be opened now: we've seen Star Wars Transformers and Star Wars Disney, is Star Wars Family Guy next? Also, as you might guess from the photo, I was thinking they might have missed an opportunity in not making a Chewbacca figure. My wife said Chewbacca has a very distinctive appearance, even though she's not a fan, and she couldn't see a Disney character as Chewie. Hmm.

If you're interested in the Disney Star Wars figures, even if you are planning on going to the park, you may want to shop around online for the Goofy as Darth Vader figure: I heard it mentioned that one sold out fast, and I didn't see one in any shop. I did pick up a couple other little things, but that's for another time.

No comments: