Disney Vinylmation Series 3 Figures (Jedi Luke, Boushh, Skiff Guard Lando, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard)

There has been a relationship between Disney and Star Wars for quite some time, even before Disney’s recent acquisition of the property. Star Tours, the Star Wars-themed Disney attraction, has apparently been in operation at various Disney parks since 1987. They’ve put out a fair amount of merchandise that can only be found at Disney parks as well, although there has never been a huge amount of Jabba-related stuff until recently, thanks to the 30th anniversary of Return of the Jedi. There’s now a significant amount of merchandise available (although from what I hear, a lot of sold out pretty quickly — much of it to resellers).

These Vinylmation figures are part of a larger range of Star Wars Vinylmation figures, which in turn are part of an even larger range of vinyl figures from a variety of other themes. The one unifying element is that they all use more or less the same body — that of Mickey Mouse, complete with ears. Obviously the ears are not really appropriate for 99% of the characters they’re portraying, so they use a variety of approaches to work them in. Here we see that Boushh, Bib Fortuna and the Gamorrean Guard all have archways on their ear pieces, meant to evoke Jabba’s Palace. And Luke and Lando have blue sky and sand, as if they’re outside on Tatooine.

Each 3-inch figure costs $12.95 and they’re all blind-boxed, so you have no idea what you’re getting if you just buy a box at the park. In this case, buying opened figures on eBay is probably the better idea, since I was able to get all of these for retail price, and pick out only the characters I really wanted. Hardcore collectors may opt to get a full case of these in order to get the “chaser” and variant figures. In this case, the variant is Leia as Boushh with her helmet off, but as that one has been selling for $150 to $200 on eBay, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be skipping it.

Of course the biggest news for Jabba fans is that they also released a jumbo Jabba the Hutt figure with Salacious Crumb. Rest assured, I have one of these on its way to me and will post about it when it arrives. There’s also going to be a limited edition Han in Carbonite released a bit later that I hope to get.