From what I can gather, this set is going to be a Walmart-exclusive, and will feature an oversized Jabba the Hutt figure to go with a (more or less normal sized?) Slave Leia and Salacious Crumb. If the Leia figure is the same size as a normal Pop figure, the Jabba will be quite large!
Of course, we already have Jabba the Hutt and Slave Leia figures from Funko, but the Jabba is the same size as other figures, and the Leia is standing instead of seated. Since we are also getting new Jabba’s palace characters like Bib Fortuna and Boushh, and already have characters like the Gamorrean Guard, Jedi Luke, and C-3PO, we’ll be able to make a very respectable display. Definitely looking forward to this one.
(The shot of Jabba & Leia came from the Geekculture Facebook page, but I’m not sure where they go it from. The Salacious Crumb shot is from the Funko Pop Hunters instagram page.)
According to a brief interview clip posted on Nerdacy (which unfortunately doesn’t look much like how I envisioned it above), Guillermo Del Toro would like to direct a movie showing how Jabba the Hutt came to power, Godfather-style. While this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who reads this site, I would be all over that! Now, Del Toro makes it clear that this is just him musing about what would be cool and not anything that’s in the works, but it’s still very interesting to think about. He said he loved the character, and not just because it’s “the character that looks most like him.” 🙂
A few years ago, this kind of talk would’ve been totally unrealistic, but now that we really do have origin movies for characters like Boba Fett and Han Solo apparently in the works, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility. It’s probably more realistic for Jabba fans to hope that he will appear as a supporting player in one of those movies, rather than starring in his own, but you never know. To a large degree I think we have Marvel (and of course Disney) to thank for this, since their character-focused comic book films have been much more successful than I would’ve expected, and have really opened the doors for doing the same kind of thing with Star Wars.
Rebelscum has posted photos from Gentle Giant’s booth at SDCC that give us our first real photos of the upcoming jumbo Kenner Jabba the Hutt figure. We first heard about this figure (a version of the original vintage figure blown up to 1/6 scale) nearly a year ago, but things had been pretty quiet since then. That, and the general dearth of news about the jumbo Star Wars line has led some to worry that it might have gotten shelved, but that does not appear to be the case.
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that there’s no throne. When they announced this figure last year, they used an image of the original vintage figure on the throne, which seemed to indicate that they would be replicating the entire playset, but now I’m not so sure. It’s just a prototype, but one would think that they would at least mention it if the final product was going to include the throne. I held off posting about this since I wanted to try and get a definitive statement, but so far haven’t found anything. If you know, please leave a comment.
Jabba himself looks pretty good, although he is similar to many of the other entries in Gentle Giant’s lines of jumbo Kenner figures in that he’s not an exact match for the original. One problem that the figures have had is that the plastic used is different, and the paint is often more of a matte color. In more extreme cases, they have been altered in scale, had additional “made up” details added, or been otherwise altered from the originals. Since this line is entirely based in nostalgia for the original Kenner figures, these decisions are vexing.
In this case, it appears that Jabba’s head and arms are made of the same plastic as his body, instead of being a more rubbery material as with the vintage figure. The color seems more yellowish as well, but that may just be because of the flash photography. If you click the photo of his head for a larger view, you can also see that they have just painted the eyes instead of using the clear plastic inserts that were used in the original figure.
The good news is that he will apparently come with at least Salacious Crumb and his railing/hooka pipe. Unfortunately, the video below from Yodasnews seems to indicate that pricing will be from $600 to $800, assuming I’m hearing it correctly (there is a LOT of background noise). That’s a pretty hefty price tag if it doesn’t even come with the throne — it’s many time more expensive than Sideshow’s excellent 1/6 scale Jabba setup, although that was admittedly released a number of years ago. They are apparently aiming for a fall 2015 release, so I guess I’d better start saving my pennies.
This set is a Toys R Us SDCC-exlusive, which I believe means that it is being released first at SDCC, but will eventually be available in stores. As I posted yesterday, it was available for order on the Toys R Us website, and by some miracle my order arrived the very next day. They sent it in a box that was much too large for it, so it did get a little beat up in shipping. The very large plastic windows on the front and top make this one item that will be hard to get in mint condition. It’s somewhat attractive, but not even in the same universe as the package for last year’s SDCC-Exclusive Jabba’s Throne Room.
The windows and the box’s size also make it pretty difficult to take good photos of it. There are reflections all over the place! I had to take it out into our driveway to get enough room and light to take photos (much to the amusement of my neighbors), and I’m still not very satisfied with how they turned out. Still, I think you get the idea.
Most of the figures in the set are rereleases of older figures. The Slave Leia figure was released in both the Legacy Collection (with an addition of a set of “sitting” legs) and the Vintage Collection, and the Gamorrean was released in the Vintage Collection. The Gamorrean in particular is a very nice figure, and still relatively sought-after on the secondary market. The Rancor was originally a Target exclusive, and is also still popular on the secondary market, since it’s easily the best rancor that’s been released. The C-3PO and Jedi Luke figures are also rereleases, although I’m not sure offhand which ones they are.
The Jedi Luke comes with a Jedi robe, which is not actually accurate to the film — it should be a hooded cape without arms. One other thing to note — on the back of the box it says that it includes a hookah pipe, but this does not appear to be included in mine and in fact I think it is not included with any of these sets. I’m not going to be removing the other figures from the box, so there won’t be any closeup pictures of them, but they’re more or less the same as the previous versions.
Of course, the real star of the set is the “new” Jabba figure. It’s the first release of a 3 3/4″ Jabba figure since the Walmart-exclusive Vintage Collection figure from 2010. I say it’s “new” since he’s actually a shrunken-down version of the 6″ Black Series Jabba the Hutt figure, with a few differences.
Since the 6″ figure was sculpted completely digitally, I assume it was a lot easier to shrink it down than to sculpt an entirely new figure. And while I’m a fan of the 6″ version of the figure, it’s a little disappointing that this is essentially the same thing in a different size.
At first glance, he looks pretty good. More or less the same as the 6″ version. But you’ll see that he doesn’t have the opening mouth feature of the larger figure, and in fact his head is one piece of rubber instead of the much more complex head of the 6″ version, which has a rubber skin over a moving armature of sorts.
They have also added the scar on his tail, which was missing from the larger figure. In this respect at least, it’s superior.
If you look closer at the face, though, the paint is pretty bad. The nostrils are misaligned and the paint seems to be cracking in a number of places. It doesn’t look that bad in person from a normal distance, but still. For the price we’re paying, I don’t think this is acceptable.
Of course, I have all of the Jabba figures displayed and don’t feel the need to just pick a single “best” one, but I’m sure a lot of people are trying to decide whether it’s worth upgrading from their Vintage Collection Jabba to this. I think the Vintage Collection Jabba’s head is actually too big in relation to his body, which can make the new Jabba’s head seem too small, but in fact I think it’s about right. Also, one of my big complaints about the Vintage Collection figure was that his body seemed too short and squat, and the new version is certainly better in that regard. Finally, even with the crappy paint apps on my figure, I still like the paint job on the new version better. The new version doesn’t have a “posable” tail like the Vintage Collection version, but that feature never worked well and in most cases made the body look weird, so I prefer the new version in this respect. So my conclusion is that the new version is probably superior.
If it was available by itself I would say it’s pretty much a no-brainer, although I would hope to get better paint apps than mine. But if you have to pay $130 (or more) to get it, the math gets a bit harder. It really depends on whether or not you have the other figures in the set. The Rancor and Gamorrean in particular are great, so if you need those then I would say go for it.
The vintage Jabba the Hutt soaky shampoo bottle is one of my favorite sculpts. There’s just something quite charming about it. It reminds me of a statue of Buddha (in fact, I repainted one in a faux bronze color scheme). So I was very interested when I stumbled upon a listing on an online antique store for a cap from this bottle that was white, instead of the usual green. There wasn’t much info about it, but it was cheap so I bought it.
It’s pretty much identical to the normal cap, but cast in an off-white plastic. It fits onto the regular bottle as you can see above, but is noticeably tighter and harder to get off. So what is this? My initial hunch was that it was some sort of first shot prototype for the original bottle cap, and I believe that is what it is. It’s not unusual for manufacturers to use non-production colors when testing out the mold for a toy or other item.
When I looked inside the cap, I noticed that there was a number: a 5 for the white version and a 9 for the production one I had. So I originally thought perhaps these were used to indicate revisions to the product.
But after talking with someone who knows a lot more about this kind of thing than me, it seems that these were to indicate which spot the cap came from in a multi-cavity mold. They numbered them so they could see which cavities might need tweaking (in this case, they might have tweaked cavity #5 to make it a little less tight). The person I spoke to did agree that it was likely a first shot. It’s definitely not something that was cast from the production product — you’d need access to the original mold to make something like this. I’ve never seen anything like this mentioned online (and neither have the people I’ve asked about it), so I thought it was cool to be able to make a new vintage-era discovery even after so many years.
The SDCC-exclusive set of 3.75″ figures that I mentioned late last month is now finally available for purchase on the Toys R Us site, although you have to use this link — it won’t show up in a search. It’s apparently available for shipping in 1-2 business days, so we should have them fairly soon. I’ve seen people on eBay trying to sell these for outrageous amounts of money, but not only is it available now online, it should also be available at TRU stores later on. So there’s really no reason to spend more than retail on this. I’d kind of like to have one to keep in the box and one to open for the new Jabba figure, but at this price I think one is my limit. Hopefully I will be able to just pick up the Jabba later on.
[EDIT: This appears to have sold out, although sometimes these things come back in stock over time. The original press release said that they would be available through the 12th online, so it’s possible that they have held some stock back for later.]
“Star Wars Visions” was an exhibition of Star Wars-related art and props in Roppongi, Tokyo from April 29 to June 28. In addition to the exhibition itself, you could also buy a variety of show exclusives, or “original goods” as they like to call them. I was in Japan during that time, but I wasn’t anywhere near Tokyo and couldn’t attend. But I was still able to pick this up on Yahoo Auctions.
I imagine this was inspired by the Coca Cola bottle caps that were released in Japan in the late 70s. While those caps had the characters on the underside of the cap, the idea is very similar. At around an inch in diameter, this magnet is actually somewhat larger than a real soda bottle cap would be. On the bottom is a chunky and relatively strong magnet.
One thing that I wanted to pick up while I was in Japan was this strap. I had seen an eBay listing for it earlier, but the asking price was $20, which seemed quite high for a simple rubber strap. It turned out that these were blind-boxed (I should’ve known, really) and sold for 600 yen apiece, or around $5. It’s made of nice thick rubber, but 600 yen is a little on the high side. On the other hand, it comes with three different connectors — a carabiner, a metal ball chain and a thin loop. I would recommend choosing one and removing the others, depending on how you want to use it, but it’s nice to have options.
There are 10 characters in the series, so collecting them all or finding a particular character can be a challenge — the original eBay asking price was starting to look a bit more reasonable. I bought all four of the boxes available at the only store that carried them, but ended up getting a Stormtrooper, Boba Fett, Yoda and a Wicket the Ewok, but no Jabba. Here’s Boba:
Luckily, Osaka’s Den-Den Town electronics district has the solution for exactly this kind of problem. There are stores that specialize in selling items that were originally available only in blind-boxes or gashapon capsules.
I recommend Super Position, as they had the best selection, including two Jabba straps for about 750 yen apiece, which isn’t too bad of a markup considering that you can get exactly the character you want. They had several other characters and Jabba was by far the cheapest, indicating that he’s probably not the most popular character…
That said, I did spy a vintage Kenner Jabba in this display case there, along with the Applause Jabba statue in the far right.
The artwork used for these straps has also been used for a variety of other items, including tote bags and pencil cases. I found online listings for at least half a dozen different variations. Since they aren’t totally Jabba-centered, I didn’t try to collect them all, but I have a bit of a weakness for pencil cases so I did pick this one up:
Front
Back
I first discovered this model kit a few years ago when a painted one appeared on eBay UK. The seller wanted quite a bit for it, and it seemed expensive and risky to ship it to the US, so I passed. A while later, another appeared on eBay UK, but the story was pretty much the same. Until recently, those were the only two examples of it I had ever seen. For posterity, here are pictures of the kits I saved from those auctions (click to enlarge).
I recently returned from 3 weeks in Japan, during which I regularly monitored Yahoo! Auctions (Japan’s equivalent to eBay). I was mostly looking for the sterling silver Gamorrean Guard ring from JAP Inc. to go with my Jabba, Bib Fortuna, and Rancor rings, but didn’t have any luck there. However, I did stumble upon a listing for this very model kit — in unassembled form, no less. The opening bid was low, and I was hoping that it would be obscure enough that I might get it cheaply, but it ended up going fairly high (around $150). Still, it was considerably cheaper than the asking prices for the completed sets above, and for me having the unpainted version was actually more appealing. It came with about 37 different pieces, as you can see below. I’m certainly capable of painting something like this, but an unpainted version has got to be pretty rare at this point, so I decided not to. However, keeping it in its completely unassembled form doesn’t appeal to me, since you can’t appreciate it, so I just prepped and assembled it enough to allow me to display it as you see in the first photo above.
(As an aside, it’s not easy to buy things on Yahoo! Auctions if you’re a foreigner without a permanent address in Japan. First of all, you basically have to be physically in Japan since the vast majority of sellers won’t send anything outside the country. You have to be able to read and write Japanese, since the website and all communications with the sellers will be in Japanese. And in most cases you have to be able to make a bank transfer to a Japanese bank, since Yahoo’s Paypal equivalent won’t work with non-Japanese credit cards. Luckily, I met all of these requirements while I was there, so I was able to get a couple of things. I don’t have a Japanese bank account anymore, but many ATMs in Japan allow you to insert cash and make a transfer that way.
There are some companies that will bid on things for people living outside of Japan and act as a go-between for payment and shipping, but they are expensive and can also be a little tricky to use. I did try it once, but given the extra expense I’m not sure I would recommend it unless it’s something you absolutely have to have.)
Finally finding one of these kits really made me want to figure out where and when it was from. I was pretty intrigued by it, since it seemed so polished for an unlicensed kit and because it was such a mystery. I couldn’t find any mention of it online, and I’m usually pretty adept at researching things like this. I did finally find a reference to it in a collection of Star Wars clippings posted by Chris Georgoulias (the ad can be found on this page). It’s difficult to make out much detail, but it clearly appears to be the same kit. The ad is dated early 1997, so it’s at least that old. They list the maker as “Monster Shop.”
The guy selling one of the painted kits above on eBay told me some interesting things about it, although I have no way to verify any of it. He said that the model he was selling was used as a display model by a shop in Manchester England that was selling the kits. The owners of that shop told him that the kit was originally from the early 80s and was made in Japan. Later in the 90s a UK firm supposedly acquired the rights and started making them again (although I question whether there were actually “rights” to acquire for an unlicensed kit like this — unless he just meant that they bought the molds.) Since the only examples of this kit I’ve found have been in the UK and Japan, it might support some of what he said.
The bottom of the throne has the words “MONSTAR SHOP” (“monster” spelled with an “A”) on it, but no other markings or dates, and I can’t find anything definitive about who or what that is. I don’t know if it was made in Japan originally, or if it was imported to Japan from the UK. I’d really like to figure this out. I’ve sent emails to various places, including the website mentioned in the clipping above, but haven’t had any responses as of yet. Add a comment or send me an email if you know anything.
Some shots of the individual figures follow below. They’re obviously quite exaggerated in a manner similar to the puppets used on British TV show “Spitting Image.” But they also could be seen as fitting the Japanese “super deformed” (or “SD”) style. They’re really quite high quality for a kit of this nature. The sculpts are well done and there are basically no problems such as air bubbles. There was some extraneous resin on the bottoms of several of them that I removed with a rotary tool, but that was about it. The resin is fairly light but extremely strong — I packed it well, but I was still very impressed that absolutely nothing broke on the way back to the US. Even the very thin pieces like Boba Fett’s antenna. Click any of the images below to enlarge.
One final note. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that one of the painted models above has an R2-D2 figure but no Boba Fett, while the other painted model is identical in its composition to the one I have. In addition, the model in the ad clipping has the same models as in mine, plus an additional one at the bottom right that appears to be a Gamorrean Guard, although it’s quite hard to make out. I don’t know how to account for these differences. Is my set missing something, or were other figures added later on? The mystery deepens…
[EDIT: I received the following info from Steve York in this thread on Rebelscum.
Here’s the history behind the kit, it was made by master garage kit model builder Eiichi Mogi and his company MONSTER SHOP, probably in the late 80s or early 90s. He was an incredible sculptor and caster, you won’t find a single air bubble in any of these pieces which is just crazy rare, and a really crazy high quality resin was used. Its a beautiful set unpainted after getting to inspect one.
He sells exclusively at WonderFest, a yearly hobby show, and Creature Features would host him in Los Angeles over the years where he would sell his models, hence the Toy Shop ad. From what we can tell (memories are hazy) the Boba Fett was done first and in greater quantities, then the Jabba set. The R2 unit seen in that painted set is not one of his pieces. Though a Gamorrean Guard is pictured on the box for the Jabba set, it was not included as it wasn’t finished, and on the box it looks like an early sculpt.
There have been rumblings for some time about a Black Series Rancor set, but since a Rancor in the 6″ scale would be huge, I imagined that it would be a repack of the previously release figure, along with some other figures. Today we learned that the set does indeed exist, and that it will be an SDCC exclusive retailing for $130. It comes with the Jabba’s Rancor toy (previously released as a Target exclusive), a Slave Leia (apparently the Legacy Collection one, but without the sitting legs), and a Gamorrean Guard (apparently identical to the Vintage Collection one). There’s also a Jedi Luke and a C-3PO, although I’m not positive if these are identical to previous releases or not (the c-3PO certainly looks very familiar, but I’m not sure about the Luke).
I was right about it being for the smaller figures, but the one surprise is that they are apparently releasing a shrunken-down version of the 6″ scale Black Series Jabba to fit with the traditional 3.75″ figures. It looks to be more or less identical, although my hunch is that it may not have the opening mouth feature of the larger figure. I’m curious whether they will be releasing this Jabba separately. I guess one benefit of designing figures completely digitally is that you can scale them down easily.
In addition to being available at SDCC, these will apparently go on sale at toysrus.com on July 9th, so that would seem like the best bet if you want one of these. $130 seems on the pricey side, although the Jabba’s Rancor figure does have a fairly high value on the secondary market, and of course you’re getting a brand new Jabba as well. That alone is enough to convince me to bite. I just hope I can get it for retail and won’t have to resort to eBay.
[Hat tip to Jedi News.]
Mighty Jabba's Collection 