Angry Birds Star Wars Jenga “Tatooine Battle Game” by Hasbro
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I first wrote about the Angry Birds Star Wars app and games, and now we have the real thing in hand. That has to be some kind of record. I’m used to hearing about products months before their release, but this time Hasbro developed the app and toys in secret, only announcing them when they were essentially ready to put on shelves. You can find these at some Toys R Us stores, the Toys R Us online store, Hasbrotoyshop.com and probably elsewhere. (Be warned, however, that TRU charges $19.99 for the basic sets like this one, which are $14.99 other places.)
I’ll post about the “Jabba’s Palace” set when it arrives, but it’s pretty similar to this one. They both have Jabba and the Rancor, but while this one has Jedi Luke and (for some reason) a Millennium Falcon launcher, the Jabba’s Palace set has Leia as Boushh and Jedi Luke’s lightsaber as the launcher. Not sure why they didn’t use that launcher for this set. As a matter of fact, I’m not really sure why they needed two sets at all if they were going to be so similar.
Here are the included figures. They’re smaller than I had expected, but are solid (except for Luke, who has a hole allowing him to fit on the launcher) and made of a dense rubbery material. One thing I really do appreciate about the set is that you can easily return all of the pieces to the box for storage.
Here’s the launcher.
In terms of the rules, the game is very simple. The idea is that one player rolls a die to see what kind of structure they have to build and the other player rolls a die to see how many shots they get. Then the attacking player tries to knock down both of the pigs with the launcher.
It just so happens that my son has some of the other Angry Birds toy sets, which I now realize were put out by Mattel instead of Hasbro. They are VERY similar in concept, but Mattel’s birds are bigger and hollow, so they’re lighter weight. It seems that the Hasbro birds are easier to shoot with, since they have more weight and fit onto a holder on the launcher. The Mattel games include a variety of cards and birds of different sizes, and is generally more complex (in a good way). As a game, the Hasbro version seems overly simple, but I guess you will be able to combine sets if you like.
Jabba looks a lot better than the generic pigs they used in the Mattel sets, since they only had stickers for faces.
You also get a code with the set that is supposed to unlock some sort of bonus content in the Star Wars Angry Birds app, although I guess we’ll have to wait until November 8th to see what that will be.
Rancor Monster Jack O’Lantern by Me
Here’s my next attempt at a 3D sculpted pumpkin — the Rancor Monster. This particular pumpkin was grainier in texture than the one I used for Bib Fortuna, so it was a bit harder to sculpt, but I think it came out fairly well.
Who do you think is next…?
Bib Fortuna Jack O’Lantern by Me
Two years ago, I tried carving a Jabba Jack O’Lantern using a rotary tool, and it was harder than I thought it would be. It came out okay and looked pretty when cool lit up, but it didn’t really give me the effect that I had hoped for. This year, I’m trying a totally different technique — 3D pumpkin carving. Rather than cutting holes in the pumpkin, you actually make use of the rind to do a 3D sculpture. I’ve seen some mind-blowing pumpkins done this way, and in fact many of them had me questioning whether this kind of sculpting was even possible without resorting to some kind of trickery.
I decided to purchase Ray Villafane’s 3D pumpkin carving tutorial to see just how these are made, with the ultimate goal of trying another Jabba. This is really just a practice pumpkin to help me get the feel for it. It’s my second one, and it’s already immeasurably better than my first attempt. You may use a knife toward the end, but for the most part you use tools called ribbon loop tools, which are used in sculpting clay. You use them to sort of scrape away parts of the rind until you get it looking how you want.
Now, I’m no artist so I could certainly use some more practice both in terms of working with pumpkins and in terms of sculpting human anatomy, but I think it came out pretty well. I might have liked to incorporate the lekku (head tentacles) to make it more obvious that it was Bib, but I wasn’t sure how to go about that, and in any case this was really just a way to get my feet wet, so to speak. Stay tuned for more!
Vintage Return of the Jedi Wastebasket by Cheinco Industries
I’ve posted about several of the vintage tin products put out by Cheinco in the past, including the Jabba and Rebo Band tins, the Return of the Jedi tin box with handles, and the Return of the Jedi tin tray. Plus, I can’t forget about the recent Celebration VI-Exclusive magnets that use the same great artwork by Mark Mancini. According to Mark, who I exchanged a few emails with, the artwork was originally made for this wastebasket and then adapted for the various other products that Cheinco made.
I put off buying one of these for a long time because I had some trouble finding a good deal, and the shipping was often rather expensive as well. In the end, I managed to score this for just $0.99 on eBay, which the seller probably wasn’t thrilled about. It’s got some minor damage, but nothing too bad.
A couple of days ago, many people were surprised by an announcement that we would soon be getting a “Angry Birds Star Wars” app and a whole line of toys based on it. I know I was. My son (a fan of both properties) has actually wondered aloud in the past about whether this kind of thing might be possible, and here it is. We have all of the Angry Birds apps and a few of the physical toy sets as well, so I have a pretty good idea about what to expect.
Naturally, when I first heard about this, I hoped there would be a Jabba set, and sure enough there is. It’s smaller than I had hoped, though. It includes one bird as Boushh and Jabba and Rancor pigs, plus a few blocks for his “palace.” The slingshot is based on Jedi Luke’s lightsaber. I’m mystified that they didn’t incorporate Gamorrean Guards into it somehow. That would seem like a no-brainer. (Click the images for a closer look). In any case, here is a link to Galactic Hunter’s coverage of the new toys, including Death Star, AT-AT and Mos Eisley Cantina sets. I look forward to playing the game, which should be out on November 8th. The toys are apparently coming around the same time.
EDIT: I have added another photo of the set with the box from the Jedi News report about Angry Birds Star Wars. It seems that in addition to the “Jabba’s Palace” pack, there will also be a “Tatooine Battle Game” (seen below in the background) that will also include Jabba and the Rancor, plus what appears to be a Jedi Luke bird. Seems odd that they have two overlapping Jabba sets like that.
I think these stickers are just fascinating. Obviously, they are unlicensed stickers from Taiwan, and they look old enough to be from the vintage era, although there are no dates on them. The “Fluffy Adorables” label is presumably just a generic one that the company used for all of their puffy stickers. The art on the stickers themselves is stolen from the vintage Return of the Jedi bookmarks by Random House. They’re pretty small (about 1.5 inches long each) and the artwork is pretty muddy and hard to see. And of course, poor Admiral Ackbar is almost entirely hidden under the label. 😀
These remind me of the other set of unlicensed puffy stickers I have, but at least those had original art (of a sort).
I’ve posted about a lot of Celebration VI exclusive merchandise recently, but I didn’t really get any prints. This was partially because I couldn’t go to the convention and it’s a little complicated to have someone else get prints for you. But also there weren’t any prints that featured Jabba prominently (as opposed to just being part of a collage or something). Still, when I saw that Tim Proctor had a few of his prints left over, I had to get one. Tim is a member over at the Rebescum.com forums, and I commissioned a painting (“Jabba’s Gift“) and a number of sketch cards (Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Boushh and Rotta) from him several years ago, before he was doing officially licensed pieces like this. There’s something about this print that makes it a little hard to photograph, so you might check out this image to get a better idea of what it looks like. I asked him to do a remarque of Jabba at the bottom.
Obviously, this shows Jabba’s palace and Han in Carbonite in the background, with Leia in her Boushh disguise on the righthand side. It’s about 12×24 and everything from the style, the vertical orientation of the print and the aurebesh text, and the “stamp” that Tim put in the bottom left are clearly meant to evoke a Japanese scroll. As a Japanese translator, I have a bit of a weakness for things that combine Star Wars and Japan. Maybe I can display this along with my “Princess and the Frog” print…
(As an aside, aurebesh is simply a made-up alphabet of symbols that each stand for one English letter, plus some for combined sounds like “th”. In this case, the text reads “Someone Who Loves You.”)
News: “Hop on Hutt” Print Available One Day Only: October 4th
Speaking of mashups, Steal This Art is apparently going to have a “Hop on Hutt” print (parodying the Dr. Seuss book “Hop On Pop“) available tomorrow, October 4th. It’ll be limited to 100 copies.
Let me state first off that I know relatively little about My Little Pony. My sister had some of the toys when we were kids, but beyond that I only have a vague awareness of modern TV show that seems to be so popular with certain people (aka “Bronies“). But from what I can tell, this print by Unicorntopia on Etsy depicts the pony named Rarity as Jabba the Hutt, with her friend Spike apparently taking on the role of Salacious Crumb. I love mashups like these since they can be pretty absurd, and it’s hard to get much more absurd than this. 🙂 It’s an 8.5 x 11 print, and the price is quite reasonable, I must say.
I posted about the Celebration VI-Exclusive Gamorrean Guard Piggy Bank a while back, and at the time it didn’t look like they’d be available anywhere but at the convention, but they must have had some left over because they’re now on Think Geek’s site for $29.99. Much than the $100+ that I’ve seen people trying to get on ebay.
[Celebration VI-Exclusive Gamorrean Guard Piggy Bank At Think Geek]
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
