There is little doubt that collectors have a love/hate relationship with exclusives, and this year will be no exception. The good news is a lot of it is very cool.


Toys “R” Us

Clone Wars Gunship
There is no way Hasbro can drop the ball on this, is there? The fact that it’s based on the Clone Wars we can pretty much count on it being the one we all really want from the cartoon. I’d hate to be Hasbro if it isn’t.

Battle Pack
These things are a huge success, so there’s no surprise that a retailer would jump at the chance to get an exclusive set. In the case of TRU there are two to come:

-The Demise Of Boba Fett. Wicked more Skiff Guards and such! Since almost every figure made for this battle rocked, we’re in for a treat… so long as the crappy Weequay form POTF2 doesn’t rear his ugly head.

-The Defense Of The Senate. This is a good chance for Hasbro to hook collectors up with those cool Blue Royal Guards most of us missed out on. Granted, it’s also the perfect time for them to dump Orn Free Taa figures too. Keep your fingers crossed!

Vehicles
TRU has got a couple of winners here as they visit a couple of vehicles that haven’t been around for a long time:

-Rebel Armored Snowspeeder. Unlike the last version of this vehicle, the new Snowspeeder will likely not sport those silly ‘just crashed’ window decals. This classic vehicle comes with a Zev Senesca pack in figure. For those of you who like to call their figures things like ‘B-Wing Pilot’ and ‘Walrus Man’ (like me), Zev is the dude with the green helmet that found Han and Luke before going out like a man while defending his fellow Rebels.

-Endor AT AT Wow! Now that came right out of the left field! This could go down as the coolest exclusive ever. Sporting spray ops that make it look like it’s been cruising the sanctuary moon of Endor; this exclusive is the first time this vehicle has ever been done with a dedicated environment paint job. Anyone who can complain about this one is on goofballs. Good job Hasbro and TRU!


Target
Keeping with past exclusives, you can expect Target to enjoy success with a couple of over priced repaints…

General Grievous Demise action figure
Well, we all know Obi-Wan handed Grievous his metal assets in a very uncivilized why, and there is little doubt that if Order 66 didn’t get passed he would have been tease by all the other Jedi for years to come. Thank goodness Sidious was watching out for Kenobi’s reputation when he ordered the blaster-wielding Jedi’s apprentice to destroy the order that Kenobi loved. The Grievous figure will likely be a repaint of Grievous #36 (Exploding Body), but if he’s got a repaint and missing hands, then it’s an improvement, but don’t count on it.

Snow Bunny Amidala
OK, this is cool. Let’s hope this figure of Senator Amidala in her cute little Ilum winter gear is a newly sculpted figure since at quick glance at available body parts prove that there’s not much out there that would make a decent kit bash. Now the real question is will this be movie style or animated?

Battle Packs
Target doesn’t want TRU to have all the fun, so they’ll be hooking collectors up with two of their own exclusive Battle Packs.

-Skirmish In The Senate Hmm.. Yoda in there must be. New sculpt Emperor too there better be. Unlikely this is, but hope can we all. Rounded out this pack could be with shock troopers and a major domo. Unclear this pack is though. Always in motion is the future.

-General Windu’s Squadron The name would imply that this pack would come with a Mace Windu figure and a group of four clones, likely painted purple with “bad moisture farmer“ painted on them somewhere. All speculation at this point of course.

Collectors Cases
Target will be repackaging their figure cases with Saga decos and if need be a slight retooling to fit the Saga cards… but they’ll probably mess them up first.


Wal*Mart
Ugh. Just what we all wanted: A way to save money by avoiding a store's exclusives. If you’re not a completist that is…

Basic Lightsaber with bonus DVD
Kids are different today, I hear every mother say. Thankfully Hasbro and Wally World have added a DVD to these Lightsabers to keep the kids out of her hair long enough to go running for her mother’s little helper. Who knows what’s actually on the DVDs but we can all agree with mom that it’s a drag getting’ old…

Basic Lightsaber Classic Battle Packs
If there is one thing Star Wars is renowned for it’s the fantastic Lightsaber duels that always end in dismemberment. These exclusive two packs will allow would-be Jedi and Sith apprentices to hurt and maim one another for one low price.

Glow In The Dark Lightsabers
Is there a theme here at Wal*Mart for 2006? I’m sure there’s more to their master plan than a Rolling Stones reference and talk about dismemberment… Needless to say, when a product has a name as descriptive as this we have to either be creative or abundantly silly in our write-ups. Sadly for all concerned, I ran out of creative months ago…


Meat Of The Matter

Readers who got bored by all the silly talk are likely to have clicked to the next story by now, so this is a little secret for the five of you that made it this far…

There will be a pile of collector oriented online and convention exclusives that I would get in trouble for talking about, so I won’t tell you that there is a new George Lucas action figure in the works or that a large e-tailer has got a very popular eEU Kiracter coming out soon. (Man, is my spell check broke? I think so, but I kanos say for sure…) I also won’t tell you that there will be any other convention exclusive cloning around this summer…