For all Star Wars / Clone Wars fans and collectors, here’s a short overview of the new exciting items you can expect to be released in 2010 by the main Star Wars merchandise manufacturers – Hasbro, Gentle Giant and LEGO. Obviously, the total number of new releases does not allow me to provide a comprehensive guide, so I’m picking up a few items I personally find most likely to become bestsellers in the coming year.

Hasbro Star Wars / Clone Wars toys 2010

Legacy Collection Action Figures Wave 12 Rev. 1 – coming in March 2010

This set includes 12 individually packaged 3 3/4-inch scale plastic action figures with various accessories, articulated wrists, removable helmets and other interesting details. The range of characters spans the entire Star Wars saga – there are some old favorites like Episode I Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and stormtrooper together with new faces including Gungan Warrior with Horn or Plo Koon with removable facemask and others.

Clone Wars Vehicle and Figure Packs Wave 5 – coming in January 2010

The set includes 4 individually packaged sets consisting of a vehicle + the matching action figure in the 3 3/4 inch scale:

• Obi-Wan Kenobi with Freeco Bike
• Barc Speeder with Commander Cody
• Anakin Skywalker with Desert Sport Skiff
• Clone Scout with AT-RT

LEGO Star Wars / Clone Wars sets 2010

LEGO Star Wars 8088 ARC-170 Starfighter – coming in January 2010

An amazing high-detail model of a space fighter features in ‘Revenge of the Sith’. The set includes mini figures of Captain Jag, Kit Fisto, Clone Pilot, and R4-P44.

LEGO Star Wars 8086 Tri-Fighter Droid – coming in January 2010

A 268-piece set of three droids and giant starfighter including Rocket Battle Droid Commander and 2 Rocket Battle Droids.

Gentle Giant Star Wars / Clone Wars busts and statues 2010

This was the most difficult category to pick from, because there is so much amazing stuff we can be looking forward to. After careful consideration, my personal favorites (both in this category and overall) would be:

Slave Leia in Metal Bikini Mini Bust – coming in May 2010

I’m pretty sure this one is going to be a big hit, not just because of the amazing level of detail and workmanship. This limited edition polystone resin statue comes hand numbered with an official certificate of authenticity.

Star Wars R2-D2 Statue – coming in June 2010

The ultimate R2-D2 astromech droid 1:6 scale polystone hand painted statue with ‘insane level of detail’. It features opening panels, removable arms, 8 pieces of accessories including utility saw, periscope scanner, mechanical gripper and more. Again, it’s a limited addition with each item hand numbered with a matching certificate of authenticity.

A more detailed overview will soon be published at BestStarWarsFigures.com. If you’d like to get more detailed information about various types of StarWars figures, toys and collectibles, visit http://www.BestStarWarsFigures.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Manas

We’ve got some fond memories of our old Lego sets, especially after we perfected a design for a Lego-nightstick capable of dispensing Lego-justice on our Lego-playmates.
We might not have resorted to injecting violence into the Lego experience to keep things exciting if we were kids today and had our hands on Lego’s update line.

Lego announced today two new Battle Packs of characters and basic conveyances. Episode III inspired Droids and Clone Troopers will be available, each for $9.99. They might not be Leia in Jabba’s palace regalia, but they sure beat generic bald men with vacant smiles and yellow skin.

Older, more experienced audiences will know they’ve seen most of it before, and with superior dialogue and more enriched characters. (I’m thinking primarily of “Dragonslayer,” but “Eragon” also echoes “Star Wars” and myriad other famous boy adventures.)

In terms of narrative, “Star Wars” is the most obvious model, since “Eragon” involves a young farm boy who becomes a great warrior, helping a rebel army battle an evil, corrupt empire. The boy, Eragon (Ed Speleers) even has an Obi-Wan Kenobi-type mentor, here named Brom (Jeremy Irons), to help him learn the ways of the Dragon Riders. These are gallant knights who ride their beloved dragons against injustice, represented here by a dictatorial king (John Malkovich) and his own Darth Vader, the villainous Durza (Robert Carlyle).

Praise must be given to the most effective dragon yet brought to celluloid. She’s more believable than most of the humans in the film. The director, Stefen Fangmeier, was the visual effects go-to guy for such films as “Master and Commander,” “The Bourne Identity” and “The Perfect Storm.”

There are a few constants in life—death, taxes, and perhaps we can add the annual release of a new Star Wars game to that list. And there’s a good reason for it: George Lucas’ epic space opera has a tremendous worldwide following and is set in a universe conducive to all sorts of videogames. So when the first Lego Star Wars game became a hit, with over 3 million copies sold, it came as no surprise that a sequel was announced.

The first game, actually published by Eidos, was more of a hit than anyone expected. The lighthearted humor, the simple and fun gameplay, and the large amount of replayability gave it a widespread appeal. When LucasArts reclaimed the publishing duties, they hoped the same magic would work again, this time with the beloved original trilogy of Star Wars.

We talked with Ilkay Can, Product Marketing Manager at LucasArts, about why the Force is with Lego Star Wars II.

I’ll give my guy Darth Vader’s head…

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy had four different SKUs on NPD’s Top 20 games for September. The Xbox 360 version was third best selling on that system, and the PS2 and Xbox versions would have been the best selling titles on their respective platforms had it not been for EA’s Madden 07.

The GameCube version was far and away that system’s top selling title of the month. With success like that across SKUs, it’s no wonder LucasArts reported that over 1.1 million copies of the game had been sold across all platforms less than two weeks after the game’s September 12th release.

They’ve mentioned that it is compatible with all important consoles such as Sony Playstation, Xbox, and Game Cube and others, so parents will not be forced to purchase a new console for their young gamers.

The game follows the basic plotline of the Star Wars movies. All the important characters are present, Darth Vader, Luke, Han Solo and Princess Leia, with an obvious comic cartoon twist on them.