If you've been on planet Earth five days ago, chances are you would have
noticed the global phenomenon known as 'Force Friday' that took place
simultenously at the stroke of midnight on Sept 4 (Friday). It was a
full-frontal assault marketing strategy by Disney to push all of the Star Wars:
The Force Awakens products to the forefront of consumer retail shelves. And by
Lucas' beard it worked!
Strangely enough, a single TRU was (still) chosen to be the only venue for
Force Friday in Malaysia. I remembered attending both product launch
for Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and even back then collectors
had already commented that perhaps in the future (it was a fool's hope back
then to see another Star Wars movie being released in our lifetime, really)
multiple venues is a better option than cramping everyone in a single TRU
store.
Guess that suggestion has still not being taken seriously eh?
Honestly I didn't really expect to pick anything up during the event. I think I
wasn't exaggerating earlier in the day that I might skip the event altogether
because I simply do not have the will to slog it out with scalpers to get what
I want. Yes, I had that moment of hesitation. I almost did not go to Force Friday (shame
on me!)
Anyway I was pretty adamant to get only the 6" Black Series TFA figures.
Words have travelled many months ago that the 3.75" TFA action figures
were all gonna be 5-POA so it was an easy pass for me ( I later read somewhere
that Hasbro's gonna produce >20-POA 3.75" TFA Black Series action
figures but that's another story). I've also read horrendous reviews on the
disproportioned Poe Dameron X-wing toy and if you google it up today, you will
get heap loads of negativity on the toy...so not worth the USD50 price tag.
So alright...only 6" Black Series action figure for me. It couldn't be
that hard to snag these right? When everyone's really drawn to the cheaper
5-POA figures and THAT X-wing....
Inevitably those at the very front of the queue line (I don't know if any other
TRUs made their customers to line up for Force Friday like the
Malaysian TRU did) got first dibs. I even saw a few familiar 'scalper' faces
merrily prancing along the queue line parading their 4 or 5 units of the
6" First Order Stormtroopers to the helpless crowd who has yet to even
breach the halfway mark of the queue line.
Ok. Getting the 6"Stormies was not gonna be easy. Check. I later
discovered that some eBay seller was already selling these Stormies for RM200
(or roughly USD46) the very next day...BOO!!!
I managed to enter TRU much later just in time to see the very last 3.75"
being snagged out of the retail pegs. Ok I know I wasn't that keen but that
Captain Phasma card art was to die for...LOL.
Barring the scalpers aside, I think there was a great sense of camaraderie
among the collector community. They were distributing the much demanded 6"
Kylo Rens and Reys (yes, she was highly in demand too) to collectors who were
too far back from the 'distribution point'. Obviously by the time this happened
there were no 6" Stormies left so there were no feeling of dissent or
greed involved...hahah. Great feeling nonetheless to see strangers happily
helping one another with their desired collectibles.
I probably had a moment of thought (again) on the new Poe Dameron's X-wing.
When I say new I meant a 'smaller' and 'cheapened' version of the X-wing. No
thanks Hasbro. Until you come out with a better quality TFA X-wing ( a
3.75" scale Black Series version perhaps?) I'm totally not sold on this
one. As for the rest of the vehicles, there were a few standouts but I'm just
not feeling it right now. So yeah.
My loot from Force Friday is as follows....
I snagged the 6" Black Series Finn, Rey and the must-have Kylo Ren. 12
hours later, appproximately 9 thousand miles away on the other side of the
globe, a buddy of mine grabbed me 2 First Order Stormtroopers from his Force Friday...so
beat that scalpers!!!
Love that TRU goodie bag. Again I do not know if these are standard all over
the world or otherwise. We Malaysians got ourselves a Kylo Ren t-shirt, a 2016
TFA calendar, a Selangor Pewter Star Wars catalogue (I'm preet-ty sure this is
only in Malaysia), a Lego
Stormtrooper minifigure, a TRU exclusive Kylo Ren poster and a Rey's Speeder
Micromachine.
I just wished Disney had restocks of the items on Force Friday. I know of
many collectors who ended up with nothing despite braving the long queue line.
Heard many collectors having the same problems woldwide simply because they
were not enough stock to begin with in the first place. Personally I am gutted
that TRU Malaysia didn't have that remote controlled BB-8.
Ah well. Here's to a better Episode VIII midnight launch!
Update :
Remember how I said I wasn't interested in getting anything else than the
6" figures? Well my inner evils got the best of me...hahah. I dropped by
another TRU the next day and got myself the 3.75" scale Rey's Speeder.
Somehow I know I'll regret not buying this when the movie comes out in December
( my better half also did an excellent job in driving home this point!). I wish
I could say the same about the X-wing though (still not interested at that
particular point of time though I heard it was already sold out everywhere). I
might just come back for that cool looking Imperial Snowspeeder. Maybe.
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