It's a R2-Series Astromech Droid (R2-Series silver dome with purple, white body with purple, bartender)!  Why? No idea.  This makes four flavors of drink droid, and as far as I know this one has no precedent in the movies, cartoons, comics, or games. Read on!

Let's get this out of the way: it's $399.99.   The revised The Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon is now the Galaxy's Edge Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run Vehicle.   It's just different enough to make you mad, with unique deco and two radar dishes.  The original 1977-style pizza dish is there, as is the rectangular sequel trilogy model.  Dirt deco is unique, and it has different figures.  Chewbacca, Hondo Ohnaka, and Porgs are included.  Is it worth more than a 2x price increase over 13 years?  Probably. 

The sliding scale of what is on- or off-limits under the Disney regime is tough - does a character being canon matter anymore?  Lucky for us, apparently not!   GameStop's 6-inch Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Shadow Stormtrooper The Black Series Action Figure is up for pre-order now, limit 1 per customer.  At $24.99 with no in-store pick-up option, it's not cheap for one of nearly a dozen figures to use or share this tooling.

Did you miss Walmart's exclusive Star Wars The Black Series Carbonized Collection First Order Jet Trooper Toy 6-inch Scale Collectible Action Figure? That's a mouthful, and I only saw it in stores a couple of times.  Walmart.com has it now for $20.88, much cheaper than the roughly $25 it cost me last fall.  Get it while you can!

Navigating Kohl's pricing is an exercise in puzzle logic beyond that which any of us should be subjected.   Their  Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi 4-pk. Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master), Rey (Jedi Training), First Order Stormtrooper Officer & Resistance Tech Rose Figure Set by Hasbro is normally $49.99 - but today it's on sale for $34.99, and you can use the codes BUYNOW20 and TOYS20 at checkout to get it down to a much more reasonable $22.39. 

Amazon's new exclusives are here early!   Amazon's Star Wars The Black Series Elite Praetorian Guard (with Heavy Blade) has a unique helmet and two distinctive weapons you won't find in other exclusives or the individual figures.  Grab yours here.

The Star Wars The Black Series First Order Stormtrooper with Gear includes a figure with a new helmet for The Last Jedi in addition to some new and previously seen accessories like the riot baton, riot shield, ammo pouch, jet pack, and more.  Click here to order it.

The excessively named Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi 4-pk. Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master), Rey (Jedi Training), First Order Stormtrooper Officer & Resistance Tech Rose Figure Set by Hasbro is in stock on Kohl's web site.   The only actual exclusive in the set is the Stormtrooper, which may be a mix of parts already on the market - I haven't had the chance to examine it up close yet.  Retail is $49.99, but a 20% off coupon gets it down to about $35.99.

Hot Wheels! Walmart in the USA has a new exclusive assortment of cars for $0.97 a pop.  This batch is based on planets.   It’s the third “$1″ car batch, the previous two focused on episodes and factions.

These are quite nice - while Rogue One iconography is nowhere to be seen, you’ll see some retro graphics on the side with touristy vistas, Tusken Raiders, AT-ATs, lightsaber duels, Cloud City, and more.   You’ll even notice Rey on her speeder on the Jakku one.  If you ever bought the old Burger King glasses, the art style is similar to those.

So far Walmart’s have been the only Hot Wheels sets I’ve been all-in on, thanks to the lower price point and the creative designs.    As a bonus, they all have distinctive card art.   Get ‘em if you can find them!  Designs include Kamino, Mustafar, Tatooine, Hoth, Dagobah, Bespin, Endor, and Jakku - and are numbered sequentially in order of appearance in the saga.   At this time I know of no Rogue One tie-in assortment, but we've still got a few more months.

New Black Series - repacks!  According to many sources, and Robot Kingdom (a very popular exporter of Transformers overseas) there are 4 more The Black Series 3 3/4-inch action figures coming out as future Walmart exclusives.  You may already own them, but they’re good ones if you missed them.  While Hasbro has not confirmed this, it’s a slow news week so we’re going to assume this is all fact and  tell you about these previous releases.  Read on for more pictures, links to reviews of the original figures, and a list of who you can expect to find in stores in the next couple of months.

At this time, there are no Rogue One or The Force Awakens figures in these waves known to be coming.   This continues the previous The Black Series line's proud tradition of minimizing freshness in the 3 3/4-inch range.

They're back!   Prices went through the roof for the  Star Wars The Black Series 6-Inch Stormtrooper 4-Pack [Amazon Exclusive] over the holidays, but now it's back for $79.99.  It's a pretty good set, especially with the exclusive Clones and now we know the Officer is indeed in The Force Awakens.  Click here to order yours.

Also back up for pre-order (due ot ship within a month) is the  Star Wars The Force Awakens 3.75-Inch Figure Troop Builder 7-Pack [Amazon Exclusive].  This hasn't shipped yet, but it has the Riot Trooper that dueled Finn as well as a few other unique accessories - plus the hard-to-find Captain Phasma.   It has 7 figures for $47.99, and you can click here to order it.

Update: the 6-inch set is sold out again, but the 3 3/4-inch one is was still available.

Amazon's 6-inch First Order Stormtrooper Officer adds a shoulder pauldron to the figure previously sold at Comic-Con and in fine stores everywhere.  Is it enough to warrant buying again?  Well, it's in a swell boxed set, so I'm leaning toward yes.  Read on!

Behold, the Clone Trooper Commander!  This 6-inch figure is part of Amazon's (at least temporarily) sold-out boxed set tracing the evolution of the troopers over 6 of the 7 movies.   This one is, like the others, exclusive to the set - you won't find this deco elsewhere in this size.   Get one if you can, and read on!

That first trio of The Black Series 3 3/4-inch action figures are hitting Walmarts now - that's the good news.  I spied two of them personally yesterday, neither of which seem to be significantly altered from previous releases.

Each figure is $12.93, and comes boxed.   Darth Vader is a repack of the classic 500th Darth Vader mold, and now we know the dome is not glued down - the sample I saw was floating around freely in the box, the figure loose and the helmet wedged down below.   Chewbacca appears to be a repack of the 2004 Original Trilogy Collection Vintage figure, which was $9.99 (and cheaper) and also repacked several times since then.  I was not able to confirm if Luke has any changes, as he was not available at the stores I examined.

In the post Star Wars Celebration 2015 Super Shogun Exclusives!, Funko shows that they are indeed bringing the long, long-gestating jumbo figures inspired by Shogun Warriors to plastic life once again.  This redeco of the Stormtrooper is a swell addition to any spacious house, while the Kenner-deco Boba Fett is another fine delight which I will no doubt cry myself to sleep over not owning.  Such is life.  Click here to read more and see the pictures.

Available at a Toys R Us near you right now, Selig Kenjenn (not Zelig, I don't think) is shown being at the Battle of Geonosis.  Except he wasn't there - the character is based on a piece of art depicting Holocron-keeper Leland Chee as a Jedi, which had TIE Fighters in the background.  As such, it's less an essential movie collectible than it is a bizarrely neat trivia question for people like you and me who live and breathe this stuff.  Read on!