A to Z Challenge: Zs

 Sometimes Z is hard to find something for, but with Star Wars figures there are actually 3 Z figures!

First there's Zeb (aka Garazeb Orrelios) from Star Wars Rebels.  Zeb was the big tough alien whose people seemed to be almost extinct.  At the end he's able to help find a new home for those who are left.

Then there's Zorii Bliss from Rise of Skywalker.  She was Poe's friend who was sort of a bounty hunter or Spice runner or something.  She was played by Keri Russell of Felicity and The Americans fame.

And then there's Zuckuss, who was one of the bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back...apparently.  He's one of those where you shake your head and wonder why he has a figure and other characters don't.  How do they decide this shit?  His mask makes me think of one of those tardigrade things.

So there you go, that's the last Z.  And the end of the "Challenge" which I largely half-assed.  Thanks to everyone who commented--most of whom I'll never hear from again.

Until next year...?  I really don't know or care.

A to Z Challenge: Yoda

 Yoda first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back as the cute old green Muppet who talks backwards and teaches Luke about the Force.  Then he had a small part in the next movie before disappearing after his death.  He appeared afterwards as a Force ghost with Obi-Wan and Anakin.

Then the prequel trilogy made him a part of the Jedi Council along with Mace Windu and others.  The first prequel movie he looked kind of weird in CGI.  In the second movie he actually has a lightsaber and fights Count Dooku.  Then in the third movie he fights Trade Federation droids on Kashyyk before fighting the Emperor and going into exile.

He frequently showed up on the Clone Wars series; the first episode actually features him and some clone troopers.

He also appeared in The Last Jedi as a Force ghost who helps Luke stop being such a dumbass. 

And of course there have been figures made of him, including one where he's partially translucent like a ghost.  The latest one is a 40th anniversary one.  As I've said before, I'm not keen on paying full price for half-sized figures, so I haven't bought one.  The snake on him looks weird too.  For whatever reason they don't seem to have a prequel one yet.

In the end I'm not sure if there will be more figures of Yoda or "Baby Yoda."

A to Z Challenge: X-Wing Pilots

 The last entry I talked about Wedge Antilles, a Rebel X-Wing pilot.  Along with Wedge, Luke, and Poe Dameron the only other X-Wing pilot they've made a figure of in the six-inch size is Asty, who is...I have no idea.  I think he was in the sequel movies.

As I've said before it's weird they haven't made Biggs, Luke's friend who was supposed to have a bigger role in the first movie, or the other Death Star attack pilots like Porkins or Gold Leader--"Stay on Target."  They haven't even made the Blue Squadron ones from Rogue One.  Or Snap Wexley and the other Black Squadron pilots from the sequel trilogy.  Or the A-Wing or B-Wing pilots in the second Death Star attack.

It seems like a huge untapped market.

A to Z Challenge: Wedge Antilles

Wedge Antilles was one of the pilots with Luke Skywalker during the attack on the first Death Star.  He was "Red Two" whose X-Wing gets a damaged engine.  Because of that he leaves the battle instead of getting blown up by "covering" Luke like Biggs.

After that Wedge was in a Snowspeeder on Hoth and was the first one to take down an AT-AT with his tow cable.

In Return of the Jedi Wedge's X-wing takes down the north cooling tower of the second Death Star.  He escapes along with Lando and the Millennium Falcon.  He was at the celebration in the Ewok village then with the other main characters.

So along with all the main characters:  Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, C3PO, and R2D2, Wedge was the only one who appeared in and survived all three movies.  

After that he became the commander of Rogue Squadron in the books.  He was eventually promoted to General and used in various ways in some of the lame books.  None of that is canon anymore.  There's supposed to be a Rogue Squadron movie that's probably not based on the books and video games at all.

The actor who plays Wedge didn't want to appear in the sequels, but he does have a very brief cameo at the end of Rise of Skywalker as a gunner on the Millennium Falcon.

A young Wedge appears in a couple of episodes of Rebels before he went off to join the main Rebel cell.

Anyway, he finally got a Black Series figure made of him:

I'm sure my brother wouldn't mind if they made a prequel movie focusing on Wedge or if he showed up on The Mandalorian or something since Wedge is his favorite supporting character for...reasons.

A to Z Challenge: Veers & Ventress

 General Veers was an Imperial commander who led the invasion of the Rebel base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.  My favorite part is when he's in the lead AT-AT about to take out the Rebel's shield generator.  He says, "Target, maximum firepower!"  And then a laser blast from the AT-AT takes out some random Rebel soldier on the ground before the AT-AT blows up the generator.  Like they were calibrating the weapons by targeting Bob the Rebel Soldier or something.  

I don't think Veers ever shows up in any of the other movies but he's probably in some books and shit.  He was one of the guys you could get in the old Rebellion video game to command your ground troops or maybe to help research new ground troops.  They had a lot of other Imperial commanders from the movies in that like Grand Admiral Thrawn, Admiral Piett, Admiral Ozzel (the dude Vader strangles before promoting Piett), and Captain Needa, who was also strangled after his ship lost the Millennium Falcon.  

Thrawn and Piett also have "action" figures made of them as well as Grand Moff Tarkin.  Not that any of them did a lot of action, but I guess they were more important than cantina bar patrons or dudes who were standing around Jabba's palace.

A recent addition to the lineup is Asajj Ventress, a villainess who was introduced in the Clone Wars animated movie as a protégé to Count Dooku.  Over the course of the series she fell out with him, went back to her homeworld with the "Night Sisters" and barely survived their slaughter to become a bounty hunter.

I don't remember if she survived into Rebels or if she could appear on The Mandalorian or anything.  After Ahsoka Tano she was the next most interesting original character to come out of that show.

A to Z Challenge: Ugnaughts

 It's good U fell on Saturday because I don't have much.  There are Ugnaughts, the little piggish dudes who worked in the bowels of Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back.  One of them later appeared on The Mandalorian and was voiced by Nick Nolte.  His name is Kuiil and fortunately they put out a figure of him recently or I really had nothing.

A Fun Fact is that Nick Nolte is frequently lampooned during Rifftrax whenever there's a homeless guy or some rundown place.  The adventures of that Nick Nolte would make for a really exciting movie.  I was sad when Kuiil died in The Mandalorian; they probably should have kept him and killed off Gina Carano given what happened.

A to Z Challenge: Thrawn

 Grand Admiral Thrawn was first introduced in the early 90s as part of Timothy Zahn's original trilogy of books that at the time were an officially licensed continuation of the Star Wars saga.  Taking place 5 years after the second Death Star was destroyed, Grand Admiral Thrawn has been gathering the remnants of the Imperial forces together.  His strategy to rebuild the Empire is largely dependent on finding a secret storehouse where the Emperor stored technology he didn't want anyone else to know about.  In this storehouse is cloning technology--and the crazy clone of a former Jedi Master.  Thrawn uses the Jedi Master to help build an army of clones.  Then he finds a fleet of Old Republic dreadnoughts that had disappeared a long time ago.  Thrawn is on the brink of dealing the New Republic a crippling blow when he's assassinated by his own bodyguard, Rukh.

In the late 90s, Thrawn was one of the Expanded Universe characters who was made into a figure, along with Mara Jade and some others.  I have both of those figures.

After Disney bought the rights to Star Wars, they declared Zahn's books (and the others) to be non-canon, but they threw fans a bone by adding Grand Admiral Thrawn to the third season of Rebels as a recurring villain.  To go along with this, Zahn also wrote a new trilogy that detailed Thrawn's rise through the Imperial ranks to his attempts to get the elite TIE Defender into mass service. 

Along with the other Rebels characters, they also made a Grand Admiral Thrawn figure that my brother gave me for Christmas a few years ago.  The figure is a good likeness and it's cool to have even if it only came with a pistol.

I think along with the characters from Rebels they recently reissued the Thrawn figure.  It's pretty much the same, only in different packaging.

At the present Timothy Zahn is writing another Thrawn trilogy, this time going back to when he was part of the Chiss Ascendency, the alien empire he originally came from.  I haven't read any of those yet, but maybe someday.  And with a Thrawn mention on The Mandalorian, there's the chance he might get a live action version that could lead to another figure.

A to Z Challenge: Stormtroopers

 Stormtroopers were the first Imperial troops ever shown.  They were in that very first scene of what became Episode IV when they were the troops who stormed the Rebel blockade runner.  And so there's a figure of them:

Then you have all the variations over the years because every movie has to have different troops.

Episode V had the Snowtroopers 

Episode VI had Biker Scouts and the Emperor's Royal Guard:

Plus you had the other assorted Imperial troops like TIE pilots, AT-AT drivers, Death Star troops, and whatever.

The prequels didn't really have any Stormtrooper-types until Episode II when the clone army was introduced.  The two prequel movies and Clone Wars series introduced a bunch of different troops, some of whom became regular characters with real names and personalities.  Captain Rex and a couple others were later in the Rebels series.

Episode VII introduced "The First Order" which had Stormtroopers who were largely the same, only maybe a little more streamlined.  Finn was of course a Stormtrooper who defected, and later so was Jannah and the others on that one planet.  The Stormtroopers were led by Captain Phasma in the first two movies--I got the Phasma figure from Ollie's in Saginaw a couple years ago.

Episode IX introduced "Sith Troopers" who were basically First Order troops only with red armor.  I got one of those from Meijer in Wixom on clearance.

And there have been other troops in Rogue One, Solo, The Mandalorian, and various video games.

There were a couple of funny ones they made for the holidays with a Stormtrooper and Snowtrooper recolored in holiday colors:

By now there have probably been more troopers in Star Wars than were in COBRA on GI JOE.

A to Z Challenge: R2D2

 In an "Action Figures I Don't Like" post back in January I mentioned how annoying it is to pay full price for a half-sized figure.  That's why I don't own an actual Black Series R2D2.  The one I have is a cheaper "Galaxy of Adventures" one that's a little smaller but was only like $10 in a pack with BB8 and D0, better than paying $20 for one 3-inch figure.

There was this original one:

And there's one in a 3-pack with R5 and some other droid.

Last year they came out with one from Empire Strikes Back that's all dirty like after he fell in the swamp.

That's pretty much it for those figures though there are always other ones like the old remote control toy we used to have.

A to Z Challenge: Qui-Gon Jinn

 It's 4/20, which means Legalize It!  Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn looks like he's probably toked a doobie--whatever the Star Wars equivalent of that would be.

In a bag somewhere I have the first figure of Qui-Gon from The Phantom Menace.  It's the one that came with a stand that could make him talk.

A while later they made a Black Series six-inch figure that doesn't have a stand to make him talk.  Too bad.  

Since he was only in the one movie and pretty much just has one outfit, they haven't made any other figures.  Sucks for him.