Archive for
August, 2007
— August 21, 2007
Yesterday, I posted a summary of a Q and A with Amanda from Gentle Giant on the Rebelscum Gentle Giant forum. Read the full Q and A plus responses on Rebelscum here.
At San Diego Comic Con, Gentle Giant announced that they are a licensee for the Indiana Jones movies. See the original post here. One of the things Amanda said in the Q and A about the Indiana Jones license is that it covers the same product lines as they currently have for Star Wars.
What does this mean for Indiana Jones? Well, we have already seen a bronze bust and 2 statues. Here is what we could see based on what Amanda revealed.
- Indiana Jones mini bust line
- Indiana Jones Bust-ups
- Indiana Jones (Animated?) Maquettes
- Indiana Jones Classics Busts
- Indiana Jones Kustomz?
- Indiana Jones Chubbies?
- Chrome Indiana?
- Black and White Indiana?
Okay, so I’m kidding on some of those, especially the last two. But, only halfway kidding.
This is the first official news we’ve gotten on the Indiana Jones license from Gentle Giant, so I don’t believe fans knew everything that the license covers until now.
— August 20, 2007
Rebelscum forum member BlueSnaggletooth appears to have an inside connection to Gentle Giant. He has posted a Q and A with Amanda from Gentle Giant on the Rebelscum Gentle Giant forum. I am going to present a point by point summary here and also in a series of blog posts through the rest of this week. Read the full Q and A plus responses on Rebelscum here.
- GG may go back and revisit the Clone Wars Maquettes at a later date.
- No plans for another MBNA exclusive bust at this time.
- There will possibly be bronze pieces produced for other licenses, but they want to see how the first offering goes.
- GG has the same product lines for Indiana Jones as they do for Star Wars. The first official Indy piece (one of the ones shown at SDCC) will be up for pre-order soon.
- GG hopes to possibly have more Clash of the Titans and Harryhausen products released within the next year.
- A Star Wars 4-LOM is on the list to be made.
- GG hopes to get the Collector’s Collections feature up and running in the next few months and start up the ‘Collection of the Month’ contests again.
- Jabba and the Band statues have just made it to the docks and/or will be in the next few days and should be arriving to the GG warehouse within a week or so. That should make these items getting to retailers/distributors end of August, beginning of September.
- The Dooku/Asajj statue lightsabers do not have a light-up feature, but that could change as they are still in development on the piece.
- There are no current plans to do a “Fans Choice” mini-bust where PG members get to vote on who they want, but you never know what may pop up in the future.
- No word on the upcoming Blue Senate Guard statue and who it will be exclusive to. They will let everyone know when something has been decided.
- They hope to bring back the Blog comments sometime next month.
- The reason Blister gets so many exclusives is that Japan is actually a huge market for Gentle Giant and not just a store. Blister also happens to be GG’s main distributor for Japan.
- They’re already looking/planning ahead into 2008/2009 and are toning down the amount of total exclusives they will be producing as well as the outlets that products are exclusive to.
- The AT-TE Gunner Accessory Pack will be around $15/$20.
- There is always the possibility of producing Biggs and/or Wedge in some form down the line.
- The black light posters (for the Premiere Guild) should be starting to ship out next week. The other licensed and GGLTD goodies will be shipped later. There are 3 licensed products and 3 GGLTD items. All the licensed products are exclusive to the PG and will not be available anywhere else. Some items will be great for display and some you will be able to use everyday.
- There is nothing in the pipeline right now for other Cantina denizens in mini-bust form, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
- There are plans to improve the PG program for 2008 to provide better access to exclusives (not via raffle). Before the end of the year, there might just be a few more Premiere Guild only items popping up.
- There is no B/W variant of the Stormtrooper Maquette. The Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette is the ‘variant’ to the Stormtrooper Maquette. There are no immediate plans to continue the Black/White Maquette variants.
- The little bust of Ray Harryhausen, is actually something Gentle Giant Studios put together, and not really a Gentle Giant Ltd. product.
- They’re in the process of possibly re-vamping the “studio” section on the website into more of a behind the scenes type section.
- The Gentle Giant Booth at the Baltimore Comic-Con will only be where you can pick-up your Pre-Orders. They will not be selling any other products at the show. Baltimore Comic-Con will be handling the sale of the convention exclusives at a separate booth. They will also be offering the PG members an advance window time to place their “Pre-Orders for Pick-Up”, before opening it up to the rest of the members of our Collector’s Club.
- GG will not at this time consider making a small amount of Holiday busts available to PG members via the raffle.
- Gentle Giant Ltd. is now the official licensee for Star Wars LEGO resin products. The LEGO Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette is the first official LEGO/Gentle Giant Ltd. product.
- Offering up the Life-Size Animated Princess Leia, is still the plan.
- No comment on whether or not Gentle Giant will be producing a companion piece to the the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi in Clone Armor statue, as many have speculated.
There you have it. I tried to summarize, but that is a lot. I will be adding separate blog posts for the major announcements that were made here throughout the week. I appreciate any feedback you have in the comments here or at get_real@comcast.net.
— August 17, 2007
Rebelscum has updated their photo archive with a photo gallery of the Blackhole Stormtrooper Animated Maquette. The Blackhole Stormtrooper was a Gentle Giant exclusive only available to premeire guild members and limited to 1,000. These are long gone, so your best bet now is to get it on eBay. See the previous coverage of this exclusive here and here.
— August 16, 2007
If you are checking your e-mail tonight, you probably already know this. Gentle Giant sent out an update regarding the Premiere Guild raffles going on right now. The raffles for the Jumbo Chubby Vader and Commander Bly are being executed now. So if you entered either one of those, look for an e-mail saying whether you won or lost.
The raffles for Commander Cody, Glorfindel and Luna Lovegood will be executed tomorrow so look for your confirmation e-mails then. Gentle Giant says the reason they separated them is to check for duplicate entries with those who already pre-ordered for pick up at San Diego.
Update: The raffles for Commander Cody, Glorfindel and Luna Lovegood have been executed. E-mails are being sent out, so check your inbox and see if you won. Good luck!
— August 15, 2007
There is a really good review up on Michael Crawford’s web site of 5 new mini busts from Gentle Giant’s Harry Potter line. Overall, Michael was not happy with these, and I have to say I was quite surprised. He reviewed the Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood SDCC exclusive and Harry Potter FYE/Suncoast exclusive.
In the Star Wars line of busts, Gentle Giant has some well known hits, but they have had well known misses also. The Harry Potter line, however, is known for very high quality and accurate representations of the film. That is why I was quite surprised at this review. It seems that Michael himself was also surprised although unpleasantly. This statement sums it up.
Let’s start with a broad statement up front - I’m very disappointed in this set of five busts. While they aren’t technically a ‘wave’, coming out at the same time creates the impression they are, and the whole group is well below most of the previous HP waves in quality.
GG had better be careful these days. They might think they’re rock stars, but they’re not - they’re makers of pop culture collectibles. And if the quality starts slipping on a line, their customers will turn away.
He’s right. Gentle Giant is known for quality, but their focus seems to be on touring the world and making as many exclusives as possible this year. They would do well to focus on putting out the quality that got them there in the first place. Regardless, we know they are capable of doing high quality stuff, so lets hope this does not become the norm for them.
— August 15, 2007
This just in, the Coruscant Clone Trooper Mini Bust that was exclusive to AFX is now up for sale again. The price is $54.99 and the edition size is 2,500. Go to shopafx.com to get it now! See previous coverage of this exclusive here and here.
Update: They are now sold out.
— August 14, 2007
According to Diamond Comics Shipping List this week, Gentle Giant’s Princess Leia mini bust will be arriving in comic stores this Wednesday. These first started showing up at comic stores near the West Coast last week. It was announced by Diamond last month that the Leia bust would be delayed until this week. See the previous coverage of that here.
— August 13, 2007
Some of you may remember that Gentle Giant used to have a section on their web site where readers would send in pictures of their collections. Every month Gentle Giant would pick a winner out of all the submissions they received and showcase the winning collection on their web site. Since Gentle Giant redesigned their site at the beginning of the year, they have stopped doing that.
Well, I have decided to do bring it back by doing something similar. If you want to show off your Gentle Giant collection, send your pictures to me, and I will post them here. You won’t win anything, except the respect and admiration of your fellow collectors. I will post as many pictures as I receive, as long as they are good. So get started today, and send your pictures to get_real@comcast.net. Thanks!
— August 10, 2007
Forbidden Planet, an overseas retailer located in London, England, just sent out their weekly e-newsletter announcing a contest for the Commander Bly Exclusive Mini-Bust where they are giving away five of them, plus a grand prize which includes this year’s tour exclusives. Here is the link to the Commander Bly contest page. The e-mail states:
Your chance to grab your world exclusive Commander Bly Mini Bust. We have five remaining - click here to find out how you can get your hands on one.
The contest page states:
We know that some of you were disappointed to miss out on our world exclusive Commander Bly Mini-Bust from the great people at Gentle Giant. But don’t worry…
FIVE CHANCES TO WIN!
First Prize: A world exclusive Commander Bly Mini-Bust, plus the Gentle Giant World Tour Exclusive R2-D2 & Yoda Animated Cinemaquette and the Luke & Han Bust-Up Twin Pack.
Four runners up prizes of a Commander Bly Mini-Bust.
We will be including the competition question in our newsletter on Friday 24th August. Don’t miss your chance - sign up now!
At the bottom of the page is a newsletter subscribe form. So it looks like all you have to do is sign up for their newsletter, and get the competition question on Friday August 24th. It doesn’t say whether or not you can enter the contest if you live overseas, so I assume that you can. Stay tuned for more details.
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