What Did We Learn From Force Friday?

Share with your fellow Consumers!

So yesterday, well and the day before I guess, depending on time zones, Disney unveiled a plethora of toys for their juggernaut blockbuster film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The entire event, known as Force Friday, lasted eighteen hours and spanned multiple time zones and visited myriad countries. I think that goes to show just how big Star Wars is and will be for pretty much forever. Regardless of age, gender or sexuality, Star Wars brings geeks together like no other property, including Disney’s own in house properties and Marvel (are you spotting a pattern here?).

But what did we learn about the upcoming film and about ourselves regarding the new line of merch sitting on shelves right now?

BB-8 Is THE Breakout Star Of The Force Awakens

via GIPHY

Since our very first glimpse of this spherical astromech, fans have been wondering how it works and is it a practical or special effect? At Celebration in April we finally got to see BB-8 and turns out it is completely practical. If Disney weren’t thinking of making a decent toy version of this new character, they were after the internet blew up for the rotund robot like no other character.

Fast forward to this week and this gets dropped in our laps:

The reaction was….sod it, judge for yourself:

The last time I got excited about Star Wars toys was before phantom menace. But BB8.. Man. I want a bb8.

— PJ Holden (@pauljholden) September 4, 2015

Okay I might need to do #ForceFriday at midnight just for #BB8 and LEGO falcon… I’m a grown adult and I need toys, @starwars. — michelle bb-8-man (@michelledeidre) September 3, 2015

@RecruiterStacy You have to post a pic of any goodies you snag! I’m compiling a wish list of everything I want. the @Sphero #BB8 is my #1.

— Kisha Tapangan (@KishaT) September 4, 2015

OHMYGOD WANT THIS SO BADLY! #StarWars #BB8 http://t.co/SBFx9qrTd8

— Johnny Kalifornia (@jkalifornia) September 4, 2015

Won’t lie. I am incredibly tempted by this. I’ve seen people playing with theirs already. You just worry if it is going to be something you play with for a day or two and then it starts to collect dust on the shelf.

Moving on….

Han Solo Dies

Ok, so I’m being incredibly hyperbolic with that but it drew you in, right? We got our first look at the Millennium Falcon which if it is movie accurate, has been put through some serious modding, but more on that in a bit.

That is the new Millennium Falcon toy and it doesn’t come with Han Solo. It doesn’t come with the very man that said:

via GIPHY

Does that seem a bit odd to you? I love that Finn and BB-8 come with the set but to not include Han but instead include Chewbacca seems a bit odd. Those who know their Star Wars lore will know that Harrison Ford had always wanted Solo killed off in A New Hope. Was part of his contract negotiations to come back – as well as a few trucks backing up to his house and dumping Disney Dollars – the condition that Han Solo finally dies? It would make sense as the legacy characters pass the baton to the new ones for episodes VIII and IX. What do you think? Am I reading too much into that?

The Moddedium Falcon

If you watched the Hasbro video above, you may have noticed somethings about the most recognisable starship in pop culture which we have never seen before. For starters there is the freaking big cannon which pops up out of nowhere and then the gun turret, so skilfully used by Han Solo (or was it Skywalker, I can’t recall who went up and down) now pops up out of the ship to act more like a ball turret found on the underside of B-52s.

Captain Phasma To Remain Masked

Everyone was overjoyed to see the amazing Gwendoline Christie cast in the film and when we found out she would be portraying a high ranking Stormtrooper called Captain Phasma, everyone got very excited. Christie is a great actress and is breaking gender sterotypes left, right and centre. But we are yet to see her unmasked. Kylo Ren played by Adam Driver has been seen with and without his mask but not Phasma. Why? Is she scarred? Is she just going to be this silence menace carrying out the wishes of The First Order?

With Christie’s star very much on the rise and the fact we are so use to actors and actresses unmasking at every available opportunity (except Urban’s Dredd, because…well it’s Dredd), it seems odd that we haven’t seen her face yet. Granted, we still have two small trailers but it is certainly an intriguing question. Thoughts, Consumers?

Kylo Ren Is A Darth Vader Fan Boy

JJ revealed last week that there is certainly an association between Ren and Vader and that Kylo belows to a group known as the Knights Of Ren. He isn’t a Sith but boy is he into Vader. Does this mean he will spend half the film trying to get Luke and Leia’s autographs? Regardless, the video below from IGN shows that his helmet certainly has nods to Vader’s iconic helmet. Is there more to it than that? We will have to wait until December.