Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ merchandising extravaganza begins three whole months before the film is out — but before that, there’s the inevitable leak of figures onto eBay from Chinese manufacturing facilities. And such a leak, if true, may give us our first look at a Force Awakens action figure.
A figure claiming to be the 6-inch scaled First Order Stormtrooper from Hasbro’s upcoming Black Series line based on The Force Awakens (previous leaks of prototypes have indicated that Chewbacca, Kylo Ren, Finn and BB-8 will be among the first in the line) has hit eBay from a Hong Kong based seller (who sells other unreleased figures, adding some legitimacy to this figure being the real deal):
There’s a chance that this may be a custom figure merely being sold as the real thing, but it’s unlikely — there’s a large amount of new sculpting and detailing this figure, different enough from Hasbro’s original Stormtrooper toy (aside from the helmet there’s of course new shoulder pads, the new belt and torso area, and subtle differences in the gauntlets and greaves) that this is most likely an actual toy from the factory. If it is a custom, a humongous amount of work has gone into making it appear legitimate.
But it’s still exciting to get our first real taste of The Force Awakens figures, even if a Stormtrooper is hardly the most exciting reveal we could have had (and as a diehard fan of the Empire’s men and women in white, that’s saying something) — but this is our first glimpse at a whole new era of Star Wars toys. The latest chapter in a long, industry-defining history.
As of writing the First Order Stormtrooper is going for $162. Somebody please stop me from spending $160 on a figure I can get in just over 3 months for $25.