As we're just about to slide into September, that means it's nearly time for this year's big Star Wars toy push. Now that the movies are an annual thing instead of a once-every-30-years thing, Disney, Lucasfilm and the third-party licensing partners can all get together to focus their attentions on one specific time of year to empty the bank accounts of Star Wars fans around the world. Before The Force Awakens arrived, collecting Star Wars toys was an easy enough hobby to finance, but now that there's a constant deluge from Hasbro, Lego, Disney and other companies, most of us have taken up second or third jobs to be able to keep up with the Joneses --- or in this case, the Jynses.

Next moth, on Sept. 30, Force Friday returns with a vengeance. It will be the first day any and all of the upcoming Rogue One action figures, Lego sets and other collectibles will be available around the world for purchase. If last year's first ever Force Friday was any indication, you're going to need a gameplan. Fortunately, Disney has given us a peek into what to expect from this year's "festivities."

On the plus side, Disney teamed Tongal's James DeJulio, Kevin Ulrich, Dan MacKenzie and Tucker Barrie (and a number of stop-motion animators) to create a new series of shorts featuring all the toys from the Star Wars franchise. The story focuses on the Rebel plot to steal the plans to the Lego Death Star, which the Empire has unfortunately lost track of amidst all that construction. Using a mix of Lego, Funko, Hasbro, Disney and Jakks Pacific pieces (along with handmade sets), the video series is a fun way to show off the toys and some of the fan creativity. I will never not appreciate good toy stop motion shorts, and this one --- Star Wars bias aside --- is very good so far.

While a number of the toys were shown for the first time in the short, you only get brief glimpses at a number of the pieces. Lucky for us, Entertainment Weekly, Yahoo and USA Today all had better, up-close images to debut exclusively for the first time. You can get a look at all of the toys used in the first episode of Star Wars: Go Rogue below, as well as some that may be appearing in upcoming episodes. More chapters are planned throughout September, and in addition to culminating in Force Friday 2.0, Disney is hosting a contest for fans to tell their own Rogue Stories. You will be asked to create your own two-minute short, which will then be voted on by a panel with a chance to earn you and your friends entry to a screening of Rogue One and visit Rancho Obi-Wan. More details are available here, but start thinking of your brilliant fan-fic now. I know I am.

The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story toys and collectibles will debut worldwide on Sept. 30. Hopefully this year it will be a bit easier to get our hands on them than it was on Force Friday in 2015.

 

 

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