Re: Red 2 X-Wing with Wedge and Astromech
As far as early images go, that one's ridiculous. For all the shortcuts they COULD take, this is cheaper than I would have ever expected. How hard is it to plop a new head on VTSC Luke and paint the helmet? Or slap some red & white paint on a droid?
But, as you said, it's early and this stuff changes all the time. Be sure to emphasize in the Q&A that Wedge is simple as can be--in terms of pleasing the fans, and NOT ticking 'em off--by putting a new head on VTSC Luke, repaint helmet, maybe give him a holster and a non-ANH-Han blaster, since he's as short as Luke. And that his astromech has a red dome with white trim, leaving the body colors up to them. And that the Dutch Vander sculpt is terrible for X-wing pilots because it doesn't fit in the X-wings very well.
If you wouldn't mind!
Edited to address some points from the Rumor thread:
- Wedge's helmet absolutely needs to be newer than the last one, since that WAS made for that specific Wedge head back in the POTF2 days. And it lacks a chin strap.
- If they do new sculpts for a 3rd Rebel Pilots Evo set, and have a basic X-wing male body, it will likely be taller than Luke. And should not be used for Wedge, ever, since he's Luke's height; a bit shorter, actually.
- Wedge is Corellian, but that doesn't mean he MUST have a DL-44 like Han. I don't mind him having one so long as it's the VTSC Luke version (aka ESB Luke/Han); the long-scope ANH Han version gets too much play; it's pretty much unique to Han in ANH, and SHOULD stay that way. The female pilots already have it, but keep it away from Wedge.
- My impressions based on the slideshow photo of Garven Dreis is that he's just a new head & repainted helm on VTSC Luke's body, which is unfortunate as he IS NOT as short as Luke or Wedge. However, Nrin Vakil in the upcoming WM exclusive Comic Pack looks to have new legs, if not an entirely new sculpt. Yes, he's Quarren, but a simple change of head & forearms (removing Quarren hands/cuff & replacing with gloves) looks like it might give us the 'average height' X-wing pilot SA body many of us have wanted for a long time now. If that's the case, I'll be trying to swap parts with Garven soon as I have both figures
But again, all Wedge needs is the Luke body. Luke/Mark is taller than Wedge/Denis by a bit, so there's zero reason to ever re-release Too Tall Wedge again, or waste tooling on making him for a taller 'medium' figure when that could go for a Theron Nett or John D or Tiree or Grizz.