csyeung wrote:oh if you register for the fandom event, you get 5 bucks in rewards instantly. I know it's not much but well it's something at least heh. I'll try to post here if I get any info that can help you out. It is interesting that anakin is getting more hype these days than when the movies came out. I'm more an OT fan as that's what I grew up with and remember being hyped for the prequels but they fell flat at the time but is now gaining a resurgence. So weird i remember when I got into the hobby in 2018, the star wars fandom was at a low. People were selling their star wars figures for cheap! Now many of them have skyrocketed.
Oh....where does one register for said fandom event?? Is that on Sideshow website? I had no idea... O.o
And yeah, of course, the OT is always incomparable. I grew up with the OT and it is an intrinsic part of my childhood nostalgia. But when TPM came out, I was a young teen and I unironically loved it! And I was in high school when AotC was released, and I even had posters of Anakin and Padme hanging in my room.
So while the Prequels may have been much maligned by older fans on the internet, I had them ingrained into my psyche from early on.
I think the shift in the wider fan attitude toward Anakin actually started very gradually with
The Clone Wars (2008-2013) animated series, but that was moreso happening in the smaller niche demographic that actually watched that series at the time, rather than amongst the mainstream general audiences. Once Disney came onto the scene, TCW was cancelled before it was fully completed, and Disney wanted to do Rebels instead. Ironically, though, Rebels actually lead more people back to TCW in order to find out the backstory. In the meantime, the Sequel films had come out and total newbie fans were getting introduced to the OT and PT through those. Sometime in 2017, two things of note happened that mark the 'sea change': 1) the r/prequelsmemes subreddit was formed, which meant that the Prequels had sort of more 'fondly' entered the mainstream consciousness, and 2) Hayden Christensen received a standing ovation during his appearance at the SW celebration that year, which likewise signified an overall warming in attitude towards Prequels' Anakin.
I'm guessing the reason many fans were, however, feeling 'done' with Star Wars only a brief time later in 2018, was because of the disappointment over the (fake) Disney Sequels. (I personally hated TFA so much I never bothered with watching the rest of those, but I was well aware of the shift in fan attitudes at the time). But then over the following years there were subsequent Disney SW tv series that came out (including the 'final season' of the Clone Wars), which eventually meant once again more attention being paid to the Prequels-era of the Star Wars universe.
To be clear, I don't begrudge new fans for how they might have come to this story, and I'm always happy when other people are able to finally see what I have seen in the Prequels-era and its characters all along. So, this HT figure is on the one hand very welcome addition, since HT really didn't get the likeness right with the previous Anakins, but at the same time I can't help but be frustrated that it's so exclusive, as it actually feels like such a cruel tease. On certain fandom sites, I've even seen some newer fans who aren't familiar with collecting who are saying they want this figure, but they probably have no clue there are only 3,000 pieces being made, and will thus be sorely disappointed when it disappears in seconds. So for everyone's sake, I do hope for a less limited (sculpted hair) version eventually. Hayden's Anakin deserves to have an accurate likeness in 1/6 scale that is more widely accessible. : )