eFX SCOUT TROOPER HELMET LEGEND EDITION!!

[jkno]

for me its not about it being too expensive for my income or space to display. its about principle. i do not believe that a mass replicated plastic helmet with some stickers and foam inserts and a display stand is grounds to drop $700 or $900 and add some spray paint and blaster. Even if I was wealthy, I would take a stand against this. It's not right. I dont care what anyone from eFx says, or the pundits out there.....it's a shame that this helmet costs 7 hundred. I understand limited runs and rights and fees and overhead and exporting and blah.....

you can tell me that when its all said and done eFx will only make $25 per helmet and I would still say this is crazy and not worth it. As much as I LOVE the scout trooper and love ALL OT Imperials, I will not be contributing to this. It makes me sad. But for the betterment of the hobby we need to take a stand. I wish more people felt this way. Its too easy to cave in and say, whats $300 more for something I cherish so much? This hobby can make grown, working class men who seek out deals at amazon to save $5-$10 bucks on common items to spend 7 Hundred on a plastic helmet. Sometimes I question the sanity of us all.

Totally get what you are saying, the good old days when things were priced a bit more logically seem they are gone. The prices for some of these collectibles go closer and closer to screen used props. Many collectors get priced out not just on prop replicas but on regular figures and statues too. The economy is still in trouble and we feel it.

And we all ave to consider this is a hobby, not an investment, you might get money back for some items, or even get extra money, but that doesn't always happen, not even with very rare high end stuff. If one wants to invest his/her money, then other things should be taken into consideration. In the end there is one more issue: the prop replica market is one of the smallest collectibles markets out there, inferior to statues market, figures market, etc.

 

[Hollywood]

I have to admit.........I am a little shocked at how long these helmets are taking to sell out.

Regarding rising costs..................................

IMO the cost of Star Wars memorabilia has always been higher than most other licenses. In part I am sure the cost of licensing to the manufacturer, but also demand.

Star Wars fans spend money. Its that simple. Go to Star Wars Celebration alone and you will see people spending TONS of cash on anything with the SW logo, or their favorite character printed on it.

With Disney spending 4.5 billion on this franchise you can rest assured that prices on SW and Indy to rise at a steady rate for at least the next 3 years. Its not getting cheaper, nor will it. If we as fans stop buying what we enjoy........ prices won't drop, the only thing that will happen is that there will be less material at a higher cost to chose from.

Like everyone else it sickens me to spend $ 700 on a "collectible". If I didnt spend it here using my "fun money" then I would just spend it on other things that I might not keep within my collection for a long period of time. So it balances out for me.

At the end of the day this is a hobby so we each have to arrange our priorities accordingly.

 

[cking]

I got the LEGEND pre-ordered on the $300 non-refundable deposit. BUT...I have absolutely zero interest in the blaster or larger base that it comes with.

So - I'm throwing this out there for someone who has purchased the LIMITED edition. I'd be willing to sell the base and Blaster from my LEGEND for the $200 price difference if someone wants to take it off my hands. It would be great if we could do a part trade for the smaller base that comes with the Limited so we both end up with a display stand for our helmets. Shoot me a PM if this is of interest to anyone.
Thanks.
Chris

 

[Jack Bauer]

I got the LEGEND pre-ordered on the $300 non-refundable deposit. BUT...I have absolutely zero interest in the blaster or larger base that it comes with.

So - I'm throwing this out there for someone who has purchased the LIMITED edition. I'd be willing to sell the base and Blaster from my LEGEND for the $200 price difference if someone wants to take it off my hands. It would be great if we could do a part trade for the smaller base that comes with the Limited so we both end up with a display stand for our helmets. Shoot me a PM if this is of interest to anyone.
Thanks.
Chris

Would love it...PM sent willing to do a trade for the smaller stand too.

 

[Darth Waller]

Damn, that's a sweet deal!

 

[Vader AL]

That is perfect for someone who wants the white helmet with the pistol and display stand. The only confusing part is who should get which nameplate.

 

[Jay1138]

I ordered the Limited. I can't stand the spray-painted look of the Legend. A good, clean Limited just looks better.

The scout pistol is great, but I can make one.

 

[Jagjaguwar]

The way I see it, the Legend is screen accurate for the Endor scenes, while the Limited is screen accurate to this scene:

And since the weathering as we've seen it seems a little over done, that would make the Limited actually more screen accurate! (to its appropriate scene, naturally.)
That and/or it's just AFBB the Empire
(note, I'm mostly kidding of course, but there ya go)

 

[Gino]

Here's the facts surrounding the weathering job.
I've examined all the helmets in the archives, as well as the one now owned by propstore (previously owned by S.Sansweet).
I can tell you that the weathering on all the originals still around have a LOT of variance to them.
Some had more intense weathering, some had less, but they were all done in the same manner.
When I weathered the prototype legend, I modeled it directly off the original we used from the archives (which had about a medium level of weathering compared to the others). Some were lighter, some were heavier. The one we modeled the prototype after was about in the middle.
If you don't prefer the styling of the weathering of the prototype, then what that really means is that you don't really prefer the look of the weathering on the original helmets, not that we did a poor job replicating it. It actually is a very close match.

Here's a shot of the original helmet we referenced that Bryan posted over on Rebelscum:



If you closely examine the weathering on the original helmets, they appear to be a bit on the random sloppy side. But that's how they were done for the film.
Paint overspray. But performed in a deliberate random way if that makes sense.
On film they look great and the weathering doesn't really stand out with the rest of the costume and environment. Holding the helmet in your hands the weathering just sort of becomes more 'noticeable'. It's like you are for the first time, truly noticing the details and styling of the original helmets.

But rather than perform an idealized weathering job, we chose to match the weathering as it was done for the originals.
And since we had fantastic in-hand reference of an original helmet, that was the one I used to match the weathering to.

Here's a shot of a guy wearing the weathered prototype at NYCC this past Oct.
For me seeing it on a person just drives home how important using original molds is regarding the correct look.
Just awesome. Looks straight out of the movie. And in a shot like this, the weathering just looks totally as it should and you don't really notice it standing out.





Now if you just have a preference for 'as first built - clean' props, then that's an entirely different thing.
There were no unweathered scout helmets/costumes in the archives.
I believe that in the hanger scene they are weathered, but due to the lighting washing out the whites it just isn't showing up on camera.

 

[Jagjaguwar]

Well there we go. That seems pretty definitive. I might wonder(just out of curiosity, not to argue) whether it's possible that the originals might have been clean for that early ROTJ scene and then "dirtied up" for the later Endor battle, but that would assume that the scenes were filmed chronologically (which I have no idea about). I also kinda thought some of the "troops" in line for the Emperor's arrival scene were just cutouts or something, and that that might explain the "clean" look I thought there was, but again, I have no idea.

Bottom line, no one should really be worried about either version, it seems. Thanks Gino, can't wait!

 

[Gino]

I also kinda thought some of the "troops" in line for the Emperor's arrival scene were just cutouts or something

That would be correct also.

 

[Shanester]

It looks great, but just too expensive IMO. I hope the Stormtrooper Legend isn't so pricey.

 

[Hollywood]

Gino is 100% correct on his observations at the Archives, and the weathering details. The EFX version is spot on there is no doubt.

Remember that items in person often look VERY different than on screen. Also the film stock is more than 30 years old and was subject to many color/ washing distortions, so the weathering on most Scouts was not as pronnounced on screen.

While $700 is a bit of a crunch, this is the closest you will ever have to an original that is forsure. If an original hit the market from the film a $100,000 price tag would not be out of line.

Think of it that way..............................-

 

[CHARLES VADER]

I ordered the LEGEND Biker Scout cause is going to look good next to my LEGEND VADER, but also because the LIMITED looks like the RUBIES helmet¡¡¡ too clean for my taste... looks like a toy bucket... and you don't need to have a trained eye to see that all the biker scouts helmets in the movie got a little dirty in some areas, almost like a gray spots on it...

 

[Jagjaguwar]

Wait, what? Gray??

Maybe a trained eye is required after all...

 

[CHARLES VADER]

Wait, what? Gray??

Maybe a trained eye is required after all...

Sorry, my mistake... ALL WHITE...right ??

 

[Jagjaguwar]

Yeah, pretty sure it's just shadows that are making the whole helmet look gray there.

Spoiler

Not looking for any long thing about this. It's already been established that the Legend (from what we've seen) is pretty damn spot on. I just really didn't know what you were talking about as far as "gray." I think I see now.

 

[jkno]

A cool pic of ILM guys dressing up a Scout:

 

[Hollywood]

I ordered the LEGEND Biker Scout cause is going to look good next to my LEGEND VADER, but also because the LIMITED looks like the RUBIES helmet¡¡¡ too clean for my taste... looks like a toy bucket... and you don't need to have a trained eye to see that all the biker scouts helmets in the movie got a little dirty in some areas, almost like a gray spots on it...

I have seen both helmets in person and will tell you that the clean version looks nothing like the rubies helmet. Lol. Both are very nice looking.

I just hope all those that ordered the Legend will get a weathered production piece like the prototype.

Certainly that was not the case on the Luke ESB, nor Wedge helmets. Nice products but the factory weathering looked way to artificial and unlike the prototypes. IMO. Not a slam against EFX at all. Most companies when a product goes to factory cant translate the hand painted look to the same depth.

 

[Jagjaguwar]

I just hope all those that ordered the Legend will get a weathered production piece like the prototype.

I'm not even getting the Legend, but this. Totally agree.