Inspired by the signature look of the animated Clone Wars series, Acme is now launching into the Star Wars saga as a whole, where a multitude of heroes, villains, and obscure denizens await a re-imagined look as a Character Key. The first character in the series, Slave Leia, debuted last week and has nearly sold out of its 1,000 edition size.
Opening the new series gave Acme opportunity to upgrade a couple aspects of the already celebrated Clone Wars Character Key line. "The biggest difference the fans will notice is the more elaborate background," says Acme Archives' Chris Jackson, who points out that the Leia key debuts the new enhanced setting backdrop. "We wanted to make sure the new series stood out a bit more and differentiated itself from the Clone Wars series, so this was a nice way to do that. Also, of course, many of these characters have never been seen in the 'Clone Wars style', so it will be exciting for fans just to see how they end up looking!"
One idea that was pitched by Acme early on was to increase the size of the keys for the new saga series. "We considered it, but, as we often do, we went directly to fans using the forums and got their opinions," says Jackson. "Overwhelmingly, the fans wanted to keep the keys at their current size, which we were happy to do. It would be nice to have them a bit larger in order to have a little more detail, but that would mean a price increase and inconsistency with past keys, which would be an issue for people planning to display complimentary keys together. For example, the Clone Wars Anakin Skywalker key would pair up nicely with a Darth Vader key, so it will be advantageous to have those sized the same."
Although Star Wars already enjoys a somewhat limited animated heritage -- the Holiday Special, Droids, and Ewoks -- Acme decided to take the saga-based keys in a new direction, based on the popular look of the Clone Wars series. Another popular line of collectibles based on Clone Wars, Gentle Giant's animated maquette line, also recently launched into a line of animated saga-based characters. The obvious question arises -- will the two lines mesh?
"We are friends with the guys at Gentle Giant and have had discussions with them about character designs," says Jackson. "So yes, I'm sure the two lines will be stylistically complimentary." This bodes well for those collectors who enjoy displaying their maquettes along with the key of the same character.
Such a wealth of new characters opens the door to re-imagine some famous, and perhaps not so famous, denizens of the Star Wars universe. "There are obvious 'big names' that we will have to hit, but there are so many great 'lesser characters' as well, so I think it would be safe to say it will be a mix of both," explains Jackson. "We are all big Star Wars fans here at Acme, so there's no shortage of suggestions of favorites that we'd all like to see. Plus, again, we keep in touch with the fans through the forums, so we'll see what everyone wants. I mean, we considered Jek Porkins as a Celebration IV exclusive, so I'd say it's fair to say we'll not be focusing only on main characters!"
