Solo: A Star Wars Story Lackluster Toy Launch

4/14/2018 Solo: A Star Wars Story Lucasfilm Disney

As Star Wars fans and collectors we've been conditioned over the years to go out and support our favorite franchise on day one. When StarWars.com announced on April 9, 2018 that Solo: A Star Wars Story products would hit stores beginning on April 13, 2018, that meant one thing: time to go on a toy run and hunt for Star Wars figures and memorabilia of the up-coming movie!

Dating back to 1999, Star Wars toy launches have always been special. Toys'R'Us celebrated the arrival of Star Wars toys with midnight events for The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith. Big stores such as Walmart even had tents set up for Star Wars toys in their parking lots in 2005 with exclusive Revenge Of The Sith toys, and Target stores opened early the day after to hand out tickets for exclusive Lava Darth Vader figures. Even the Clone Wars movie in 2008 saw wide support in brick and mortar stores with yet again midnight events and fans dressing up and standing in line to get their hands on brand new Star Wars toys first. 

In 2015 when The Force Awakens toys came out, Target and TRU stores opened their doors at midnight again, with many Walmart stores playing along as well. Disney made this event even bigger than during prequel times by making Force Friday a global event, this included a 24 hour live toy unboxing on YouTube! To give you an idea just how big the toy launch was for The Force Awakens have a look at our coverage, we did a podcast about it, had readers send in pictures, we had a correspondent in Japan covering Force Friday, we even received a picture of Oscar Isaac's uncle standing in line for Star Wars toys).