New Stuff in New Zealand

[Buzz Bumble]

While going through the junk mail from the letterbox last night, I for some reason decided to flick through the advertising brochure for a bik seller franchise Bike Barn (I usually just ignore brochures fomr companies I have zero interest in, like bikes) ... and I found they're selling a Star Wars apple juice:

There may be other fruit juice flavours, but apple is the only one listed on the website (according to the junk mail brochure, it also comes in bottles using Frozen, Toy Story, and Avengers imagery).

 

[darthskellington]

Neat!

 

[Buzz Bumble]

The latest weekly junk mail from The Warehouse (similar to Kmart / Walmart) is advertising this Star Wars Eater item priced at NZ$16) (approx. US$12) ...

Disney Star Warts Metal Bucket and Eggs 152g

They will of course be half-price after Easter (if not just before), if there are any left.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Apparently the buckets above are imported and then filled with generic chocolate products by the local Waikato Valley Chocolates company.

There's reportedly also this chocolate Easter Bunny Trooper (probably hollow) appeared at The Warehouse priced at NZ$8 (approx. US$6).

There's more (and bigger) images of both these Easter items in this Star Wars New Zealand forum topic (14 images coming to about 7MB).

 

[wookiee_cookiee]

We had those bunnies last year, they are hollow chocolate. There is a Vader one this year too!

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Some new 6" figures have reportedly shown up in Farmers branches - Yoda, TIE Fighter Pilot, etc. (apparently we missed the Vader wave, although Farmers, or maybe it's Hasbro NZ, does have a habit of putting stuff on shelves out of release order, so they may show up later).

 

[darthskellington]

However, Park avenue is a NZ or Australia brand, so technically that is exclusive to you. But yes, we basically had the same thing in previous years here produced by Galerie.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

I haven't seen them yet and don't know the prices, but reportedly three more Star Wars Easter items (by UK company Kinnerton) have turned up in branches of The Warehouse down here ...


Chocolate egg & bar

Chocolate egg & ceramic mug

Chocolate egg, drink bottle, & small snack box

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Another chocolate egg and mug Star Wars pack, this time from Australian company Park Avenue, has turned up in Countdown supermarkets down here, priced at NZ$10 (US$7.60) ...

 

[Buzz Bumble]

I went to the shop today to pick-up my monthly computer magazine (which wasn't there yet ) and on the counter they had some small Star Wars metal model kits. I think they were all priced at about US$19 each. I didn't have time to go through them, but there was an R2-D2 at the front and a completed X-wing was on the display stand.

ThinkGeek.com has R2-D2, Millennium Falcon, AT-AT, and Vader's TIE Fighter.

They look very fiddly to put together (some of the pieces are tiny!) and the shop's display model was already bent by people touching it, so they aren't very robust.

 

[darthskellington]

These run about $12-$15 in the US, and look amazing. I have a Falcon I received as a gift that I have yet to attempt to put together.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

The man in the shop says you need a lot of patience, tweezers, and some long/thin pliers.



A few new bits in today's visit to the local branch of the Whitcoulls book-stationery-toy shop chain yesterday ...

• some new 3 3/4" figures, including Dak Ralter, Bastila Shan, and Toryn Farr,
• some new 6" figures, including Emperor Palpatine, and Han and Luke Stormtroopers,
• a "new and updated" Lego Star Wars Character Encyclopedia,
• the new Lego Star Wars in 100 Scenes,
• The Adventures of Luke Skywalker picture book with Ralph McQuarie artwork.

Unfortunately those books are way over-priced as usual for Dorling Kinderlsy books (as well as the Lego Character Encyclopedia being out-of-date already and a lot more characters coming with the new movies!).



Not really a "find", but the backwards US date which is Star Wars Day ("May 4th") is next week and there's a few things happening here in New Zealand ...

• This weekend the Toyworld chain of toy shops is having a free Star Wars Fun Day on Saturday and Sunday, with Star Wars-based activities, etc. for kids.

• On Monday the Stardome observatory / planetarium has some "special shows" ... relistically these are just their usually planetarium shows, but anyone dressed up as a Star Wars character will get free entry.

• Sky TV's Disney XD channel has a day of Star Wars-themed shows (6:00am - midnight): Rebels marathons, The New Yoda Chronicles (stupidly split at various timeslots), Phineas & Ferb Star Wars, and Kickin' It (apparently a Star Wars episode, but I haven't seen this show before).

 

[Buzz Bumble]

This weird find turned up on the Star Wars New Zealand forums. It probably isn't an official product, but a local brewery is selling Imperial At-At Pilsner beer ...

Imperial At-At Pilsner ~ 11%ABV
Imperial At-At Pilsner is a huge beer and dangerously smooth drinking. Perfectly balanced between malt and hops, with intense notes of bitter and sweet. Serve at 8-10°C.

We bottled this only into tiny 330ml bottles, and each one has 2.9 standard drinks in it. Share a bottle with a friend!

NZ$8.00 per 330ml bottle, NZ$88 per dozen.
NZ$15.00 per litre off the Kereru tap bank.

There's also an A4 advertising poster you can download ...

PDF (7MB)

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Today I found some more of those metal model kits. I didn't have time to go through them all, but I saw there was an R2-D2 on two different card styles, and a Destroyer Droid.

I also finally found the first set of Hot Wheels starships today - Millennium Falcon, Boba Fett's Slave I, Y-Wing Gold Leader, Snowspeeder, and Ghost. They're stickered at NZ$15 each (US$10.50), but I picked them up at a "buy one get another at half price" promotion, so basically got one of them for free. I'm not sure thay look quite as good as the old MicroMachines / Titanium series though. They also had some new Rebels versions of the rather silly modified cars and some 2-packs.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

I was given a couple of small tins of peppermints yesterday (30g of extremely minty mints). I already had the slightly different Stormtrooper version on the end, which has slightly less embossing.

(Ruler is in millimetres)

The Darth Vader and first Stormtrooper are distributed by Australian company Park Avenue Foods. The last Stormtrooper is distributed by British company Zeon Limited.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Apparently the latest wave of Hasbro figures has been found in branches of the Farmers department stores down here, even before America.

Han Carbonite, Boushh Leia, Jawas, Mosep, Chewbacca, Dagobah Vader, Dutch Vander, Rex, Doom, Thorn, and C-3PO.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

You can tell the hype machine is starting to build up steam ... yet another Star Wars product has reportedly turned up down here. This time it's another Park Avenue products: Star Wars Character Cookies with free magnet for NZ$4 (US$2.74) at New World supermarkets. I haven't seen them yet, so I don't know how many magnets there are in a set ... and they'll be stupidly random-packed as usual.

The Farmers chain of stores currently has 40% off the Black Series figures (the junk mail brochure says it's the 3 3/4" figures, but on the Star wars NZ forums they say they 6" ones are also discounted) - that includes the very newest wave above.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

But wait, there's more ...

The Warehouse chain of stores now has some 18" figures (Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker), but they look horribly plasticky and are over-priced at NZ$52 each (US$35.60).

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Some Hallmark Itty Bitty collectibles have reportedly been spotted in the New World supermarkets here. Priced at NZ$9.99 (US$6.70) each, there is at least Darth Vader and R2-D2.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Today I did find a copy of Hardware Wars on DVD (NZ$18 - only saw one copy) at JB Hi-Fi, and some new-here Star Wars Pez Dispensers at Farmers - a bit over-priced though at NZ$5.99 each (a Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, Yoda, and R2-D2, and each comes with two packets of Pez candy).

Apparently the Park Avenue Star Wars Character Cookie packs have now turned up at branches of The Warehouse (still haven't managed to find any yet though) and some Star Wars Mugs priced at NZ$14 for the standard ones and NZ$30 for the scuplted one.