Star Wars: The Force Awakens Merch to ‘Premiere’ on Force Friday in the Fall

The Star Wars franchise is built on a few basic foundations that make for a recipe of success: Jedi, good vs. evil, space battles, and a deluge of merchandising. The smartest thing George Lucas ever did when making A New Hope was obtain ownership of the film’s merchandising rights for himself. With the power of merchandising, he built his entire Lucasfilm empire. Soon, the deluge will begin again.

When and how?

According to the Star Wars official site, September 4, 2015 at 12:01 am, which will now be called “Force Friday.”

According to Josh Silverman, executive vice president of global licensing at Disney Consumer Products, “Every lightsaber, every action figure, every LEGO set tells a story of generations of Star Wars fans, and this global event is a celebration of these stories. We’re excited to be part of the countdown to this enormous movie moment.”

No doubt there will be mad midnight scrambles to pick up every action figure imaginable before they become scarce collector’s items that can only be glimpsed in the bowels of eBay.

Do we know what the toys will be like?

Unfortunately no. While it’s safe to assume they won’t be that different from all the other Star Wars action figures, plastic lightsabers, and toy ships we’ve seen, we do know at least know what the packaging will look like:

That looks awfully familiar.

It does, doesn’t it? The reason for that is the new design is actually very close to older Star Wars merchandise packing designs, most notably The 90’s Power of the Force toy line and The Phantom Menace figures.

If you notice, Darth Maul and Darth Vader’s iconic faces are put on a corner of the toy packaging much like Kylo Ren’s hooded mask. It seems Lucasfilm and Disney are going old school, which in many ways is encouraging. They’re shooting for a simpler time in Star Wars fandom… one where trust was in greater supply. Here’s hoping they earn it from the fans and keep it with good work come December.