Lego Star Wars Book

Lego Star Wars: Vader's Secret Missions /Darth Vaderin Salaisuus

Originally published in 2015, but this Finnish edition is from 2016. Written by Ace Landers /Finnish translation by Antti Hulkkonen.
The book features a short history and other info about the Sith and Darth Vader himself, few quizzes and three short stories named: "The Emperor's New Clones /Keisarin uudet kloonit", "Every Darth Has His Day /Darthilla on huono päivä", and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Sith? /Kuka pelkää isoa pahaa Sithiä?". The book is 64 pages long. Source.

Bought this book from a bargain bin for the price of 7,90€, I don't remember the original price. I only bought it because I really liked the illustrations. Star Wars characters as Lego minifigures are just too cute. Also, I have no shame in liking some simple reading now and then. It didn't take long to find out why it was in the bargain bin in the first place. Sure, the book is already four years old, but I think the fact that this book has its illustrations mixed up might also be a likely reason for why it's on sale.

The stories "Every Darth Has His Day" and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Sith?" are the two who have their illustrations wrongly placed. One story takes place in a forest on the planet Kashyyyk and the other story's setting is the ice planet Hoth. So while I'm reading what happened on Kashyyyk the illustrations show what's happening on Hoth. And vice versa. Sort of frustrating to be honest. I was starting to doubt that maybe the text itself was wrongly placed and not the illustrations. So confusing! The names for the two short stories are very generic themselves and don't help much to identify which story is which.

I'm assuming that at least the index page should be correct because the page numbering is right on throughout the book. That would mean that the Kashyyyk story is named "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Sith?" and the Hoth one is "Every Darth Has His Day". Bah, I guess it doesn't really matter. I don't really have anything to say about the stories themselves. It was what I expected, just some silly kids stuff. Mostly harmless. ;D

I'm used to consuming almost all of my Star Wars in English, so reading it in Finnish feels a bit awkward. Some of the language here doesn't really roll off the tongue easily.  What really irks me is the Finnish title of the book which translates back to English as Darth Vader's Secret. Secret? What Secret? The fact that he is Anakin Skywalker? Ooops, spoilers!

I don't know, maybe Darth Vaderin Salaisuus just sounds better than Vaderin Salaiset Tehtävät. Who cares, it's for kids. It doesn't have to make sense.

...my faves! <3

Bonus:

While I was buying the book, I also happened to find these SW stickers. I like that they are illustrated and not just minimized photos. The minimal use of color is also nice. Based on the Rebels Stormtrooper banner on top, these have to be somewhat old too. I think this Stormtrooper helmet was the "logo" they used on their merchandise before the Force Awakens came out in 2015, and they switched to using Kylo Ren's helmet. So that makes these stickers probably 5+ years old. Not that it matters, I just love finding old merch.

Old Lego Star Wars Ads

(In Swedish! Yay!)
I was  going through my memory sticks and found these two pictures saved on one. I think I scanned these together in the same haul as the old MLP ads from this post.

The ads date from the good ol' year of 1999!

(Darnit. I want to see versions with Darth Tyranus and Sidious! No wait! Grievous! Then you get four arms!) Great idea of using the bad guys of the series in the ads. That's the spirit! Everybody likes the dark side!

Sweet stuff from Estonia

At the end of last month me and my mom went on a one day trip over to Tallinn for a shopping spree (I really should stop doing those). Our morning started already at 4 A.M. because we had to reserve enough time to get everything ready before we could set on our 1 hour drive to Helsinki. Then we had to ride the subway for another 30 minutes and finally a 20 minute walk to the terminal. Luckily, there was a breakfast buffet on the ferry, which made the two hour crossing over the Gulf of Finland seem like no time at all.

I didn't even make it on land before I made my first purchases in the ship's supermarket. How could I resist that XXL Sized Darth Vader Pez dispenser or the other Star Wars candies for that matter?

The only candies that were actually worth their price were unsurprisingly the Pez candies. The lollies were bland as hell, no flavour at all. By far, the worst was those that came with the hand held fans. You can't even tell what they're supposed to taste like, there's a little sweetness to them and that's it. But honestly, I didn't buy the lollies and fans for the candy. I wanted them for the mini Vader and Trooper helmets! It will require some disassembly, but that's the fun part isn't it?

More PEZ! I also had to buy this My Little Pony box on-board for the Fluttershy dispenser even though I already have the Rainbow Dash one. It was a good thing there were coin lockers in the Tallinn terminal so I didn't have to carry these things with me the whole day! Now, since we were in Tallinn, I wanted to go to their local supermarket and stock up on those super tasty Pez Fizzy candies, which for some whatever reason are not sold in Finland. I've previously briefly talked about them here. To my dismay, I couldn't them! I must have looked at least four times through the shelves at the candy aisle before I noticed what it read on the lid on those Angry Birds sweets. YES!!! I bought six packs of them, which seemed plenty at the time, but they're running out fast.....

I also bought a couple of these Monster high candies I've never seen before. Boy, they were not worth it! If you let the candies melt away in your mouth, they're okay, but it you make the mistake of chewing them..... blergh. I can only imagine this is what perfume tastes like, so very artificial. Never buying this again.

On a slightly more positive note regarding Monster High. I managed to find one flea market that was within an optimal walking distance from the harbour. There I found these two dolls: Picture Day Abbey and Dance Class Clawdeen for only 3 euros each! Which I think is really cheap considering they still have all their limbs attached and most of their outfits. In Finland, if you manage to find a MH doll for this price, it's usually nude and missing a limb or two.

Still a bad picture, no matter how many filters.

Also at the same flea market, I found this unopened Princess Twilight Sparkle and this random hooded figure (McDonald's toy?) for 1 euro each.

There's still time!

For the first time we also went to one of those big shopping malls and got briefly lost on our way there. Once we finally found it, we headed to the floor that was all about toys. There was this stand full with many beautiful Safari Ltd. animal figures. It was really hard to choose only one to buy, especially with all the amazing variety of awesome dragons and fantasy horses! I wish I could have bought them all, but in the end, I chose this bat-horse or Areion Horse as it's real name goes. It wasn't too expensive...

At the same toy shop I found more of these cool dinosaur skeleton assembly sets! Last time I went to Estonia, I bought the Velociraptor one, this time I got the skeletons for Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stygimoloch! I would really have liked to find a Parasaurolophus and Spinosaurus set as well, but I guess they were sold out. Interesting how the bipedal  dinosaurs, especially if they are carnivorous seem to be the more popular ones. More on  these later!

The last store we visited sold home & kitchen stuff, and had a random selection of other trinkets. I found this fridge magnet of a fox very adorable, so I bought it, even though our fridge at home has wood paneling on the door, so you can't even attach magnets to it. But the fox is so cute!

From the same store, I also got this skull, just because it wasn't expensive and it looks cool. Again for the shits and giggles, I suppose, I bought this Star Wars shampoo & conditioner even if it is meant for kids. I seriously need to question who's bright idea it was to but a BALD character on the side of the bottle when they are trying to sell HAIR shampoo. The Inquisitor doesn't even have hair, his species is bald! Why didn't they put Ezra there with his wannabe Aladdin locks at least that would make sense....

Bye bye Tallinn!

Welcome back to Helsinki

Super Exciting Plate Display!

Nothing extravagant exactly, but still, this is something I've wanted to do for  a while. Last Christmas I got this Darth Vader plate as a gift and I didn't want to use it for its intended purpose but rather to have it on display. However, getting a hold of a plate stand like this proved to be surprisingly difficult. All my searches proved fruitless, until I finally found this plain wood one in a shop for hobby and craft materials. The unfinished wood was perfect to  be painted over,  I then painted with acrylics the inside black and the outside red, finished with a Vader print from a stamp. My life is far from complete! 8D

Hoth-Con 2015

This looks familiar....

Last Sunday I visited the first ever Hoth-Con in Helsinki, which also became the first Star Wars themed convention I've ever attended. It was nice, I guess. I must have had too high expectations, because overall I found it to be a little bit disappointing. The event took place at the Gloria Cultural Arena, which felt more like a skanky bar & nightclub. It was so freaking dark in there I might just as well have walked into a black hole!
Usually, at conventions, there's this buzz of things happening around you, but there, it was more like nothing's happening..... nothing's happening.... I left the place early, because I was on a schedule, so maybe all the cool stuff happened after I left? 8D Based on the event's Facebook page, other people sure seemed to have a good time.  Maybe I am the problem....
I don't know what to say without sounding nitpicky and mean, Hoth-Con was by no means terrible, a lot of love was put into it, but for me it was just lacking "that something special". If there's going to be a convention next year, let's just say there's only room for improvement. :D

Battle of Hoth miniatures

Huge X-wing 4 sale

Life size Darth Vader statue

Probably the best Boba Fett costume I'll ever see live

Awesome custom Boba Fett & Darth Maul busts

Took a sneak shot of  someone's sweet Darth Maul backpack

Never go home empty handed. I've been missing Darth Maul's ship from my collection for a while, and this one wasn't too expensive so I picked it up. Haven't actually built it yet though.... I was going to settle with the ship and go home, but then I had to lay my eyes on the Starkiller figure there on the table...... and here we are. Before going home, I took a small detour through a toy shop and got this very cartoonish Maul figurine, even though I have never actually played Disney Infinity.

For the occasion, I turned my keyring into a necklace

Just can't get enough

My SW purchases from last month, 18 pieces in total, bought in two sets. Got many new characters added to my collection. ♥♥♥

R2-D2, C-3PO x 2, Darth Vader and Stormtrooper stamps

Darth Maul and Jar Jar Binks candy containers. I'm sad to say that in this case, the Jar Jar one is actually better quality than the Maul one. I couldn't even bring myself to photograph it head on, because the cross-eyedness(?) is just so bad! An Anakin version probably exsist as well based on the picture on the side.

Republic Trooper, Darth Malgus, Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis

Daultay Dofine, Han Solo and Darth Vader

General Grievous ♥ and Savage Opress ♥

Darth Vader's TIE Advanced starfighter comes complete with a mini Vader in the cockpit which was a surprise for me!

Darth Maul with speeder bank ♥

Star Wars reading

I've been hauling and reading some Star Wars stories for the past few weeks.

Christmas is coming, are you ready? This calendar was just too adorable to pass by.

Strange Allies comic by Ryder Windham (story) and Ben Dewey (art).

I've read parts of the comic before, but I totally missed out the beginning. The main reason I bought it was because Savage Opress appears briefly in it. Man, was I disappointed. There were some imagery I could have lived without. -Cannot unsee- O_O

The Phantom Menace novel by Terry Brooks that also includes a Darth Maul short story End Game by James Luceno. The main reason I bought this paperback version was for the short story about Darth Maul. I'm still only halfway through reading the Phantom Menace story, although I've read it before in Finnish. I didn't remember how tough it is to read an entire book in English.

The Phantom Menace Manga vol. 1 and 2 by Kia Asamiya. Manga makes everything better right? Sadly, not even the Japanese can help making SW Episode 1 that awesome it should have been.

The Wrath of Darth Maul and The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader by Ryder Windham. Absolutely love the covers (and the cover's cover!). No surprises here, I liked Maul's book better than Vader's. I had higher expectations for the Darth Vader book, but it was a little bit of a letdown. 

Empty Darth Maul shampoo bottle, bought online. Right about now, I'm starting to regret that I wasn't interested in Star Wars back when Episode 1 was new. It might just be a bottle,but it still has some gorgeous details.

Miscellaneous Star Wars comics (in Finnish) from -85,-86,-87,-97. Found at a flea market. Haven't read them all yet, but there definitely are a few translation gems here that made me laugh. It's interesting to see how the prices have been yanked up over the years. From -85 to -97 the price has been doubled! Comics nowadays, I don't think the number of pages have changed much, however the number of advertisement has increased to ridiculous levels compared to how it used to be. Isn't that awesome? We're paying more for less actual content!