>>6857081The Phantom Menace had a ton of hype, bigger than any of the Disney films, perhaps bigger than any movie ever and the toys sold very well early on and only really began to have problems due to speculators and lots of literal who characters peg warming that the series was known for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj7n3YzDA3ghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aho7HX8-0xMNone of the Disney Star Wars movies EVER sold like The Phantom Menace toys. In fact if Disney Star Wars wishes it sold that well.
Everyone was banking on the new figures being worth something years from now and were buying multiples of the same characters so they could hope to flip 'em later, on the basis that the older figures from the 70's and 80's had accumulated serious value. And not surprisingly the new toys were worthless, especially because there was no "definitive" figure for a character, because Kenner/Hasbro had been constantly making new versions of characters, so there was always new and better figures making the older ones outdated with bad proportions and likenesses.
The line was also riding high and major hype from Power of the Force II, which was huge at the time as well, but now you can't even give these figures away, but EVERYONE had them and the line just kept getting better and better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDTLV09rIFE&;
Fans just shit on TPM after the hype died down though, and weren't buying Jar Jar and Gungens and pod racer characters or young Anakin Skywalker. I had these figures as a kid and didn't even own a single Anakin Skywalker figure, because who cared? I just wanted Jedi and battle droids. Attack of the Clones rectified this and the early Clone Wars cartoon shorts really rebuilt interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHtB6mbLX30https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmFvDQdUCskCurrent Year Star Wars was pretty much this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYyuo7gm-aQ 