WHAT IS THE SAGA SERIES?:

Collectors seeking the rarest figures will want to pay close attention to the following. The New Blue carded Star Wars figures which began to arrive in April are entitled the “Saga Series” these incorporate all previous lines into one once again, much the same as Power of the Jedi incorporated Original Series and Episode One. The “Saga Series” incorporates Original Series to Episode One to Power of the Jedi to Episode Two. See above the Character names on the figure bubbles to see the actual Saga Series it belongs to. The 1st Episode Two (Attack Of The Clones) characters to be released in the series came with a thin Background card insert inside the bubbles back, which seemed to be normal until the next few figure cases were opened. Characters begun to appear with and without Background card inserts which started to lead to confusion, what were these background cards for? The inserts were originally how Hasbro were going to release the entire Saga Series. During production in 2001, Hasbro faced a production problem which only meant that the background card inserts would be removed at the time. Hasbro has even had to make this official by releasing the following at the 2nd Official Star Wars Convention Celebration 2 in Indianapolis Indiana U.S: A big question was asked: “How many of the new figures come with inserts and how many without?” The Answer by a Hasbro Official: “I don't know the exact number. That was a decision that was jointly made between Hasbro and Lucasfilm to remove that back card. It was part of the packaging concept that we had and everybody loved it. The problem is that it was a curved back and whenever you're dealing with paper, its kind've hard to control sometimes. You have things like humidity issues. I went to the Orient (Hong Kong) for about a month in December of last year to try to expedite some of these things. We found out that some of the packaging looked OK, but we were having technical issues, if you will, on the majority of them. We felt that we really wanted to have a clean presentation of figures, and a lot of times, the extra card was starting to distract from that. So the decision was made to remove it”. The only known released action figures at this time which came with the Background inserts are: Anakin Skywalker (Outland Peasant Disguise) #01, Padmé Amidala (Arena Escape) #02, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Coruscant Chase) #03, C-3PO (Protocol Droid) #04, Kit Fisto (Jedi Master) #05, Super Battle Droid #06, Boba Fett (Kamino Escape) #07, Tusken Raider (Female with Child Tusken) #08, Captain Typho (Padmé's Head of Security) #09, Shaak Ti (Jedi Master) #10, Battle Droid (Arena Battle) #11, Plo Koon (Arena Battle) #12, Jango Fett (Kamino Escape) #13, R2-D2 (Coruscant Sentry) #14, Geonosian Warrior #15, Dexter Jettster (Coruscant Informant) #16. Currently, any others at this point which may appear would be deemed Rare and very hard to find. All of these figures now come without Background inserts.