Can't read the text above?Try another text or an audio CAPTCHAText in the box:What's this?Studio Pets, Surprise Chick and a Descendant video microphone are some of the toys expected to be huge hits this year. The news comes from the UK's most popular trade show - the Toy Fair - which was held today in London. Big toy companies like Vtech and Hot Wheels showcased their latest items and the best toys for 2017 were selected by an independent panel. The list is made up of products that are expected to be popular in the next twelve months - and it includes puzzles, interactive games, tech gadgets and more. Many of the items haven't been released yet but you can expect to see them in stores later on this year. The list is made up of more than 40 toys but we've selected a variety of items for children of all ages from the products mentioned. Hot Wheels - Bladez Quad Racerz, RRP £34.99 Fly and drive quad copters with radio control that seamlessly move from air to land. The Bladez Quad Racerz is not yet available in stores but will be released later on in the year.
LEGO City Police - Mobile Command centre , RRP £39.99 Stop the criminals before they break out of jail in the LEGO City Mobile Command Centre play set. Lower the back ramp on the Mobile Command Centre and unload the police motorbike so you can chase after them. Once you have them cornered, release the police dog and put them in handcuffs to complete the arrest. The play set comes complete with a police motorbike, an ATV and a jail cell with breakout feature. It also contains four LEGO mini figures and role-play accessories including a police dog figure. Buy it from Tesco Direct for £37.99. StikBot - Zanimation Studio Pets, RRP £21.99 Stop-motion animation set. The app helps kids create a professional movie, with built-in music and sound effects. The Zanimation Studio Pets toy is not yet available in stores. BRIO - Rescue Fire Fighter Set, RRP £39.99 There's a fire near the forest and they need your help to put it out. Fill the fire train with water at the docking station as quickly as possible.
The box includes a train engine, trailer, hose, fire engine, docking station and ten pieces of track. There's also mini figures of a fire and a tree. Buy it from Amazon for £28.50. Character Options - Little Live Pets Surprise Chick, RRP £14.99 Wait for the chick to hatch from its egg, and then listen to it chirp away to its new mummy. The Surprise Chick Toy isn't available to buy yet but will be released online and in stores later on in the year. From the looks of the picture it seems to be a mini version of the hugely popular Hatchimal toy. Sylvanian Families Starry Point Lighthouse, RRP £79.99 Downstairs in the main part of the house there is lots of seaside-themed furniture including a boat-shaped bed which hangs from the ceiling. The lighthouse tower roof can be removed, turning the lighthouse into a night light projector. With three slides you can project pictures of the night sky onto your ceiling, including stars, fireworks and even the Sky Ride Adventure in front of the moon.
The toy will be available in autumn, for more information visit the official Sylvanian website . Vtech - Star Wars Stormtrooper Camera Watch, RRP £59.99 A Star Wars themed watch features signature sound effects and Star Wars 3D style clock faces. Expected to be released later on in the year. Coiledspring Games - Fantastic Beasts: New York 2D Poster Puzzle, RRP £24.99 This Fantastic Beasts themed 2D poster puzzle is great fun for fans of the wizarding world. Once you've put all the pieces together you can hang the picture up in your room. It is not clear how many pieces will be included in the jigsaw. There is a similar one to buy on eBay for £7.99 . Descendants Selfie Star Video Recording Microphone, £29.99 A video recording microphone based on Disney's Descendants. Choose to pose for a selfie or rock out to your favourite tune. The film is about the exiled children of defeated villains from various children's fairy tales. The toy will hit stores later this year. Bigjigs Toys - Medieval Train Set £42.99 A medieval wooden play set complete with a castle, a bridge and tracks.
Transport the royal gold around the track and help the knights to protect the King and Queen in the castle.The train set - and the parts it is pictured with - will be available later on in the year.If you were born into a world where Star Wars already existed, you were also born into a world where your experience with the original trilogy of films probably began at home. If you were born in the 1980s, that experience was augmented with toys, video games, and novels set in the “Expanded Universe” of the films. Star Wars could be experienced theatrically with the digital remasters, and again with the prequel trilogy. My first time seeing a new Star Wars movie in theaters was The Phantom Menace. Having digested three movies, a couple of video games, and a handful of EU novels, I thought I knew what to expect as far as the film’s tone was concerned. What I was not expecting was a three-movie story about one man politically engineering a galaxy-wide war to seize power, finally manipulating a clone army and a angsty young Darth Vader (who is in an unbelievably bad on-screen romance with Natalie Portman) to murder a whole midi-chlorian-based religious order of combat monks.
We can debate how history will remember the prequel trilogy, but I think it’s pretty clear George Lucas was not trying to make movies like the original trilogy in any way that wasn’t superficial. The Force Awakens is trying to be similar in tone to the original trilogy, and that’s a good thing. It isn’t like The Phantom Menace, which occasionally grinds to a halt so Qui-Gon Jinn can talk to various groups of people, but A New Hope, where an adventure begins and subsequent adventures chain together to lead to a thrilling climax. If you’ve watched any trailers, you know the basic players that will be used for the setup: Finn (John Boyega) is a defecting Stormtrooper. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a scavenger who has been abandoned on a desert planet. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a Resistance pilot. BB-8 (would you believe it’s Bill Hader?) is a droid that crosses paths with Rey and Finn on the desert planet. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a masked guy who is obsessed with Darth Vader.
Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) wander into the movie, as does Leia (Carrie Fisher), who is a general now! The opening crawl has the most in common with Return of the Jedi: it very quickly addresses Luke Skywalker’s status rather than talk about the political state of the galaxy like the other five movies. Then, after a pan down to a planet that is slowly covered by the shadow of a large, familiar shape, we’re right into an assault on a Jakku settlement that serves as the beginning of Finn’s adventure. The stilted dialogue of George Lucas’ trilogy scripts lead actors like Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor to struggle to add meaning to lines like “I’ve seen a security hologram of him killing younglings,” but Lawrence Kasdan and JJ Abrams’ script gets a great work out of John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver. The returning cast is great, too (yes, even that guy they kept quiet), but it’s the newcomers that make The Force Awakens a fun movie.
The movie is good. It might even be great, but that ultimate decision is going to be up to you. Considering the movie has made over $100 million dollars in pre-sale tickets already, the court of public opinion is going to weigh in on this movie much more powerfully than any review. That being said, I’m fairly sure if you like Star Wars and aren’t out to nitpick this movie to death, you will not be let down. There’s been video circulating of people who leave The Phantom Menace saying similar things, but this is not that. This movie feels like the original trilogy. Remember how A New Hope doesn’t stop to tell you that Luke Skywalker is maybe the only hope in the whole galaxy to defeat Darth Vader, his father? The Force Awakens doesn’t stop to explain much of anything. Because the bond of friendship between Finn and Rey keeps the plot moving forward with one of their goals at all times. We don’t get to hear the whole story of how the New Republic didn’t see The First Order coming or why there aren’t a ton of Jedi by now.
There are maybe a few lines devoted to it and only a handful of scenes. It was surprising coming off the prequel trilogy’s way of storytelling where I’d forget who sent Obi-Wan to the water planet to discover the clones halfway through the movie. There is one exception to this, and the big reveal comes pretty early on in the film and from Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), and even though the film doesn’t treat it like a spoiler, it’s still fun to see for the first time in theaters. Everything else is amplified slightly, but still feels from the same universe. The practical creature effects mixed with CGI and motion capture technology is done really well in the scenes where a diverse alien crowd needs to be gathered. The Millennium Falcon moves in amazing ways and is shot like a modern space fight, not a World War II movie. Kylo Ren is like Darth Vader, but has an inner conflict that he can’t keep contained, often lashing out in surprising ways. Rey is like Luke Skywalker, but she doesn’t whine and she doesn’t aspire to be anything beyond her natural talents.
All of this plays to the Star Wars fan, but the average filmgoer is going to have about as much fun as they did with JJ Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek in 2008. The dark times of the prequels where half the Star Wars movies that existed were of questionable quality to a significant percentage of people has ended. The Force Awakens manages to use echoes of A New Hope and (a little) The Empire Strikes Back to create a new beginning for a new set of characters. It may not be a traditional cliffhanger, but the final shot of the movie is like Empire’s with the promise of new adventures to come and many questions posed by the movie go unanswered. That’s the new world of Star Wars: there’s always another one coming. Thankfully, The Force Awakens makes me want to embrace that fact instead of despair it. The Good: It’s better than the prequels! You’ll probably like this movie. The Bad: If you do like the movie, you’re going to have to wait two years for a lot of answers you want right now.