Do the pet store/toy store next! Sounds like they can be combined.
Aight.
First up, both the pet store and toy store are neighboring each other as both are just small stalls in the Merchant's Row area I've talked about before, and (despite the name) the pet store is just a toy store with the employees regularly breaking character as they keep forgetting to describe the toys as pets despite Disney's weird roleplay rules. Also the toy store looks nothing like its promo material implied while the pet store only loosely resembles its initial preview.
The pet store has no strange or alien name, its simply called the Creature Stall. Much like several other parts of the park, the pet store is run by an alien that doesn't actually exist. Her name is Bina and the employees may mention her as the owner of the store if asked but that's about it. Bina is a twi'lek name in pre-Disney lore so she may have been that for all we know, and if that is indeed the case then she's the only twi'lek related thing at the park aside from one tiny figurine sold at the Resistance shop.
The creature stall is a simple one room stall in the alley filled with cages and shelves.
The merch isn't what attracts people to the store. The real attraction is a single animatronic loth-cat (I'll get to what that is in a moment) in a cage at the center of the store that's always asleep. The animatronic is designed to look like its breathing while sleeping and swing its tail a bit whilst it snores.
It looks a bit cartoony to be frank.
There's not anything else to say about this underwhelming store aside from the merch which I will list now in order of best to worst based on reviews and popularity.
First up is the Kowakian Monkey Lizard. For you plebs who don't know, that's the name of the species of Jabba's court jester/pet Salacious B. Crumb. The Monkey lizard toy is a small puppet that functions like the banshee toy at Disney's Pandora.
The toy comes in two variants, the first is obviously Crumb, the second is based on Hondo's (the pirate guy from Filoni Wars and Rebels) which is designed to have a parrot aesthetic. You place it on your shoulder and can control it via a small black controller on a long cable connected to its ass, the controller also has a button that when pushed makes it laugh. The parrot one looks gaudy as fuck, but the Crumb one looks pretty cute, but in the end these things costs over 70 fucking dollars.
Next up is the Worrt. For those who don't know, worrts are big fat frogs from Tatooine. Some are seen in and around Jabba's palace in ROTJ and are a recurring species in pre-Disney media that takes place on Tatooine.
The Worrt looks miserable but its pretty detailed. Pushing a button on its back causes it to stick out its tongue. Note that the Worrt uses its pre-Disney design rather than its
post-Disney design where it looks ugly as shit. I guess they realized nobody would want their nu-worrts. It costs 30 dollars.
Next is the Bantha. Its a small plush toy with detailed horns.
This is the only Bantha you'll see at the park. Interestingly enough, promo material of the park displaying an early map indicated that the park would have Bantha farms where the Resistance warehouse is but they were cut out. It looks cute from the top and people seem to love them but they look kinda freaky when viewed from any other angle that's not the top. This little plushy costs 40 fucking dollars.
Next is the Dewback.
They seem mostly well received although one guy was talking about the quality of the plastic. I can try and look into that again. They cost 30 dollars. Edit: Apparently the seams are poorly concealed and the plastic isn't very durable, with far higher quality dewback toys available online.
Here is the mynock toy courtesy of the Batuu merchant... Susan. According to Disney, the employees can make up fake alien names for themselves but all of them except the guy who runs the lightsaber store just use their real names, but whatever, back to the Mynock. The model is of a vacuum-dwelling mynock (with terrestrial ones having legs). Its tag is unique in that its homeworld is listed as Ord Mynock. Ord Mynock is a planet from the pre-Disney canon first mentioned in an old West End gamebook from the 90s. It was a planet filled with monstrous animals that could do the impossible, for example flying plants that survive on eating landspeeders and the Mynocks who can survive in outer space and eat electricity.
If you press its tail it flaps its wings. Its mouth is a suction cup so you can put it on your car windshield. It costs 25 dollars.
Here are the fucking porgs.
Unlike the other toys, Porgs get three variants, one as a puppet, one as a plushy and one as a "shoulder pet". This stupid plushy costs 45 dollars, the big puppet is almost at 70 and the littlest shit costs 20 dollars. Casual park goers love 'em. Ironically there's no roast porg available in any of the parks. According to official lore courtesy of the employees, "Porgs are friends, not food".
Next up is the fucking loth-cat. A loth-cat is a small wolf-raccoon-cat that shows up regularly in Filoni's Rebels cartoon and shows up like every other episode, with the only animal that comes close to its number of appearances being wolves. The Loth Cat is actually a remade nu-version of the Tookas from Filoni Wars which are themselves a remade version of the Adoris Feline from an old EU RPG guide, with the name change happening because Filoni's pet cat Tuuk passed away. Loth-Cats are an example of the lack of creativity in Rebels, as every animal in the show was basically Loth-[Insert real animal name here] due to the show mostly revolving around Lothal due to Disney not giving them a bigger budget.
As seen here, the doll looks almost nothing like the one from Rebels, instead being designed to be cuter with more realistic non-beady eyes unlike the original. So honestly this is actually an improvement over Filoni's design. When pushed down the doll makes purring sounds. Also Loth Cats eat loth-rats, loth-mice and loth-goldfish according to one of the clerks... gee whodda thunk? This little shit costs 45 dollars.
This is the Krykna Spider toy, better known as a "Crawler" from Filoni's Rebels.
Like most of Filoni's "original" ideas, these are taken from unused concept art, however unbeknownst to him, these creatures were already named in official ESB sources and used in a lot of pre-Disney lore media which he didn't know about until someone told him on twitter. In actuality Krykna Spiders were Knobby White Spiders from a deleted concept in ESB where after arriving on Dagobah, Luke was to witness or be attacked by one of these tree-like spiders which would then turn into a tree. This is because upon reaching maturity Knobby White Spiders degenerate into the many gnarltrees on Dagobah in a very interesting life cycle process, however in Filoni's Rebels, they're just regular spiders who are called crawlers with the name krykna only being used on occasion and also they're immune to blaster fire from starships for some reason. Here's a picture of the concept art of the Knobby White Spider that these creatures were based on.
The quality of their paint job is a matter of debate. Some think its shoddy while others think it makes it look more wooden even though they're no longer tree spiders.
They make sounds when pressed and cost 20 dollars. Apparently not very popular among casual park goers who all suffer from pussy arachnophobia.
These are puffer pigs, some mutant dino pigs with sickly dick mouths from Filoni's Rebels cartoon. In the show they are the Dobsons of the galaxy. When angry, scared, upset, or anything, they scream and inexplicably inflate to infinite proportions that just won't stop unless calmed down. Oddly enough, their tag lists their homeworld as being Kyryll's World, an old pre-Disney planet that was home to the
Pui-ui. Not sure who they're trying to pander to with these EU references since Disney fans don't like pre-Disney lore, they alienated most old lore fans and casual park goers won't understand the extra effort put into this nerd lore.
These little toy fuckers don't inflate though. They are squeaky toys that when squeezed make a sort of pig sound. They cost 17 dollars.
Here is the Rathar doll. Its the not-Dianoga from TFA. It vibrates.
It costs 30 dollars.
This is a small Neebray figurine from Filoni Wars.
Its more cartoony than the rest and costs 20 dollars.
This is the Tauntaun doll.
Its been criticized as being ugly and derpy looking. It costs 40 dollars.
Finally here's the
pièce de résistance. The Wampa doll, or as I like to call it, the "JUST FUCK MY SHIT UP" doll.
It costs 40 dollars.
The pet store borrows a lot of elements from the pet store in Disney's Pandora park, but the difference is the experience is way less immersive since the employees really don't try to pretend these toys are animals and there's no "adoption" gimmick.
I was gonna do the toy store along with this one but time is just not on my side, so I'll have to write that one out in my next post.
