San Diego Star Wars Society members started lining up at 3 p.m. Thursday for the midnight release of the new "Force Awakens" toys.
At 12:01 Friday morning the new "Star Wars" toys hit the shelves in an event dubbed Force Friday. I headed down to the Toys R Us store on Morena Boulevard where members of the San Diego Star Wars Society were holding a party with more than a dozen members arriving in full costume. Both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance were well represented with Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers joined by Han, Chewy and Yoda.
Linda Crispien, the society's founder, was giving out raffle prizes every 15 minutes to the loyal "Star Wars" fans waiting in line. Personally, she was most excited about looking for BB8 droid toys.
Action figures were cleared off the shelves in less than 30 minutes but higher priced items like the $100 remote controlled Millennium Falcons were not attracting buyers from either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. Toys R Us employees said the store would be getting more stock as well as new items this weekend.