Well, I feel sorry for anyone shelling out dough thinking they are getting something even close to accurate. It's pretty obvious from those great side-by-side comparisons that this is about one thing for "Museum Replicas" - money. What gets me is tho instead of making something worth what they are asking, or legitimately more authentic and asking more for it - they are delivering crap quality and asking a LOT for it. You can see the nickel and diming on "close enough" and "don't waste any more time trying to source that textile pattern" decision-making in every piece. This isn't quality stuff and it wouldn't surprise me if 99% of it was outsourced, manufactured in China and imported back in. This has "get 60% accurate" and "charge 'em up the nose for it" written all over it.
Sad truly that some will actually end up buying this stuff. Doubly sad that it could have been something desirable and what the very knowledgeable (and rightfully demanding) community wanted.
:thumbsdown
I won't be shelling out dough thinking I'm getting a screen-accurate costume. I'll be shelling out dough thinking I'm saving myself a truckload of time. For example, just tracking down metal belt boxes, dosimeters, a rank badge, belt buckle, etc. would take me a while. And no way could I make all that. Worse than that, all the research I'd have to do before I even bought the first item, would take me a long time. And then the fabric shopping... every time I go to the Fashion District it seems like they have every fabric on earth except for what I want. And then, of course, drafting a pattern, making a mock-up, then making the outfit itself.
If I knew anything about statistics, I'm sure I'd have to factor into the cost the statistical likelihood that the project would actually get finished. Because there are more than a couple of costumes I've researched and shopped for, only to end up in a storage bin because I've lost motivation or gotten distracted by some other project. Not to mention the odds that, after spending so much time searching for the right fabric and not being able to find it, I'll throw my hands up in the air and say "to heck with it! This is close enough!"
Do I, personally, have the skill to put together an outfit more accurate than what MR offers? Probably. Almost certainly, if that outfit were the only costume I cared about making. But there are other costumes I'd rather put my limited time and attention span toward. If I really wanted one of the costumes MR is offering that badly, I probably would already have made it. But the cost in time and effort, as well as materials, is obviously not worth it to me. But if I can have that outfit at the click of a mouse, then the prices MR is asking seems reasonable to me.
The sizing isn't going to fit me perfectly. This is true of any clothing I buy off the rack. My business suits don't fit me perfectly, either. That's where tailoring comes in. If you care about how your clothes fit, be they suits or T-shirts or costumes, you will have to tailor them.
Regarding the Luke's yellow ANH jacket, I spoke to one of the MR guys at SDCC, he told me that it was still a prototype, and that they were still tweaking both the color and the fabric. I think the fact they they aren't offering it for sale on their website implies that they still have a way to go before it's ready for prime-time.
Regarding Leia's metal bikini, the rep at Comic-Con in 2008 said it would be metal. This actually excited my girlfriend, who was eager to wear a real metal metal bikini. But when I spoke to their rep at Dragon*Con in 2009, he said that it would not be metal after all. I then asked if the plastic would be red, like the costume I'd seen on display in one of the Star Wars costume exhibitions, and he didn't have any information about that.