is stern crazy, or are the SW owners? it's pretty sad that not only have the owners had to wait over a year for the dang thing, but in addition to an almost 2x price increase over their other toppers it appears to look like a big, cheap model kit. and wtf?!? now toppers are a limited edition thing?

kind of makes me wish that they farmed out the tooling (and finish) to a company like sideshow collectables). at least that way R2 would have had a chromed dome and looked a lot nicer to justify that $750 price tag.

star wars topper (resized).png
image courtesy of this week in pinball (which still looks like the original photo from 6 months ago)

and will look like this
r2-d2 (resized).jpg

it would have been cool if stern would have put some effort into the final product and had incorporated something like this into the topper
https://www.touchofmodern.com/sales/holovit-5587b238-8b96-40b1-b308-88b51cfed111/holographic-screen

if they positioned that acrylic panel to the side (and positioned it at a 45° angle), the R2 holographic scenes from star wars could have easily been reproduced

or with a piece of semi-reflective user installable mylar, they could have projected something onto the top of the pinball playfield glass

given that it appears that every topper received and posted so far has had at least one issue, can you imagine the costs associated if they were all sent back for being defective and/or scratched "straight out of the box"?

this had so much potential and it seems that the ball was dropped given the 2 years that they've had to get it produced. it kind of has that NASA (farm it out to the cheapest bidder) feel to it, especially given the fact that R2 didn't even look correct on their first go 'round

looks like I wasn't too far off with this post, eh?
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-star-wars-topper/page/11#post-5331783

r2-d2 (resized).jpg

looks like a easy & good solution. it's just a shame that people that are shelling out $750+ for this have to take matters into their own hands to fix what shouldn't have been an issue in the first place

that theatre R2 looks awesome!

stern should be ashamed of themselves when they get beat out (badly) by a theatre add-on! that popcorn R2-D2 looks miles better than the lackluster atrocity that calls itself a topper

it looks like a narrow version of beer seal (which is used underneath the lockdown bar). there are a variety of things that could be used to mask off any light bleed. adhesive backed felt (sold in craft stores such as michaels and joann fabrics) would work as well.

btw, "isolant ruban" translates to "ribbon insulation" from french to english. come on you slackers

talk to the people purchasing a ST pinball!

I'm glad you enjoy it. unfortunately, I think that stranger things falls way short of what stern could have done with the license and severely cheaped out on the BOM. I've played one and after putting 400+ shots (over 9 games) on the demigorgon and managing only a meager 3 successful hits (and I'm not the only one complaining about this as well), I believe I'm allowed to have an opinion.

am I supposed to be sorry that my opinion isn't in line with yours?

that's pretty sad. I would contact stern directly and express your displeasure. at these prices, not only should it have worked the first time, but that's really rubbing your face in it when they can't get it corrected after 2 attempts.

and that being said, we, as consumers need to start standing up and letting these companies know that they need to make things right or face the consequences of losing our business. price increases need to be justified (at least partially) with quality increases as well.

I would. for what you paid for the thing (and since stern's qa/qc is severely lacking), I would do everything possible to make sure that everything is as it should be with the heat shrink tubing to reduce/eliminate any potential electronic shorting