Question #1: from September 20, 2004:

I've recently gotten into prop collecting, not the high end Master Replica stuff but the plactic/ toy kind. I've managed to grab every lightsaber I needed but my question is where are the blasters? I know during Episode 1 just about every blaster was made into toy form. Where's Boba fett's rifle? Why not AOTC? I would love to see a Clone Trooper rifle...even if it was a little bit smaller. Why did Hasbro fall off on this? With Hallloween coming I'm sure it would be a seller.
--Washington

My answer from 2004 With commentary from 2025:

Lightsabers are ridiculously high sellers, often coming in second to the basic figures-- in other words, the Star Wars license could theoretically be a great one even if all Hasbro made were lightsabers. (And if the license cost lest.) Hasbro did make Jango's weapons for the prequel sequel, but I think pretty much anyone will tell you that people didn't go crazy over the guns in the first film, and gun toys as a whole are kind of a sticky issue. Some people love 'em, some people hate 'em, and most importantly, some stores refuse to stock 'em. I agree that there's a missed opportunity here and it is a shame we're not seeing Clone Trooper super soakers, but I think this is the nature of some Phantom Menace guns not selling especially well combined with the culture of today.

But hey, Hasbro can be funny-- sometimes all they need to do is know we want something and they'll deliver. So Hasbro... what say you?

We still get toy blasters but they're decreasing in number. The Clone Wars would go on to bring out the helmets and blasters we didn't get from the prequel toy lines. Lucky us!

Toy guns have shifted significantly since I was a kid. In 1984, you could get toy guns at the grocery store, or Megatron. A few years later, Larami (of Super Soaker fame) manufactured realistic black squirt guns that looked like a real UZI with an ammo clip - no orange caps or anything. Entertech also made some. That sounds crazy in the global toy market now.

Hasbro would go on to make Star Wars rifles in weird colors, with some of the best ones coming out around 2010. We got some really great electronic blasters for Clone Troopers, Stormtroopers, Boba Fett. If you have black paint, you may enjoy them even more. NERF LMTD would bring out some Aliens Pulse Rifles, Star Trek Phasers, and yes, a new version of Boba Fett's gun - plus some other concepts that just didn't pan out from these and/or other licenses. It happens. Surprisingly, Disney/Hasbro did have a few good blasters for The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and Solo too. Walmart got a few exclusive rereleases in the last year, but generally there aren't many.

America still loves all kinds of guns. International markets, less so - but some are still totally fine with them. I keep seeing shots of store shelves in the middle east, and you can get some fancy toy guns there. I don't think you'd see these in Europe or Asia as much, but you can still sometimes get a nice Megatron in gun mode in Japan.

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Props are an area of collecting that Hasbro has been pretty good at stoking lately. In the 1970s and 1980s (and 1990s) there weren't many lightsabers or blasters to go around, and nothing in the way of helmets. Hasbro has since made helmets a big part of their business, making really good $100-ish recreations of movie props that are close to as good as what the $500 prop makers do. (A little more paint, and they'd be nearly perfect.)

Hasbro similarly has taken off with lightsabers, which were slow until the prequels. The entire 1990s The Power of the Force line? 2 lightsabers, a Luke and a Vader. The 1980s and 1970s had inflatable, The Force, and Droids lightsabers but I remember these being pretty scarce on toy aisles. Kenner had a handful of blasters in the 1970s and 1980s, and a few more in the 1990s. Lightsabers really blew up in the 2000s, especially for Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Clone Wars. How they missed them the first time around, I can't say.

Blasters are still tricky, because you have to balance authenticity with safety/gun laws/some aversion to a kid having a realistic arm. Nothing stops customizers and cosplayers from making homemade corrections to Hasbro's wares, of course. We haven't seen much interest in a "The Black Series" blaster, but there have been some pretty good NERF blasters in Star Wars forms lately. For fans who specialize in props rather than figures or vehicles, Hasbro's modern era has been really good. The last decade has been particularly phenomenal, just running circles around the costumes and whatnot that were on the market during the 20th century.

--Adam Pawlus

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