1. How familiar are you with the High Republic? Based on what you have seen and are able to comment on publicly, are there characters and alien designs that you think would be amenable to toys?
--David

I gave up on the bulk of the Expanded (Print) Universe around 2011 - some of the stories in the comics had great character designs and were fun, but the stories kept circling to the point where I just said to myself "The Clone Wars is on weekly, I don't need to spend $16-$24 a month on books and comics." That and a lot of the print stories weren't exactly being respected, or always consistent, from year to year. (That's only become more true in recent years.) I've skimmed a few here and there, but the reboot of the publishing program left me mostly cold despite some great ideas and stories. I might just be too old with too many things to enjoy and spend money on - or to revisit. I haven't picked up my old Dark Horse comics in at least a couple of years, and I had most if not all from 1991-2011.

For that reason I can't say much about The High Republic - but I did find Old Jedi to be colossal bores in most of the Dark Horse-era stories I've read. Maybe things are doing great on digital, but I'd assume prospects are about the same as before - maybe one or two Jedi Masters break out but we'll probably only see a handful of figures make the leap to toys. Jaxxon took 43 years!

The highly-regarded The Knights of the Republic comic books and video games inspired relatively few toys too, so I wouldn't hold your breath. Unless they appear in a fan poll. In which case all bets are off.

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2. Seems odd that the Boba Fett ROTJ TVC wave has been hitting Targets and Walmarts for a month now, but many online toy stores have a release date of May 1. Is this all politics between Hasbro and the big-box stores, that the little guys have to wait a certain amount of time before shipping? Even Pulse has a May 1st date for Fett and The Child. What gives?
--Chris

ETAs should be taken with a grain of salt - when stock shows up, orders go out in a lot of cases. (I got mine before May.) That's just an estimate, not a proper or true street date. I can't confirm everybody who did or didn't ship stuff but I know some online stores absolutely did ship stuff out prior to May 1.

If you're expecting stores to hold to a shelf date or set date without a major marketing initiative - like a movie launch (Force Friday) or an aisle reset - that's not happening. Stores just put stuff out when it shows up and they feel like it. Some items may be register locked, but that's not always at the manufacturer's request.

3. I’ve been thinking about how much excitement there was around The Force Awakens, but also how the sequel trilogy era does not seem to be a big priority for Lucasfilm at the moment. What are your thoughts on the long-term licensing potential for the sequel era and characters?
--Greg

There was a bit of a prequel hangover, and now there's a sequel hangover. Things don't always come back, and I think anyone who liked one or two of the first sequels were probably checked out by #3 - especially with The Mandalorian which stole any momentum they might have had. For the olds out there, I was at a convention with Hasbro in the year 2000 with the very first test shots of Power of the Jedi and a bunch of the Star Wars team (hi Mark and Andy!) I was told there was an edict from above to shift the line from Episode I to be 50% "Classic" immediately - which is why we got General Leia, Mon Calamari Officer, and K-3PO. It was quick and easy - and I assume there must have been a similar edict after The Rise of Skywalker, which - contrary to rumors - had a paltry line planned from day one. As far as what I remember seeing, there's literally only one item that did not make it out from that line and it's not even from those movies anyway. The plan was to sell lightsabers, and you probably already forgot about the gimmicky laser swords that were in stores across America because we were all too busy being cranky at how shallow The Black Series looked in 2019.

If you looked at the attitude with Rebels and Resistance, they're not shy about moving on in a hurry. If they're done with something, it's over before it starts - and The Rise of Skywalker was pretty much dead on arrival. Maybe they'll do something for an anniversary, or as the kids who grew up with and loved these movies demand it, but the olds aren't making a fuss. They probably don't want to do much with them yet, even though the secondary market does demand more of some of them.

The big question is always "what do you guys want?" Which is different from "what can you find in a book and name that you don't have?" I wouldn't mind seeing the Knights of Ren, or more troopers, or Finn or some new ships or something. But I'm also kind of over the existing format - a small line of Retro Collection figures would be cheaper and more interesting. Having written Q&A columns about toys for years, I can say that I've had virtually zero requests for Episode IX stuff. Just a few. I think the only one I would probably do, and I doubt it would be a hit, would be the Emperor in some form.

It would be my hope we see some new guys here and there, but the competing scales has sort of taken the fun out of collecting - LEGO has some things, Funko has some others, and so does Hasbro... there's no one line or scale that scratches the itch the way a line trying to do everything in a compatible size. It's a pity because there's so much we all want to see, but we're in a "top tier" world and we haven't seen a line do a great job of consistently giving us a cast from a movie in a single size in a while.

This is one of the reasons I like The Retro Collection so much - it's got a lot of the main people and so far has been three themed waves. And I can get a Dewback, even if it is an old one from ebay. (I've already got one.) There's a lot of potential in the new Disney era just as there is in the prequels, and I assume development and production costs have to be lower too. Also these things actually seem to make me happy, unlike trying to track down weird variants with a bonus accessory that I missed. (Lookin' at you, The Armorer.)

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FIN

Be sure you send in your questions for next time. The mailbag is out of on-topic questions, so if you got some, send some in.

I was surprised to read that Mandalorian spin-off Rangers Of The New Republic no longer in "active development" over the weekend. I was assuming it might be either about Cara Dune, or perhaps Trapper Wolf and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee's Carson Teva. Disney and Lucasfilm announce so many projects that it seems one or two always fall by the wayside, and this one will go on the trash heap of history along with Star Wars Detours, 1313, Battlefront III, Josh Trank's alleged Boba Fett movie, and let's say the Rian Johnson trilogy. There's just no way that's gonna come out.

As much as I love Star Wars I don't know if I need a constant drip of it - and I'd say the same about the equally soon-to-be-bloated Star Trek. I remember reading CBS had a goal of Star Trek being almost a weekly concern on their streaming platform, and that seems a bit much. I remember the 1990s, when between The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager you had years with 52 new episodes, mostly at 2 per week. It wasn't all great. But the bright side was if any episode was garbage, you immediately had a preview of next week's episode and could pretty much forget what it was you just watched. You know, like Marvel movies.

This year alone we've got The Bad Batch, Star Wars Visions, and The Book of Boba Fett - that's three shows on the way, plus we also got the 2003 Clone Wars and 1985-1987 Ewoks cartoons for retro fans. (And my friend Phil forwarded me an announcement he found claiming Droids is on deck for the very near future in Europe but I haven't been able to get this confirmed.) It would not be hyperbolic to say we're increasingly spoiled. It's amazing to think how many shows were made in the short form that we completely ignored, like Galaxy of Adventures and Forces of Destiny and whatever the BB-8 thing was that they did. Of note, many of these things didn't have particularly successful toy offerings, but that's life.

--Adam Pawlus

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