1. Do you think Hasbro will release the Sail Barge at some point allowing others who didn't back it originally to get one? Could they not open it up to another round of pre-orders and then fulfill them?
--SQLJedi

I very much doubt it.

Hasbro did what fans have asked for - mostly - by saying "here's the item, pay us and we guarantee you'll get it." Sure, they got a loan of a few million bucks with no interest from us as a result, but they did deliver on the toy. According to most estimates they made 10,000, some of which were sold via eBay overseas and I believe I was told Hasbro sold a few at Star Wars Celebration - but I was not there.

There are probably more than a few out there in the hands of speculators and it's possible the price could go down at some point - even briefly - if a bunch hit the market during a bum economy or another HasLab announcement as someone makes room and raises funds. Given the size of the item and what Hasbro considers to be a worthwhile minimum to run an item like this again, I very much doubt you will ever see Hasbro reproducing a HasLab item. I personally would not mind it - but they did promise the fans that this was the one time, the only way to get it - and a lot of collectors do seem to enjoy others not getting things for some reason.

Thanks to the ever-delightful looming threat of possible toy tax tariff nonsense, big items are likely to get more expensive and more risky. Hasbro now has to be concerned that for the next 17-65 months, we have a government that could arbitrarily slap a mark-up on any item coming in from any other country. It might not happen - it might happen - but it could happen. On top of that, the wages in China have been rising steadily along with the quality of living and the availability of opportunity. In 2008, the big Millennium Falcon had a retail of $170. By 2015, it was $250. It would probably be $300 or more today. We saw the same thing happen with the Hasbro Interactive R2-D2 from 2002 over the years - it started around $80ish, and was about $200 the last time it was made in 2008 or 2009.

If you ever see another vehicle, big playset, or classic character as an action figure for the first time, I would advise you do what you need to do to get the cash. Some figures get produced long enough to bring down the price, like the 6-inch Darth Revan. But some items wind up being the definitive edition of a vehicle, and then the economy changes. And then the labor costs change. And then the stores that could have sold that item all went out of business. It's a safe bet action figures will be around for a while with a place to sell them, but if HasLab ever puts out another giant Star Wars toy I'd suggest consider dumping some stuff on eBay now for a rainy day fund.

 

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2. Adam, just out of curiosity, to the best of your knowledge, does Hasbro have a MOC copy of every figure ever made from 1977 to the present?

I wonder if there is a completist out there, apart from perhaps Steve Sansweet, who has everything in its original packaging.
--Derek

To my knowledge, Hasbro does not nor have the ever had a complete collection of every figure - they don't hang on to everything. Lucasfim might have an extensive collection, but they whittled down their licensing archives about 10 years ago and I don't know what was lost in the shuffle. Hasbro does have collectors on staff, and some do have (or during their employment, did have) extensive collections at home. There are lots of collectors that have everything or close to it, but due to the size of the line and its wild diversity of "what counts" (Disney Droids being a key example) it's less and less likely that there are people with truly everything. After all, there are 25 Disney Droid domes out there that were never properly sold carded in an official configuration, and now there are over a dozen - possibly much more than a dozen - variants of the Kenner Retro Edition Prototype Darth Vader.

And that doesn't even take into account that there are now thousands of figures between singles, multipacks, theme parks, exclusives, and so forth.

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FIN

NEW YORK! I have received confirmation I will bringing my convention panel tour to New York Comic Con in October. I'm gathering toy and collectible news to share as we speak. If you're press, come see me for stuff to tweet or whatever. If you're a fan, come and see the news before your friends. If you can't sit still for an hour, don't come see the panel. This is like the San Diego panel, but different. The aim is to show you whatever new stuff I can swindle various to-be-named companies to show you. I'm pretty excited by some of the manufacturers who are interested but didn't make it for San Diego.

Star Wars... is still pretty boring. This is, of course, what you want before the biggest, final movie of your saga. A whimper about the cancellation of the current TV show, no real toy news to speak of, and seemingly very little interest in the culture at large for a new film so soon. Disney absolutely mastered the exploitation of the hype machine and news cycle with The Force Awakens and Rogue One by leaking titles, trailers, teasers, and other goods over a year early. For the two most recent films, we got a lot less of this - and it's my hunch that the box office suffered a bit. The toys didn't have the logo on the boxes, the movie theaters didn't have posters up, and we weren't spending a year speculating over the new movie. I'm generally very excited about Star Wars on the small screen because it can be just about anything and be interesting... whereas the movies need a certain amount of time, hype, and ramp-up that we just aren't getting. Who here misses the sneak preview waves? The teaser posters a year early? Oh, the good old days.

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit, and we're down to 2 questions per week until we get overloaded with questions to re-expand back to 3 or more.

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