1. Do you think that the Black Series 6" Paploo figure that came in the SDCC exclusive Heroes of Endor set with see a standard release like Endor Luke, Leia, and Han?
--Eric

Possibly eventually, but not soon. Hasbro has been historically decent about bringing some characters from its exclusives out in other formats - for example, the 2013 Han Solo Carbonite finally got a single release as a (shared) Amazon exclusive. We've seen numerous 3 3/4-inch exclusive and hard-to-find overseas figures incorporated in the main line and Saga Legends over the years too. Having said that, I'd suggest just buying the boxed set if you see it at a fair price - you can't count on these things happening. I assume Hasbro's going to be a pain when it comes to bringing back Kenner-Deco Boba Fett, for example.

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2. A comment and a question... I love the Black Series, but am officially out... They are awesome, but take up too much room I don't have due to decades building a 3.75" collection. Awesomeness like Jaxxon or the Bad Batch only appearing as 6" is killing me. Is there any hope?

Speaking of awesome, any Star Wars EE exclusives in the pipeline? I miss the likes of the Clone Troopers, Joker Squad, Mandalorians, Elite Forces Clones & Omega Squad, the droid pack, and those comic packs that were rescued. If nothing else, thanks for your part in making my collection more interesting!
--Steve

If you want more EE exclusive, I would recommend addressing your comments to Hasbro. I think there should be more, don't you?

Hasbro's current team is long turned over many times away from the group that may have seen the 3 3/4-inch line as the "scale of record." There are numerous figures that don't exist in that size and likely never will - this is the danger when you run multiple scales. We have lots of figures that exist in one size, and not the other. Similarly there are figures in the Sideshow format, Galactic Heroes, LEGO, and other lines that don't exist in either of Hasbro's most popular two figure scales for Star Wars.

At this time I know of no plans for The Bad Batch characters as 3 3/4-inch releases. It doesn't mean they aren't coming or aren't sneaking in a blind spot - I just don't know of them happening. I would recommend, again, making a large fuss to Hasbro about how much you want them made as Entertainment Earth exclusives. (Hey, at least that way you can be sure you can get 'em if you place a pre-order. We never only bring enough in for 6 hours.)

3. Does it cost Hasbro more to make the Black Series-sized figures, or 3.75"? It seems that Hasbro isn't making as much smaller-scale figures as they used to, and it feels like the character debuts are in the Black Series line. Is Hasbro trying to wean us from the smaller-scale format to the more expensive Black Series?
--Chris

I don't have a current factory invoice that was accidentally forwarded to me, but in the past the smaller figures cost (slightly) less from most factories. Complex figures are still expensive though, but sometimes factories have curious pricing structures that don't always translate to sensible pricing at retail. I can't explain why Vintage The Child costs more than Black Series The Child, or why 6-Inch Value Checklane The Child is bigger than both but costs half as much.

I can also tell you that everything is getting a lot more expensive. If you're in the business, or not, you're no doubt reading about increasing freight charges - which is going to mean the price of toys could well go up again, again. While the slow cost increase doesn't generally stop people form buying toys, it's squeezed me out of completism in some other lines. (And also this one. Do I need holiday or metallic repaints? Or figures that sell out in 30 seconds? Apparently no.)

While you guys love Vintage, that really doesn't matter - because not enough people buy it. The Black Series has been more popular for quite some time, but neither format is getting enough stuff out there to satisfy demand at retail. Everything seems to be selling now except for Greef Karga. The interest is probably there for the small figures still, but it's a much less unified group. Noisy, sure, but try and get a dozen fans to agree on any one figure on that size. Everybody says everything is iconic or the most important and I guarantee you, it probably isn't.

I do feel Hasbro really dropped the ball - and this is probably having to do with assets from Disney and Lucasfilm - on their launches. Mando Mondays was largely last year's stuff, with a couple of exceptions. The Triple Force Friday was the shallowest Hasbro launch we've ever seen, with precious few figures from each of the new launching properties and a few more repacks than I would have liked to have seen. Even the previous Force Fridays for Solo and The Last Jedi were largely packed with too-familiar faces, reissues mixed in with figures that looked identical to things on markdown just a few pegs over. Most likely The Vintage Collection's current lack of dignity comes from a thousand tiny cuts, such as these, but also look at the past 10 years. The for-some-reason highly regarded 2010-2012 The Vintage Collection line was mostly new versions of existing characters/outfits and nobody complained. (Well, I did.) The Black Series 3 3/4-inch line was similarly bland - sure, there were a few new ones mixed in there, but the bulk of it was very "been there done that" without enough of the main characters that actually have endless demand and drive sales. (If you, the fan, can't buy Boba Fett or Darth Vader or Luke or Yoda, what even are you doing as a toy line? Why aren't the big stores demanding more of it? Who shot J.R.?)

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FIN

I'm slowly getting through Droids in Disney+, which is by and large exactly what I remembered. C-3PO's kung fu is cringey-er than I remember, and Sollag's whine of "Mon Julpa" is as annoying as I remember, but it looks better than I've ever seen it - with one exception. I always wondered why, when it came time to do the VHS (and DVD) releases of the edited-for-home-video "movies" of the series, they left off the Trigon episodes. I think we have an answer now!

If you look at those first four episodes, you'll probably be taken by how gorgeous they look - remastered or no, the background are beautiful and the animation is largely excellent (minus a few weird eye floats.) For a cheap Saturday morning show - that was rather expensive - it compares very favorably to the Snorks or whatever the hell it was Glomer was doing. However when you get to the one episode most of you wanted to see - "A Race to the Finish" - the video quality looks like it was taken from a VHS. There's distinctive color bleeding and it's just not as nice or crisp as the others, no doubt resulting in the delay of the show to streaming - but also potentially being the reason why they opted to not feature the episode with Boba Fett until they threw up their arms and said "well, it's better than nothing." (Is my speculation. I have no concrete info here.)

Since I didn't have the Sci-Fi channel, I haven't seen these episodes outside of bad YouTube rips or my own fuzzy VHS-taped memories in ages. It's absolutely wonderful to see the show and appreciate the weird Mini-Rig cameos, the generally great voice work, and the striking designs in nearly every single episode. Sure, some of the monsters look like they were sketched on a napkin over a dinner break, but I also watched the old He-Man and the Masters of the Universe which ranged from similarly striking designs and utter crap.

It's a lot of fun - and considering the 1985 TV landscape, kind of remarkable. You couldn't show guns in TV back then, as censorship (or standards, take your pick) resulted in concepts like The Smurfs, the Snorks, The Get Along Gang, and their ilk resulting in a very soft, very cuddly landscape. Droids got away with mounting guns on ships and any "blasters" tended to look like magic wands or flashlights. Considering the limitations imposed on the show thanks to the rather oppressive broadcasting standards, it's an amazing show. A lot of other shows - many episodes of He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - had similar issues, where their weapons were rarely used against other flesh-and-blood combatants and violence tended to be directed against robots. Or in the case of He-Man, the sword tended to be used more as a tool, than as a hack-and-slash-and-stab weapon.

As the end of an era, it was also sort of the wild west - few classic characters were shown beyond R2-D2, C-3PO, Stormtroopers, IG-88, and Boba Fett, but Jabba the Hutt and the Emperor were name-checked and we saw some rogue Imperial Shuttles and TIE Fighters. (True story, I tried to get the Kybo Ren TIE Fighter made as an exclusive. The Rebel TIE Fighter shared exclusive in the late 2000s was solicited as "pirate TIE fighter" because the project changed during development and once it wasn't a small-wing pirate TIE fighter anymore, well, it was not what I wanted.)

Hopefully we'll see some more toys from the show in the future. I'm crossing my fingers. Cough cough Vlix.

--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.

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