1. Back on the Sunday, September 15, 2024 Q&A you mentioned:

"There are a lot of things to enjoy, but it's increasingly rare to have anything that knocks my socks off after several decades following this stuff. (Also, I have had my socks knocked off by something I can't talk about, you'll know it when you see it.) More announcements are expected in the coming weeks, why they're spreading them out I don't know, but they are, so stay tuned. But next year, you're going to want to sock away some cash for next year. Skip the soda with lunch, start putting money in a toy jar. I had a really good vague thing to say but it might be too good a clue, so just set aside some money already."

Do you have any updates you can share with us? Has this item already been announced? If so, what was it? If it hasn't been announced, do you know if it is still scheduled to be released in 2025?
--John

You know what makes you happy, and there are still some interesting things on deck for the year that I dare not spoil. Also what I wrote about saving money was probably written before I heard the threat of a 60% tariff during the US election, but I have to say I can't remember for sure. It would certainly read as unintentionally ironic,

I'm a toy fan, so anything Hasbro makes that's a toy, or looks like the toys I grew up with, seems worth getting excited about. I like what they're doing with Epic World of Action, but more accurately, The Retro Collection. I want to be more excited for the collector formats, but it can be difficult to get excited by slightly better versions of things I already have. I want to play with those mech suits, or the new kiddo X-Wing, or especially the Retro figures. (I am not sure if that new Landspeeder is going to be fun, but I'll let you know. It looks cool and I want to play with it. I'd be more curious what an Epic Landspeeder might look like, and I hope they try to do one of those soon too.)

While I like the quality of what we're getting with The Vintage Collection and The Black Series, it seems harder to please fans. We're seeking perfection. We're not going to get it. Everybody is seeking a specific, personal feeling. But everybody's imagination has a vague idea of what that means, and odds are no two fans want (big-picture, full-year) the exact same thing.

In Retro we have new Star Wars figures, from the movie Star Wars, and 5 of 6 are unmistakably new entrants to the format. In Epic World of Action, we have several new vehicles, some new figures, and generally a lot that seems pretty cool. I doubt every fan is going to be excited that there are now Star Wars mechs that are effectively S.N.A.K.E. Armor, but I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on these.

The big question I have relates to how recent news may impact global toy production. And, you know, everything else. I assume everything we saw at New York Toy Fair will make it out to us with no changes (plus or minus price). After that? Well, it takes 90-ish days for an item to go from being stamped out to the factory to the boat to the port to the store to you. If anyone is about to slam on the brakes, we're going to start finding out. It's too late to dramatically alter a product set to ship in 2025, but you sure as heck can cancel it.

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2. This may have been covered before, but do you have insight into packaging costs? Specifically to the Black Series. I wonder if Hasbro went all in on vintage card backs, would it cost cheaper than the “box”. I personally would end up buying 2 of most figures because I would need to open one and display one. You could still do packaging throwbacks as exclusives, but shift the primary line to the racetrack. If cheaper, maybe it frees up money to have more newness in the line, specifically aliens!
--Cousy

No such pricing has been shared with me. Or as far as I know, anybody who is in any position to speak about it. But I can say this: great thinking, but your plan won't work.

The figures we get are a result of input from many, many people. It used to be Hasbro and Lucasfilm team members, and it sounded like both had their preferences - but in each group, some people had veto power and some items didn't come out for years because one guy said "no." Adding Disney to the mix results in other needs to promote The New Show or Some Book or This Anniversary. Further Star Wars' trajectory has been a lot like Marvel lately with character-specific stories and products that tend to focus mostly on heroes in some sort of a multiverse. This means you're going to see Luke and Boba Fett and Mando and Cassian Andor on things, and the products are more likely to emphasize them and not the cool stuff that made us obsessed with collecting these figures. The figure line you buy is not a result of budget exclusively, but also negotiations between tons of people - some of which even collect this stuff. It's not a bunch of hip nerds going "Oh man, let's make that robot!" anymore.

Hasbro are making a lot of new alien action figures. Now you may say "Adam! Those aren't the aliens I want!" If that's the case, I would recommend bringing up the aliens you want or the focus you would like to see, and hopefully others will jump on board and say "me too!" I'm sure Hasbro wants to make a lot more classic aliens, but which ones, and in which order, might get some help with specific fan demand giving them support to move something around on the schedule. Hasbro can afford to do whatever it wants, but there are considerations in the world of the budget that may say "we need you to sell five different Paz Vizsla figures from the same mold to the same collectors in a five year period." And if there isn't, I want to know why that is what happened. Those repaints and reissues help pay for, well, everything. Not every Hasbro toy line is a hit (who here saw Hydro Pods?) and they have thousands of people to pay every two weeks.

Packaging is expensive. Here are some anecdotes to that effect.

Pricing is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the biz. Toy companies don't want pricing shared around, and factories don't want toy companies trading notes on what it costs to actually make the item. (Which is, of course, different from what the toy company charges the store and what the store charges you. Everybody has to eat.) In the very few situations where I have been made privy to non-Hasbro factory costs for an item, it was always for the final packaged product. I didn't see any sort of breakout for a figure vs. packaging or figure vs. accessories vs. packaging. It was all one thing, and the price was the price for the delivered good.

Because there is more material in a boxed figure than a carded figure, I would assume that a window box costs more than a carded figure. Since we don't know what kind of deals the factories in China offer Hasbro, it's really hard to know for sure if there are savings not being passed along to the consumer. It's also worth noting that a lot of The Black Series collectors actually very much prefer the box. It's a pretty elegant storage solution and displays fairly well, if you want a shelf of book spines to look at. Changing over completely to cardbacks would likely anger the sealed packaging collector contingent. If there's an aspect of a toy line you don't like, odds are someone else loves it, and in the end someone's going to be angry. Nothing would make me happier than getting a figure like Vlix, Yoxgit, or Geezum. I bet some people don't want Geezum.

Toy folkore says that Hasbro employees supposedly told G.I. Joe convention attendees that, in the 1980s, the packaging of a 3 3/4-inch A Real American Hero figure cost more than the plastic figure. How true this is, I don't know, but that's the anecdote that has been repeated. Given the complexity of modern toys I can't imagine this is still the case but we have seen experiments in packaging (Hasbro's G.I. Joe Sigma 6 cases with blinking lights) that shows, sometimes, they try. But when it comes to collectors, adult fans hate change.

In the 2000s we saw pricing for Hasbro Star Wars figures got significantly cheaper when packaged in multipacks. When we were paying $6.99 or $7.99 for a single action figure, Hasbro sold Battle Packs of 5 figures for about $19.99, Evolutions packs of 3 super-articulated action figures for about $19.99, and Comic Packs of 2 action figures and a full-size comic book for $9.99. "Droid Factory" 2-packs got us 2 figures and a build-a-droid part for $9.97. It seems pretty plain to me that packaging isn't cheap, but putting two figures in one package saves you money, buster.

If Hasbro got rid of packaging or put stuff in plain baggies, maybe we'd see cost reductions - but prices didn't go down when we shifted from boxed with plastic windows to all-paper packaging, either. I like where you're thinking, and I do think it would be great if we could get a figure in a lower-cost package. (To me, packaging is largely recycling bin fodder.) Others disagree. Even for figures that are de facto online exclusives (outside frustration-free/SIOC packaging for the likes of Amazon) Hasbro has steered away from "dumbing down" boxes as they know how much collectors hate that.

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FIN

I continued my small-bites rewatch of Return of the Jedi, and it is notable what you see when years go by and you're on a different screen at a higher resolution. The cheap effect of 1977's cantina sequence were edited within a few frames of their life, resulting in an incredibly trim sequence in which everything looks its best. You don't have time to really focus on the latex and hair masks - it's just boom, boom, boom. In Return of the Jedi the camera lingers a lot more, with costumes that are all technically superior than before. The catch is that while some look great (Bib Fortuna, Oola, Jabba the Hutt) others don't necessarily hold up to longer camera takes. They're still awesome and I'd buy action figures for every last one, but it has been interesting to pluck out small segments in a high quality format that by and large wasn't available to me 40 years ago. Labria's mask isn't good - but cutting away from it immediately makes it look alive. Klaatu doesn't have a lot of movement, but he sure as heck looks cooler as a design and as an action figure.

One of the things I kept my eyes out for was Yak Face, because site sponsor Entertainment Earth was rereleasing the Star Wars The Retro Collection Return of the Jedi 3 3/4-Inch Action Figures Set (new production, previously exclusive to Disney/Pulse, you're welcome.) Yak Face is pretty visible in the background of a ton of shots, as is how little of Jabba's Palace they actually built. The Book of Boba Fett sets show more locations. Re-watching the original trilogy after five years of shows shot in The Volume, that big set with screens in it, shows that it really does work for some things. I don't know that the shots of pilots in a cockpit are any worse off the new way, and the projection behind the Rebels on the way to the Pit of Carkoon looks a little rough. Still, there's probably no movie I'd rather get toys from.

In happy news, the Star Wars The Vintage Collection Streets of Mos Eisley Playset with Jawa is in stock at Entertainment Earth and also Amazon. It's pretty good. I dragged my feet opening some of these (the Imperial Light Cruiser is still boxed), but I like this one enough to say I might buy a second or a third. The bulk of it is unpainted, so it might go well with your Kenner-flavored figures. There's a sliding door, and a little lever to move the very charming gatekeeper droid eyeball.

It doesn't feel as meaty as the other Vintage playsets, but it has a lot of options. There's no floor, but you get a stoop, a sliding door, an archway, and a little alcove that's going to be perfect to slap those HasLab Cantina stickers. A number of fans of many toy lines have described the direction of product development away from "fun" and more for "internet toy photography," and this one seems to be just a smidgen more fun. The droid eye and door are interesting, and the specific set is arguably the selling point. I know a lot of fans say "ugh, Tatooine," but what would you rather have? I'm not grousing too much about a playset that can serve as a location for more than one movie's figures,

The Jawa figure follows the pattern of the figures being just different enough to make you mad, variations on things you own. This Jawa is pretty much the same figure as Teeka. Teeka is pretty much the same figure as the Offworld Jawa. (All three use the same core body with some changes to accessories and the soft goods.) The Offworld Jawa is pretty much the same as a 3 3/4-inch The Black Series Jawa from a 2-pack over 10 years ago. It's a very good Jawa, and I'd like to have a few more - and I guess if I buy more playsets, I can do that.

There are three crates in the box with opening lids. They're fine. They aren't as impressive as the Nevarro Cantina's bottles, decanters, bar counter, and barstools. There's a pillar with some greebles on it, and a large canister. They add some personality to the scene, but aren't fun in and of themselves. They're the throw pillows of the playset world.

It's a fine playset, but also something you could probably 3D print with the right patience, paint, or filament colors. I'd still nudge you to Hasbro's model - the materials are generally more stable, and it's possible (likely) someone will make new 3D printed elements to add on to it. You're going to want one, either way, and if you don't have a gaggle of figures that would enjoy standing around in it I don't even know why you're reading this Q&A feature.

--Adam Pawlus

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