1. 85 dollars for a [The Vintage Collection] landspeeder and a nifty ANH Luke....in the same year that TVC put out a near identical ANH Luke?
Wouldn't it have made more sense to release the pack in Luke separately, and keep the landspeeder 20 some dollars cheaper?
--Derek

You're going to love the short answer: it's complicated.

If you're Hasbro potentially seeking to pad revenues and/or get a bigger ROI on your figure tooling, or if you're the kind of collector who hasn't bought every last figure, the bundle makes sense. I've talked to some collectors who missed that Hasbro was making a new Luke this year. For those fans, it's a second (or first) chance to get a new Luke. Since Hasbro made one Luke for looks and another for functionality, I am not that upset to be getting a second Luke that can better sit in a vehicle.

The price of this item is kind of hard to nail down. Due to tariffs, some stores were planning for the 20%, 54%, or higher upcharge that is planned to accompany this item later this year. If a store fails to do this, they make no money, which may not matter to some of the big guys but "make literally zero money" is bad for all employees everywhere. Given the current tariff situation, I'd say it's just as likely that the item won't make it out over here or the price would go up more. Unless of course they're lifted.

Does it make sense to sell a figure separately? To a completist, yes - always. We've bought all the figures, we don't need or necessarily want duplicates. Unless a vehicle needs four or six or twelve of the same guy to fill some seats, I don't want a pack-in figure. (The Imperial Troop Transport and Hovertank would benefit from pack-in troopers.) I like having the option to buy more figures separately, because I don't want one. I usually want two or more.

Hasbro has included a figure with most Epic, The Black Series, and The Vintage Collection vehicles and playsets. I am beginning to wonder if it is conditional for their license. Is it possible Mattel has a license to sell vehicles and Hasbro has a license to sell vehicles with action figures? I don't know - but we've seen so few boxed playsets or ships since 2020 to not include one, that I wouldn't be shocked if Hasbro must include one per their contracts.

The pack-in Luke figure is different enough to make you mad. Not just the accessories, but the figure itself has been modified enough to change its look and functionality. The lower torso "skirt" is now cloth to better sit in the vehicle. In a perfect world, Hasbro would have let us know this before we bought and opened our Luke figures. But they didn't. So I guess now we know to wait to open things.

Hasbro is probably counting on what we're seeing in the market - single-carded Luke does not seem to be appearing (or sitting) in stores, so it makes sense to them that people who want a Landspeeder may also want a Luke figure. By including a Luke figure, they can do it. (Also, they can make another $20 per Landspeeder, which probably also is a perk.)

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2. Can you explain why Hasbro is putting oversized Deluxe cardbacks into packaged product like Sabine with Howler and Luke with his Landspeeder?

I certainly understand putting "pack-in figures" on a card in these sets to entice the carded collectors into making beast and vehicle purchases they may otherwise eschew.

I also understand having the larger deluxe card at retail to distinguish between $18 figure and $25 figure pricepoints. They look different with the bigger card showing "worth more" by spreading out the accessories and figure in a larger bubble.

I don't understand how that translates to a deluxe figure inside another box. You can't see the deluxe figure to know that it has a bigger card. Your pricepoint is determined by the larger set, so deluxe or standard cardbacks are meaningless in that respect. Both Luke and Sabine have been sold on regular sized cardbacks, and their extra accessories are not a figure selling point when you can't see them inside the outer box.

Are Hasbro just being like Gretchen Weiners from "Mean Girls" and trying to make "fetch" a thing, ie are they creating more oversized cards (even when not necessary) just to create an ecosystem of oversized cards to coexist as a new segment of the carded collection?

Please shed some light on this odd development.
--Bobb

Putting Luke out with extra gear on a fancy package seems great for a convention, and us plebes who buy a Landspeeder could be content with a bagged version. Me, I don't need "invisible bonus packaging." The vehicle box is the packaging. But I am but one person, and not necessarily the typical consumer.

In theory, Hasbro is making what fans want. If fans start demanding more streamlined packaging and less waste with lower costs, that could change - but if it's just me, and you, that's not going to happen. I don't think anyone is going to miss carded pack-in figures with ships and playsets. Maybe if they were genuinely exclusive debut figures, but if they already exist as carded TVC releases? It would be no big loss.

I have no official Hasbro answer, but one thing that gets brought up a lot is toy companies trying to "show value," or some phrase like that, which basically boils down to "how do we make sure the person buying this doesn't balk at the price?" It might also be because they want to make sure someone who just wants a 6x9-inch Luke has to buy the single one, too. More likely, they just want to make it seem like you're getting a $25 figure, rather than a $17 figure with a buck or two worth of extra accessories.  You are getting more than the basic figure - but they could have saved themselves money by making one Luke figure, packing it in the box with no changes, and throwing in a baggie of extras.

The average person won't notice a slightly wider cardback, I think it's mooted as a benefit to the consumer - a window box might be better at showcasing the deluxeness of Luke and his stuff. For example, Kenner's Max Rebo Band set was a big goofy box that showed off the accessories. A slightly wider basic card may or may not register in the eyes of the normies. (My guess is "not." People aren't always observant of small changes.)

The bigger vehicle with fancy paint and more individual parts makes me think the overall set is pretty good, plus or minus the tariff upcharge we're seeing. As a collector and as someone who works in the toy business, I genuinely don't know the value of putting a carded figure in a ship or playset - will fans leave the entire thing sealed, never seeing the carded figure? Will the collector buy two or three of it (one to leave sealed, one to open, and another to leave semi-open for the carded figure?) I usually stop at one, as I am not made of money, although I am considering a second Mos Eisley playset right now.  But given what is going on in the news, perhaps I shall wait.

3. So...tariffs. I don't think anybody really knows what's going to happen, but I find myself wondering what Hasbro is more likely to do in the face of a 145% (?) tariff? Do you think Vintage could actually hit $30-40, and Black Series could actually hit $50-60? Or would Hasbro just hit the brakes and not release ANYTHING new until this blows over? Could the items that are already in transit now be ALL we get for a while? And what would a year (?) with nothing new mean for the hobby? And the Haslab Cantina...yikes!
--James

This one is getting answered out of sequence because, well, you've seen the news. What's up with tariffs? Only one man knows, and he changed the answer three times last week. I expect there to be changes to the tariff schedule before I wake up Monday morning. The whole laptop/cell phone thing seems to be changing between when I wrote this yesterday and when I posted it Sunday night!

For context, The Black Series and The Vintage Collection are made in China. At press time, they are subject to a 145% tariff. This means an item that wholesales for $20 would likely now cost $49.00 to bring into the country before freight. The Retro Collection and Epic World of Action are made in Vietnam. They are subject to a 10% tariff, which means an item that costs $20 would now cost $22 before freight.

$30-$40 The Vintage Collection and The Black Series at $50-$60 is what I was calculating at this tariff rate. Given the prices of American labor and zero expertise in domestic action figure manufacturing (and no factories), American-made figures would probably be priced similarly and would be years away. $30 for a domestic-made collector-level action figure would be an absolute bargain. There is no action figure-making robot. Humans do a lot of the work with tools, but the key word here is "humans." Humans do a lot of the paint, assembly, packaging, loading, and so on.

Will fans buy a $40 Vintage figure? Sure, maybe one. I'd pay $40 for a Tonnika sister or Vlix. Maybe we'd shell out for Sim Aloo given it has been forty years since the last one. But I would rage quit over a $40 Darth Vader repaint.

Could we go a year with nothing new from Hasbro? I doubt it. (More in FIN.) Hasbro might make items and sell them elsewhere. Hasbro might make items and wait for the weather to improve. I anticipate delays or worse unless America's tariffs are rescinded pretty much immediately.

HasLab projects were paid for by fans, but Hasbro could decide to hold shipments until conditions are more favorable. Hasbro could move them to Vietnam. They could decide to refund your money, and end future high-end toy crowdfund goodwill. Hasbro would likely lose a fortune if they supply a $400-$500 product manufactured in China with a 145% tax on it, and I assume they've been having meetings to this effect unless they already built it in to the cost. (I find this unlikely.) They could also make the figures in China but produce the box, playset, little glasses, or other bits elsewhere. I think this is unlikely.

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FIN

Given: It is cost-prohibitive and too complicated for Hasbro to make action figures in America with American labor for delivery in 2025, 2026, and probably ever due to the high labor prices, lack of factories, and human hand-intensive work. Could Hasbro make something for action figure fans?

Maybe.

Perhaps Hasbro has an emergency plan. (In their shoes I'd explore shifting focus to Vietnam, either moving production of the other lines or switching to Epic or Retro for a while. This will not happen.) If you look way back at 1977, Kenner found they could make some things quickly before action figures were ready. And it was paper-based.

What could Hasbro do in America in the next year if backed against the wall and Disney approval wheels were greased?

1. Something 97% cardboard. Hasbro makes board games in the USA, so any non-plastic and non-metal component should be possible. There are companies that can make plastic parts - they're just not as cheap to make as in China. (My dad did some simple plastic figure stands here. It's possible! It's just not as cheap as China.) It's probably too late for 2025 but I bet they could make something for 2026... and fans wouldn't buy it unless it was literally the only new item on the market.

2. An unpainted item like a simple playset. Tim Mee Toys makes its Attack Battle Station ($130) here, as well as the Battle Mountain ($26.90). Neither has paint, and both are based on tooling dating back over 30 years. There are no royalties to Disney on either item, so a similar item could cost more from Hasbro.

It wouldn't be dirt-cheap, but Hasbro could probably remake of the 1979 Cantina Adventure Set - complete with the white foot pegs but no figures - in America as a collectible. The Land of the Jawas playset is probably too complex to remake cheaply, but a redesigned one-piece no-mechanism base with a cardboard backdrop would probably be doable. (And probably no elevator or Escape Pod.) I assume you could probably make something all-cardboard for about $30 and something with a plastic base (plus or minus royalty) for $75 or under.

3. A simple vehicle with no paint. Fisher-Price made some vehicles in America in the 1980s for its 3 3/4-inch Adventure People line, but they don't have the level of detail or paint that we see from The Vintage Collection (or frankly, the 1995 The Power of the Force line.) The figures were made in Hong Kong. If you like the idea of new unpainted mini-rigs for $50-$60, it may be possible.

Will any of this happen? The Magic 8-Ball, a fine Mattel product, says "Ask Again Later."

--Adam Pawlus

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