1. I stayed up til midnight and went to my local walmart for Force Friday Midnight Madness. Four of us showed up, each sorrier than the next. The Walmart employees mocked us. Ninety percent of the Star Wars labeled pegs were empty, though they claimed they had put up all the stock. It was a Force Friday Fail in my neck of the woods. I don't think Hasbro's heart was really in this launch. I don't see how such a lame attempt could be made accidentally.

As to my question, I was most interested in the four 3.75 two-packs with BB-8, Chopper, R2-D2 and Ahsoka. This store had no two-packs. When I got home and checked, it seems none of the online retailers had the two packs either. Did the two-packs come out anywhere?

For old times sake, I did buy two single 3.75 figures—Kylo Ren and a First Order Stormtrooper. (Both figures were excellent!) But if they only get $15 out of a diehard SW action figure fan like me, who are they going to get money from? It seems the end of an era for a line that you have argued has run a good course. I predict no 3.75 action figures (maybe one wave) will be released by the time episode 9 rolls around.
--David

It's important to remember the reason for the season. Force Friday was not a Hasbro mandate, but rather something Disney and Lucasfilm imposed on their licensees who then imposed it on retailers, who then wasted the time of their employees to make our lives a little more unpleasant. Some people had a good time, some didn't - I personally don't think anyone working retail is paid enough to care about making things special for our unique group. Supplies (this time at least) were reportedly short, and if you shopped online many stores were out within 12 (or 24) hours. There wasn't a lot to go around for the launch, and I have know way of knowing if this is an intentional attempt to goose collector interest or if some manufacturing problem prevented them from leaning heavier on the collector stuff (action figures). But places sold out of Hero Mashers too, so we're through the looking glass, people. I just hope next year they maybe ditch the whole Force Friday concept in favor of a friendly pre-order campaign. Somehow I absolutely am the kind of person to drag myself across town looking for toys, but to do it on a corporate schedule provides me no joy. As you could see in the press, the whole thing is really just a publicity stunt, and an interesting social experiment. Lucasfilm proved Star Wars has fans devout enough to wait in the middle of the night to spend money on toys without knowing what they are - so expect more of the same in 2016.

Few to no 2-packs got out. Some are on the secondary market, but the numbers are so small - and some are from outside the USA - that it looks like the answer is really "nope." Which is too bad - those two-packs had some really great, recognizable characters and I'm sure people would have paid $15 for just BB-8 alone.

As far as who are they going to get money from, uh, us. Everything seemed to sell out, with few exceptions and few stragglers. Hasbro may need to revisit its strategy as the season goes on, because what you like does not equate to success. If you're a Hasbro person who goes to your boss, and you report on the line as having sold out completely do you think they'll phase out action figures? I don't. They might learn that people are willing to pay more for better figures, or they might learn that 5 joints works. Love it or hate it, it succeeded. Hero Mashers sold, the MicroMachines heads didn't seem to sell quite so well, roleplay toys and FX lightsabers did great, and I even saw some Furbacca momentum. If you work at Hasbro right now, your boss is probably happy - unless there's a supply chain issue keeping them from selling more of this stuff. Your $15 doesn't matter. My [redacted undisclosed number] that I brought in at work doesn't matter. This show belongs to Walmart, Kmart, Target, Toys R Us, and maybe even Amazon - and if they all sold through, the only thing they're going to be mad about is a) not having more stuff, and b) being mad their exclusive wasn't ready at launch so you could spend your money on that instead of what their stores have now - no action figures.

 

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2. Having seen the Captain Phasma figures, I'm curious if Hasbro has abandoned making a realistic metalized appearance on figures for cost reasons.
They were able to do it waaaay back in the '70s with the Death Star Droid, and in the 1995 modern line with a nice C-3PO.
I can't recall the last Hasbro Star Wars figure with a metallic finish.
Phasma looks good, but a metallic look instead of a dull silver finish would make it awesome.
Is the metal look gone for good? Say it ain't so!
--Chris

I've been kicking the tires to get an answer to this one that's satisfactory, and I don't have it yet. There are different manufacturing processes - and indeed limitations - imposed by certain materials. C-3PO works well as a vac-metal figure, because most of them have pretty limited articulation and pretty limited paint. Captain Phasma doesn't, and Hasbro has stepped away from new vac-metal figures around 2010. Short of a couple of C-3PO and R2-D2 repacks, we might be looking at 2007 for the last "new" vac-metal figure. (Correct me if I'm wrong. I know that you will.) It's not just cost, but also durability and longevity. Sometimes if you do it wrong, the process results in the shiny stuff flaking off and sorrow ensues. So for whatever reason, Hasbro's not doing it - but Jakks didn't do it for their jumbo Phasma either. Perhaps someone will find a reason to do it.

What works for toys - and why - changes. Toy safety requirements change, and something that may have been just hunky dory a few years ago may suddenly be forbidden. (See: small magnets, small projectiles, and from the look of things potentially glow-in-the-dark red toys.) And then again, there are also cost issues and aesthetic reasons. Remember, all it takes is for one person to hate an idea to make it not happen - there's a reason we didn't get a new Twin Pod Cloud Car in the late 1990s all the way up until 2010.

Like with many things, we're in a position to make demands. Is this a good one? Probably. We didn't get many shiny Jango Fett figures either, but we can certainly ask. I'd also like to see the new C-3PO with a metalized finish. It's a different kind of plastic that needs to be used, and perhaps the paint is no longer something Hasbro deems to be a worthwhile investment on an accessory-free figure. I'm sure a shiny chrome Phasma would make a great exclusive for someone, and perhaps you're sure of this too, and you can certainly bug Hasbro that it would be something that you'd like to buy from some online toy store if the chance came up. For example.

I've talked to fans already planning on trying the process out on their new figures and see the results. I can't help but wonder but the rumor-or-is-it 6-inch C-3PO figure's disappearance a few years ago may be related to this - maybe Hasbro is reexamining their options for this sort of process. The company still does do vac-metal bits on some of its toys, most recently Transformers in 2014 with numerous Age of Extinction exclusives along with a very flakey red chrome on their otherwise wonderful Jetfire Generations toy. It will also be used on the Platinum Transformers Dinobots gift set coming to Asia shortly. The people at Hasbro are clearly not averse to it, they just don't seem to want to do it - so make some noise, write some editorials, or don't and be disappointed. This sort of thing would be great to see from where I sit, but without fan support Hasbro likely will never do it.

3. I believe I've mailed you a question about Micro Machines in the past. Long story short: I'm a huge fan. So the re-launch by Hasbro has got me very excited for what the future can hold for these little plastic ships and figures.

I picked up every set I could on Force Friday as well as a bunch of the blind bag sets. They're great, but the biggest problem with the larger sets is the incredibly tedious process of applying stickers. The Star Destroyer had about 30 of them. There was no guide in the box, either, so a lot of the time you basically have to guess where the stickers need to go. Am I missing something? Was there a guide included and I didn't see it?

On a more general note, what are your thoughts on the re-launch of the Micro Machines brand? Do you think we will see Action Fleet make a comeback, or see a return of the cars and trucks that so damn many of us lost to vacuum cleaners and storm drains when we were kids?
--Connor

A lot of kids in the 1990s grew up with Star Wars MicroMachines as their generation of space toys. The 6-year-old of 1994 is now 27 - ripe for being a parent with a young son. My assumption is MicroMachines will last one or two years, and vanish - the first wave of vehicle 3-packs touches on a surprising amount of missed opportunities, more of which come up in the blind bag waves. They may run out of stuff to do soon unless they rerun the old ones, including the super-rare second wave of Epic Collections. (Before you ask - they do exist, I have them.)

If we're looking at this in a cosmic sense, action figures debuted in 1978 and made a big comeback in 1995 - 17 years later. MicroMachines debuted first in Star Trek in I believe 1993 with Star Wars following. So that took about 20 years for a comeback. Action Fleet was 1995, so on this timeline I would expect that to be coming next - I hear rumblings that Hasbro is increasingly aware of the moving nostalgia indicator and as the Gen Xers are largely aging out of this, the Millennials are reproducing and there's money there. Soon perhaps we'll see a real relaunch of Beast Wars. (Nah.) I assure you, they're thinking about it - or have thought about it.

Hasbro did have a couple of relaunches of MicroMachines in the USA, but the brand has only found success in Europe - and that's over. They get a vehicle kick every few years to get a piece of that sweet, sweet Hot Wheels money... so it's possible. Car licensing is a lot different these days, too, so it's possible that would prove expensive to do properly. In the near-term, nothing on the drawing board that I know of - perhaps that will change if the sci-fi ships are a big hit.

I think you just got "lucky" with your Star Destroyer - I just popped mine open to check and the instruction booklet does indeed show label placement. Granted, maybe there's an error on it, I haven't finished mine yet.

 

FIN

I had a thing to write here, but I figured you're better off getting a pep talk / reality check than my opinion on what I kind of hope they do in the new movie. This is something that directly affects you, and that's the success of the line That's right - not the failure, but the line was a huge hit. 5-jointed figures not only sold, but command a premium on eBay. As I mentioned earlier, Lucasfilm and Disney got a ton of free press because the collecting community lined up to buy what amounted to a mystery box - you didn't know what the store would have, or in what quantities, and on the whole we still don't even know for sure what's really out there yet.

Here's the thing - this is the year voting with your dollars may not matter. The stuff sold. If you are an executive, your direction was genius - the product all moved. Didn't even matter what it was - most of it sold. People are buying cans of soup with movie branding right now. Because it was a huge hit, the fact is they're going to take the line, its launch, and the style of its product as a mandate of the line being a huge hit and what fans and collectors want. Perhaps you agree - perhaps you do not. Most of what I've played with so far is pretty great, but I can't deny that 6-inch Captain Phasma turned out great - even though the 3 3/4-inch one was good. What I'm driving at is simple - did you like what you got? Are you a long-term collector? Let Hasbro know. Write Disney. Write Lucasfilm. Post editorials, write on forums. (Keep in mind Q&A is not a place to write a long editorial with a question mark in it.) Cast a wide net - get your opinion out there. If you want super-articulated figures for this movie, it's too late. However, there's always next year - and when The Force Awakens becomes a "classic" part of the franchise, it's good to make sure multiple people at Hasbro know a lot of people want a certain thing made a certain way. Be polite, be nice, be clear and be brief. Your distaste right now, if not registered, is meaningless. The product shortage has drawn eBay flippers and Craigslist opportunists - or "scalpers" - back to our line and that's a double-edged sword. The rampant success of Star Wars (and Star Trek, and Spawn) in the 1990s came as a result of people convincing people these were investments - people bought toys and kept them perfectly packaged, devaluing many of them by virtue of too much supply in storage for later. But they sold - and they sold so well that any sort of fan dissatisfaction could probably be easily ignored. If you're meeting or exceeding a 100% sell-through rate, your line was a huge hit. No unsold inventory = everybody did a great job.

(For the record, I'm mostly happy with the offerings but the 3 3/4-inch Black Series funeral march continues to prove my point on how that segment isn't serving our best interests, and I think Hasbro could get a lot more kids later on with cheaper figures missing the big rocket-firing guns, the backpacks, and the buzzsaws. But that's me.)

While some of you have speculated the line could be in a bad place - heck, I was even contemplating that - it's simply not even close to reality yet. (Who knows if there will be a big glut if they miss Christmas?) Right now Star Wars - for Hasbro action figures - is back in a huge way and their only problem is too many customers and not enough product. It's weird to be in a place as a long-time fan where what I think and feel doesn't matter because of the fair-weathered fans... of whom there are many, with fat wallets and without the baggage of the last 20 years that many of us have and are storing. So remember, if you're not happy, and you vote with your dollars, and it's all going to sell anyway... well... that's probably the future for a while.

If you need a concrete example of just how popular Star Wars is right now, Kmart of all places is getting Kylo Ren with a couple of tweaks and snow on his boots - easily one of the least interesting changes you can make to a toy. And it's going to sell through, too. Heck, you might even overpay for it on the secondary market in the next 18 months. Collectors - the core audience who was here for the last 5 years - will probably not affect the future of this line much with new movies every year. There are still adult fans collecting, but not everyone is all-in and some of them will be here for the launches with a few subsequent impulse purchases. As long as supply is limited, it's not just kids but adults who might settle for what they can find. It's not like Hasbro is going out of their way to inform the populace of everything we're going to see yet, and that strategy will probably help to keep shelves clean. I was just at a Target a few hours ago and saw costumes and other items spread out near the action figure aisle to help mask the empty spaces where the action figures should be going. Our hobby is alive and well - but it may not be what every collector wants.

--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.