So check out Rose (Crait Defense) from the four-pack from The Last Jedi.  It's cool!  She has her necklace, and what's left of her First Order uniform.   And a blaster.  She's one of the cooler figures in the set, so assuming you didn't already buy one and are just looking to have your good sense of taste reenforced read on!

UPDATE: The item was backed with 8,840 Sail Barges sold, over the 5,000 goal.

HasLab's Star Wars Sail Barge now has over 7,600 supporters.  Obviously some must be doubling up, but that ain't bad - ends in just under 12 hours.   For those who haven't been following along at home, the vehicle includes a Yak Face on a Power of the Force cardback (seemingly with a slightly different image and Canadian-style layout) and needed 5,000 people to buy it for Hasbro to start production.   It's $499.99 plus applicable tax, and currently only ships to the USA and Canada unless you go through a third-party or set up your own freight forwarder.

Ad: Catch up on Vintage Star Wars and Studio Series Transformers at Entertainment Earth! New additions are up - including some Return of the Jedi parts and pieces dating back to 1983!

Gold! The Vendor Droid (Gold, Droid Factory) is based on designs from The Clone Wars and is sold at Disney parks in parts bins.  Should you get one?  Probably!  Read on!

This week in Q&A - More Sail Barge prognosticating! What's next? And Why not try something smaller? I wrote all these answers before the item passed the goal, so you might get a kick out of this. And Vintage Cardback Complaints - we wouldn't be Star Wars fans if we were happy.

And send in your questions for next week. Read on!

This week in Q&A - Sail Barge Bonus! Look, these questions are going to be stale next week so we had better get through 'em. As of my typing this Hasbro needs under 200 more supporters to get the Barge out, so it looks like it will happen.

And send in your questions for next week. Read on!

The Maz Kanata (The Black Series 6-Inch) is pretty neat - but small! There's a ton of painted detail and great sculpting here, but the shorter character looks to be a normal sized 3 3/4-inch figure in a big box.  She has a trunk, a blaster, and a lightsaber.  Read on!

We're less than a month away from Solo toys, but while we wait let's catch up with LOM-Series Protocol Droid (Blue, Droid Factory).  You can put it together at the Disney parks, and yours might look different from mine - but it's blue!  It's cool!  Read on.

This week in Q&A - Vehicular shelf slaughter - what's "good" for a vehicle if the Sail Barge is 5,000? Legs! Sure, let's talk legs. And Customs sure why not. There's other stuff too, including toy store chatter since that part of the business is pretty rocky right now.

And send in your questions for next week. Read on!

A surge of support on the HasLab Sail Barge came Wednesday morning after EW.com and StarWars.com posted Check Out New Photos of the Fully-Painted Jabba’s Sail Barge Prototype from Hasbro.   While we all expected to see painted pictures before the end of the funding period, we didn't expect that it might include a bonus.   Now take notes on this part, some fans are unclear and you're going to be one of the smart ones.

It's the First Order Gunner (The Last Jedi Line Look)!  He's in The Last Jedi 4-pack hitting now, and looks pretty sharp for a figure with almost no paint.  You'll want a few.  Read on!

Check out the 6-inch Clone Captain Rex.  It's a good one - they put Temura Morrison's face on this animated character, making it the most realistic Clone Trooper with a head of an actor that never portrayed said clone.  It's awesome though.  Read on!

This week in Q&A - Sail Barge! Is it going to happen? Maybe. Probably. I don't know. Shipping the Sail Barge!, well, now we've got real dimensions. Sail Barge pricing! And Toys R Us. And as luck would have it there's more toy industry upheaval this weekend, so read on.

And send in your questions for next week. Read on!

UPDATE 3/19/2018: It looks like the original trademark expired in 2016 and somebody swooped in to grab it rather than a sale of an asset from Toys R Us.  We don't have the full story at this time but will share more as we see it.

I've been speculating that in the wake of a possible Toys R Us decline, some of its assets may get carved up and sold off - after all, they've owned FAO, Etoys, and Kay-Bee Toys.  Over the weekend my pal Phil pointed me to a pair of curious Linkedin posts about the imminent revival of KB Toys:

WE'RE GOING TO SAVE THE TOY INDUSTRY!

KB Toys is Coming Back and Wow! What a Response from the Toy Industry!

While I've never ran a retail toy channel, this is a complete surprise.

Toys R Us has been having some problems, and as of today we're seeing articles like Toys R Us tells court going-out-of-business sales to begin immediately at all U.S. stores.   Tens of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, and the domino effect is going to knock some toy manufacturers out of business, or into mergers, which will probably cost tens of thousands more jobs in the subsequent months. 

This is not a good week to be in the toy business.