1. Did Hasbro really just do a Star Wars panel at SDCC where they announced more figures from The Acolyte... but still no "The Stranger" in either scale? He's the most toyetic thing about that show!
--James

The theme of Star Wars collecting is "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." I don't think any movie or TV show has completed or can complete to the satisfaction of most fans, perhaps with the exception of The Empire Strikes Back and maybe Revenge of the Sith. Everything else probably has a list of dozens of background characters we'd all want, and the Disney era is rife with some major characters that would probably make fans pretty happy if they got made. I don't blame Hasbro, there's just too much Star Wars from which to pull now.

Obviously Star Wars The Black Series The Stranger Premium Electronic Helmet is coming - so Hasbro knew enough to get something ready to show us. But since it's coming in 2025, it's possible Hasbro wasn't given all the assets, or casting was late, or something - you can't spoil a lot about the plot by sharing a helmet with a toy company. If you've been here since 1995 - or 1978 - it's almost spitefully incomplete. Back in the day you could get 4 (or 5) Cantina aliens, but never the band - the most memorable thing in the entire scene. In the 1990s, The Power of the Force POTF2 collectors expected we would some day see remakes of all the original Kenner figures. It's 29 years later. And I cannot tell you how much it stung to write that sentence.

Right now - especially under Disney - there seems no desire to "complete" anything. We're seeing this across other brands and for other IP too, there's no complete Star Trek Prodigy crew and that's arguably the best Star Wars cartoon in years. (Seriously, the show morphs from "this could be Star Wars crossed over from off-the-shelf Nick cartoon" to "Arguably the best modern Star Trek show.") The Bad Batch barely started its 3 3/4-inch figure team. Resistance didn't even bother to finish the main duo on the show. The Rise of Skywalker is a terribly small line. The Mandalorian lacks a lot of key characters like Peli Motto and has done barely any of the show's really cool aliens. What's the holdup? At this point I assume it's spite, or someone over there who doesn't understand that we don't want the same characters over and over without at least an equal number of all-new character/costumes figures. But now we get another Bo-Katan and Mando, most likely due to someone in some marketing department that doesn't monitor sales figures or understand the average adult collector reacts to this sort of thing with a hearty "you have got to be kidding me."  It might sell to a growing pool of new collectors,, though, but will they stick around for another decade? (I don't know, I'm asking you.)

As such, The Acolyte's Darth Hottie is not yet a figure but only a helmet. Similarly we haven't had Moff Gideon's cool armor outside Epic Hero Series - and I'm glad we got something new in there first, so to me, that counts. There's a lot of stuff we haven't had yet and we just have to keep making a stink for it. I assume Disney is trying to keep us safe from spoilers, and a) a character existing is not a spoiler, and b) it's costing them business. They need to get over themselves and just start putting this stuff out there, day one of the show, because asking your fans to wait 12-18 months - or 2-3 years - is utterly absurd. We may still be on board but if COVID has showed me anything, we're all fragile people and can disappear tomorrow. So be smart, soulless corporations, and take our money as soon as possible.

A tangent before we go, I assume each movie and show has some major player (or players) missing. I'm kind of surprised there's no 3 3/4-inch Holdo, there's no 3 3/4-inch Vest Resistance Leia, almost nobody from The Rise of Skywalker got a figure, Solo did pretty well - but is short on aliens and the Crimson Dawn people, Rogue One also did pretty well. The Bad Batch is missing most of the cast, Rebels is starting to backfill later season main characters, Resistance left a lot of toys on the table, The Acolyte is arguably too new for me to complain, Andor will probably get more with season 2, The Mandalorian keeps going but we never got a 3 3/4-inch The Client or Pelli Motto, and I could go on. Ten years ago I would've considered this to be a lot more abnormal, but now it seems there's too much new content for a toy company to actually flesh out anything. This year alone we've got The Bad Batch, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew likely coming up short due to competing for resources and budget in the toy world. Not not that Hasbro is doing a bad job, any toymaker is going to have to make hard choices and that's assuming Disney is sharing all the "spoiler" characters up front. (Also y'alls need to get over yourselves over characters existing-as-spoilers, but that's another rant.)

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2. What lessons does Hasbro need to learn from the success of GI JOE Classified, or does one line have strengths that can’t carry over to Star Wars?
--Derek

Apples and oranges, I'd say - G.I. Joe Classified Series is a much smaller line, with very few vehicles. A $325 Cobra Rattler with 3 figures and some patches may not be a playset fans have wanted for decades, but it's cheaper and its collectors probably don't have multiple storage units packed with toys already. $300 isn't $400 or $500, either. Different audiences, different scales, different burdens on the customer. I'm curious what we as fans need to learn, because I have to assume the hardcore 6-inch G.I. Joe audience is bigger than the completist group of 3 3/4-inch Star Wars, or at least, it's gotta be younger. Hasbro (under Disney) has consistently not delivered new original trilogy aliens, and I don't know if that's because the reissues don't sell, or because someone did the math and said "not worth it."

Of course, it's also worth noting the G.I. Joe item is going to run for 2 weeks longer than the Cantina and launched during a convention, as scheduled, with a lot of hype and the Cantina just sort of trickled out without as much fuss. Fanfare helps! Hasbro owning the IP probably doesn't hurt. Letting people see it up close at a convention makes a difference too. I assume a parade of nerds and journos seeing the Cantina in person before we had to make a decision would have put a thumb on the scale for more sales. People don't know what they're missing.

A more apt comparison might be a The Black Series item like an X-Wing, an AT-ST, or Darth Vader's TIE Fighter. Fans of the 6-inch line don't have a lot of big-ticket vehicles and certainly not the exciting ones. G.I. Joe also had the benefit of some arguably better, newer choices of figures for its crowdfund while most of what Star Wars offered were new versions of figures you already owned. Did that make a difference? I don't know - Greedo is a choice that both makes total sense for newbies and is completely vexing to the kind of fans who would buy the Cantina, given they may have several different versions of the figure already.

I assume the next thing we get would probably be a Death Star or Star Destroyer for The Vintage Collection or a small (large) vehicle for The Black Series. If Hasbro can right-size the parts count, maybe we can get a lower, more compelling price. The Cantina has over 100 glasses as accessories - do you need them? Will you even take them out of the box if you choose to open the playset? Maybe not, but you're paying for them. The G.I. Joe set was arguably all killer/no filler, as was the Razor Crest, as was the struggled-to-fund Ghost last year. If anything, I'd say the one thing Hasbro should do with its crowdfunding projects is make sure absolutely every figure in the box is genuinely new. Not "a new version of a thing you have," but new - and I think that might be impossible for any original trilogy item in 2024/2025.

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FIN

Another week, another... did we get anything new last week? Comic-Con pre-orders went up, as did a smattering of new Funko and LEGO, with more Hasbro stuff on the horizon. The big question is what are we getting that we don't know about, but the answer is probably "not weird alien guys." I can appreciate that we're finally getting a 3 3/4-inch Cobb Vanth, but I assume it's difficult for a lot of fans to keep up with all scales and the "don't I have that?"-ness of competing action figure lines. Given the current prices, it's a really good question for fans to consider if they're happy with the Boba Fett they have, or if they need the smaller or bigger one too. In a world that tends to ignore playsets, or makes vehicles that don't always fit the figures, I assume many a fan doesn't even know there's a problem. They haven't even had time to open the boxes yet.

Over the past week, Hasbro streamlines supply chain amid slumping physical toy sales has been forwarded a round with things you might know, but it's worth a look anyway. "Less is more" says they're licensing out more of their house brands. "Too much stuff" has been something I've been writing about for a while - the vast quantities of toys you can buy at a discount now may make it hard for anyone but hardcore fans to see any value in a $16.99 Vintage figure. I can toodle over to Ross and not only find one for $3.99, but the variety is often as good as or better than what's in Target. The Yak Face reissue wave never hit Targets or Walmarts here (or possibly at all) - but Ross has them, for four bucks, which is about what they cost in 1984-1985 when the line was dying the first time.

I'm sure all of us have had a little bit of "Do I need all of this?" lately and I know I've been continuing to pare down my non-Star Wars collection a bit, in part to raise funds for new computer equipment. (Or you can sign up to my Patreon at the $1 tier, please and thank you.) (Or my pal Greg's, he's also doing good work.) Some of us have hundreds - or thousands - of toys, with Hasbro cranking out better versions all the time. I've got Mauls upon Mauls, all of which are good for different reasons. Hasbro has multiple really good Optimus Primes this year, including a whole suite from Transformers One, a 40th anniversary line with a toy-specific and 1986-movie specific version, and other reissues of previous Primes just to name a few. Even if you don't have these exact toys, you've got something close, and so do hundreds of thousands of other fans (and their storage spaces.) There is probably a sleeping giant under all of us, that when we need the money (or die) massive collection of mint-condition toys are going to start hitting the market too. Those might be good enough for the average fan, or kid, to buy and say "I don't need the new $17 Maul, I got a good one for $4 and it's vintage!" Also, 1999 is vintage now, we're old.

As a fan it's a weird place to be - there's more stuff than ever, but no one category (movie/team/group) is satisfied. No one scale is satisfied, and nothing seems to be the obvious "collect this if you want everything" format that defaulted to 3 3/4-inch for years. Hot Toys has some things, LEGO has some things, but nobody including Hasbro has everything. I don't know that this is being addressed either, but there's so much stuff from which to choose, I don't know how a new fan can even decide which format to select. Like with the programming, the toys are so plentiful and there's so much competition it makes it easier than ever for fans to say "you know what, I guess I really can't have it all." The time, the space, and the wallet share are tougher to grasp.

Given everything going on right now, I'd say Hasbro has largely done a good job - it'd be nice to have The Stranger, but I don't know if Disney kept his costume (or anything beyond the helmet) under wraps. I'm thrilled to see a Cantina coming, but I really do hope a torrent of alien figures are coming with it next year. The Bad Batch came and went, with season 3 being ignored and 3 3/4-inch also skipping these guys. (I'd settle for Epic Hero Series.) Trying to keep up with demand for Mando, or licensor demands for supporting the new shows, combined with items shipping far after the show airs, there's a lot to keep track of. 20 years ago, we were rolling in Attack of the Clones and Clone Wars leftovers with a mostly-repaint Original Trilogy Collection line hitting before what we all believed would be the last movie ever for Star Wars - and I would bet we all had a lot of those same complaints. "What about that guy?" Well, we got a lot of "that guy"s, but with 3-4 new shows a year we may never catch up.

--Adam Pawlus

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