Welcome to 2016! We're back with Q&A and thanks to the secrecy of the film and the toys, we're really not a lot better off today than we were a month ago. We are, however, saying all spoilers are fair game for The Force Awakens from here on out. The Black Series at Walmart - can we expect more Cantina aliens? (Or any?) Deleted toys - what's the deal with those? And expensive figures - should you get excited, or just go with what's cheap?

Don't forget, send in your questions for next week. Read on!

1. Is there a reason to believe that the articulated Wal-Mart exclusive 3 3/4" action figures are not going to continue. I haven't heard of a Wave 4.
From what I've seen these have either flown off the shelves or as often as not... never shown up on shelves...
The non-articulated figures have apparently done pretty well also, so logic tells me that both can succeed together. I just want to see what you say on this.
Part 2:
There were SOOO many new aliens and I'm torn. With a bunch of new movies, there isn't going to be a lull where Hasbro cranks out background characters due to lack of a movie... Seems unlikely we'll get the Bom Vimdin, Mosep Bineed, Lessub Sirln type figures from The Force Awakens.
Would you think this is the case? Even though I'm not a fan of the 5 POA, I think I'd have to buy any new alien that comes out with the idea that it's unlikely that these will get multiple figures any time soon if ever (next 5 years anyway).
--Kevin

We're talking just 3 3/4-inch here.

Right now, pretty much everything form the new movie is hot. As such, you can use it to make any argument you want - if Hasbro wants to keep the simple figures going, they can say "See? We made simpler figures and they all sold. This is what people want." If Walmart wants more as an exclusive, they can say "Hey, these sold pretty great for us, can you make more?" If they're in the pipeline - and I don't know if they are - we could see more at any time. (Heck, I still haven't seen Leia or the Stormtrooper.) If they're not already en route, it could be months - even a year or more - until someone says "Oh shoot, we need to do more of these."

If you're expecting Hasbro to go back and redo all major and minor figures in the super-articulated format, I would suggest a quick dose of checking in with the reality that was The Black Series since the Vintage line ended. We got few - very few - new-to-toys figures and characters. We got a lot of main characters. We received no Cantina aliens of any kind. Hasbro seems to have shifted gears away from collector characters with few exceptions, and well, what should we expect? More main dudes. Maybe dudettes - I don't know if Hasbro is going to get behind Rey in a big way yet.

Both formats can succeed together, if Hasbro and stores decide they want to do this. Usually in business, someone has their mind made up and they use the data to support their conclusions. A good example of this in 1998 was that Kenner told us Expanded Universe figures weren't going to continue because they fared poorly. This is true, from a certain point of view - the three waves made it to very few stores, sold out immediately, but also shipped in the same assortment SKU as the unsold Malakili, EV-9D9, 8D8, and Ugnaughts - the worst pegwarmers in the line at the time. So stores weren't ordering the Expanded Universe figures as much, but it had little to do with those figures - but, also, Kenner was correct in that orders weren't as strong as they could have been. We were correct in that these figures were impossible to find. Nobody was really listening to what the other was saying, because each group had their own perspective and conclusions and terminology in an era where communication wasn't particularly open. Granted, it isn't now, either.

So - the future of this kind of product segmentation is entirely up to Hasbro and a few really big customers like Walmart. They'll make the decisions, based on what they feel is more appropriate. It may be what we want, and it may not be. We're sort of powerless and whatever regime change there may be on the brand - or what the factories need, or what have you - will likely result in shaping the line far more than retail sales. Right now the basic figures are largely gone, so as a product development person you've got enough ammo to make any conclusion you'd care to have.

As far as redoing existing figures go, seriously, not happening without significant movie support. How many Cantina aliens have been redone in the last decade? Very few. Dr. Evazan, Ponda Baba, Garindan, Greedo, Hammerhead/Momaw Nadon, and the various Snaggletooth aliens have seen some love over the years but other than them? Pretty much nobody has been redone in the modern era. Jabba's Palace has seen few refreshes, but many of them haven't been touched since their "modern" debuts in the 1990s - the last new Bib Fortuna is 10 years old, they took a very long time to redo the Gamorrean Guard, and Yak Face still hasn't been retouched. If you're expecting Hasbro to go back and redo anybody who isn't in the new movies, in the short term, I think you're going to be very disappointed.

 

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2. Having seen The Force Awakens, I didn't see Constable Zuvio or Finn's Landspeeder anywhere. Did I blink and miss them? Or, how much of the movie was cut out? I'd heard the original cut was about 2:45, and Disney wanted it cut to squeeze more showings in per day and boost their bottom line. Are we in expanded universe mode already, or will we see these scenes, and figures/vehicles, in a future director's cut on Blu-ray?
--Chris

"Deleted Scene" or "Concept" figures happen for new movies all the time. For The Phantom Menace we saw an R2-D2 with rockets he never had on the big screen and legend has it Ric Olie was originally to have a greater role, hence his figure. Attack of the Clones brought us a double-sabered Dooku as well as early Geonosians, to name a few. Revenge of the Sith handed us Mon Mothma and a few others who were ultimately background aliens at best, plus versions of the likes of Anakin based on different edits of his swordfights. Things change in the editing room, and if you want toys out with (or ahead of) the movie this will continue to happen.

When it comes to Zuvio specifically, I don't believe I saw him - I may have seen the back of his hat, but I'm not sure. Supposedly he and other members of his species were on Jakku, but they didn't make the cut. Finn's Speeder lacks The Force Awakens on the box, like the Assault Walker, so it's possible Hasbro just ran with the concept art or there's another deleted scene we'll find out about later. A vehicle similar to this one appears in some of the recent movie-related publishing and may have been in a deleted scene (I haven't seen all the books yet).

As to "expanded universe" status, right now there's supposedly no such thing. (This is, of course, impossible.) We're very much in a sit-back-and-wait mode until the Blu-Ray hits in the spring, and even then we may be denied some deleted scenes until Disney puts out its ridiculous omnibus of all the movies with whatever stuff they were holding back, if any. We're going to have a lot of fun questions to answer, and unfortunately a lot less time to obsess over them thanks to a new film every 6-12 months until the next decade.

3. Adam , thinking about ordering the 6" star wars medicom mafex figures. Do you have these, if so what are your thoughts? Are they worth the extra $20-30?
--Dan

I have not - but commenters, please chime in below. I've bought a few Revoltechs and Figmas over the years. My general rule of thumb is that expensive figures are generally not worth the extra pricing, quality or no. If you're only going to buy one or two figures, getting the best version makes a lot of sense - if your space is limited and you're only going to buy a single Darth Vader, get the best one. You'd be foolish not to, you can probably afford one very nice figure.

If you're like me, you're a bit more of a collector. If you buy only one figure from a line or a movie, it's because you didn't like it very much compared to other things. With Disney's die-cast metal figures, Hasbro's consumer-grade $20 figures, and Medicom's MAFEX line, you can mix and match or pick your pony. I decided I'm in for Hasbro because it's generally more widely available, has a bigger selection of product, and has a price that seems more or less in line with other similarly sized toys.

People who have MAFEX seem to like them - but hey, I'm not someone who buys 1:6 scale stuff or a lot of (OK, any) prop replicas. I've got some Gentle Giant stuff, I like the stuff I have from Jakks (in case you hadn't guessed), but if you want my opinion I'd just steer you toward the lower priced items so you can afford to buy more stuff. I get about the same amount of joy from a $10 toy as a $60 one - a discovery that was very important for me, and also a little dangerous. On the bright side it's keeping me away from some higher-dollar rarities, but I also picked up some items I maybe didn't really need to own for my own collection. If you go all-in for MAFEX you'll probably love it - but I don't know your finances and tastes.

 

FIN

We're back! A dinosaur's story.

The last few weeks of 2015 were jam-packed with highs and lows, the debris from which is figuratively and literally still strewn about my home and office. New pre-orders are up, new movies are breaking records, and personal stuff is personal. But, hey, it wouldn't be living if it were happy.

I liked the movie. I saw it twice so far, once on opening day, and both times to mostly empty houses. (I hope you enjoyed your expensive 3-D, reserved, stadium seats - because they kept you out of the theater I go to and I didn't have to wait in a single line.) Star Wars has been chasing its own tail on and off since 1983, where Return of the Jedi revisited the Cantina, Yoda Dagobah stuff, and Death Star battle before giving us the fairly original (as in, concealing their inspirations) Ewoks and Droids television projects. With The Phantom Menace the callbacks to the original trilogy were light, but present - and it's a pretty safe bet that "Star Wars movie" will be a phrase uttered with the same derision we're starting to hear when someone spits out "Marvel movie" in a couple of years.

The "controversy" seems fabricated and silly, I don't doubt there are people who have problems with Finn and Rey but I haven't stumbled on to much evidence that either is a drag beyond the 6-inch and 3 3/4-inch Walmart Finn figures seem a little slow to sell.

One thing I found interesting about The Force Awakens after finally watching the Blu-Ray cuts of the original trilogy was editing and framing. The original trilogy were fairly cheap movies - it wasn't uncommon for the cinematographers to get tight close-up shots and very speedy looks at aliens to hide the fact that what you were seeing lacked articulation or may not be terribly big. Jabba was kind of short but somehow gave off being this huge monster. Cantina aliens often had no moving parts - so your eye didn't realize this in the one or two seconds they blinked on the big screen. The new movie is more willing to show the whole creature, giving us generous glances at various new forms of life while most importantly actually giving us plenty of newness. Some of the designs were derived from old concepts, sure - but we got new Star Wars-y creatures rather than new Nikto, Ithorian, and other species we've seen. We actually have new names to learn. Granted, we got a pretty good look at many of them on the big screen but that's not the worst thing. I do feel a certain lack of mystery in many of the sets, which is probably for the best. I think we have a better idea what those spaces feel like.

With very few wipes and (I believe) only a single sequence featuring jump cuts, the movie absolutely does feel different from the Lucas era. It's probably for the best, as the wipes - while part of that DNA - are somewhat distracting. The same is true of certain aliens, as it's hard to just look at them for what they are. When Admiral Ackbar pops up - after apparently not getting a promotion for 30 years - it's impossible not to notice the different uniform and minor modifications to his head. Familiar faces are, at times, distracting - we want to see how Han aged. We want to see how Chewie didn't.

I liked the movie. I won't say it's the most amazing thing I saw in movies over the last year, but it's definitely the most fun I've had with Star Wars in ages and I hope that the next flick - Rogue One come December - is half as good. I have a feeling we as fans are going to suffer numerous complaints from less-informed fans about how this isn't a movie with Rey or Finn or Kylo Ren, much as how I recall numerous complaints that The Phantom Menace wasn't about continuing the original trilogy. Prequels just make people angry. See you next mission.

--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.