1. I was going to write some crafty question about Hasbro's belief in the Mandalorian movie. But, I went looking through their product announcements. And, it seems various Star Wars segments are getting roughly the same love. Maybe EP1 to EP3 getting a bit more than the others. If you can speak to it, are there more Mandalorian movie product announcements in the pipeline?
--Bob

Since Disney took over Marvel and Lucasfilm, we've been seeing a difference in how things get released. Back in the '00s, it was a lot more "theater waves" and "home video waves." Now it's "whatever, whenever" but there tends to be a reserved second wave of "spoiler figures" now that cameo characters are increasingly a big part of making the audience clap like a circus seal. I would count on there being additional The Mandalorian and Grogu toy product, because that's what we've been seeing with Fantastic Four: First Steps, Deadpool & Wolverine, and other movies. Heck, we're still seeing a trickle out of a lot of non-sequel-trilogy Disney+ offerings here and there.

But, be realistic. No new movie is getting a big shot of stuff any more and this pretty insignificant line hasn't done much to shake fans out of any indifference. If we get 10 or 20 figures for a movie, thanks to the resources being spread so thin against a seemingly endless garden hose of movies/TV/games to watch, that's pretty amazing. Hasbro will have more product to show after the movie, I'm sure.

But what? And when? Well, pay attention to sites like this one. You probably won't be completely disappointed.

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2. You answer alot of questions asked by your readers about the status of the hobby in relation to Star Wars (Vintage, Black Series, etc). What is your overall opinion of the job Hasbro/Lucasfilm is doing? Would you give it a letter grade?
--Jeremiah

Given Hasbro is trying to stretch itself to cover dozens of movies, games, and comics while trying to please unreasonable fan demands and probably equally unreasonable studio demands, across at least four active figure scales, I'd give it a C for 2026 so far, including pre-orders. The fact that there's anything worth buying is a small miracle, but I think they should take a lesson from the 1999-2005 prequel era and focus on one big event every 2-3 years.  Lucasfilm's entire line - not just Hasbro - for 2026 should be focused almost exclusively on The Mandalorian and Grogu (and its TV show.) By not doing this, it seems no company has a lot of faith in what is coming up. I have very low expectations for 2027 for the 50th because 2017 was just a dismal 40th, so a line twice as good as that isn't going to be all that hard to do. Further, they're going to have to share time with whatever they do for Starfighter, which I assume is going to be incredibly mid. That's no commentary on the talent, I just think Star Wars is hesitant to create something fresh and new when recycling a lot of the same beats has been a big part of the business for so long.

From where I sit, an A-tier line is about 50% "any fan would be happy to own this item" and 50% "this is weird, but recognizable and fresh, and connects to something people already enjoy and want to expand." So much of the 6-inch line is made of droid/trooper repaints from video games. Even The Mandalorian and Grogu line presently has literally one all-new, never-before-made character or trooper in The Black Series for a movie release. More are undoubtedly coming later, but you can't expect fans to have faith in a line that doesn't have a lot to offer that doesn't look like a remix of a figure you already own. I know Hasbro has mentioned fans aren't as sweet on it as they used to be, but the product line says it all. It's boring right now. Good things are on the way, but the months leading up to a new movie should be a veritable celebration.

Hasbro Star Wars has probably been running at a B or a C since the reintroduction of The Vintage Collection in 2018, after Solo: A Star Wars Story was (for all intents and purposes) the last new 3 3/4-inch kiddo line. The 2019 3 3/4-inch line was a D (the canister repacks and gold figures were rotten) and The Rise of Skywalker line follows that old "it's terrible, and such small portions" joke. There's no reason to bring up the Celebrate the Saga 4-packs. It's been kind of dreary in as big picture sense, but there have been several very bright spots. They're just far and few between, and the Big Picture line has been spending far, far too much time in Ross.   But, we're also getting a couple of nice aliens this year finally, and we got a Barge a few years ago, it's just not the level of bimonthly engagement fans should be getting.

You can't look at any entire year and not see at least one thing you like. It's a far cry from years where nearly everything was new or fresh enough to warrant the upgrade. The Black Series started strong, so doing new molds (or remolds/repaints) of existing characters is just dull to me. (And Dagan Gera, twice, is just a very poor decision. I'd say "no shade" but some shade, whoever made that call made a bad call.) The Vintage Collection mutated in a direction I don't personally love - I want toys, not Hasbro mid-priced collectibles. I want figures priced reasonably that can fit in ships, not tiny replicas I can pose (or leave carded) and not enjoy playing with. ActionVerse seems too narrow to appeal to its core audience, but we'll see - I have no reason to collect any action figure line with under 10 dudes (and zero new dudes) in it. I don't imagine kids will jump on it, because if they have a Grogu or a Mando or a Vader or a Stormtrooper at home, why get another one at a different size? I assume that line may do OK for Marvel but should be dead for Star Wars by the end of 2027.

So yeah, let's give the whole thing a C. (As in, 70% decent.) The execution is generally good - but looking at recent arrivals and recent pre-orders, it's very samey. I'm excited to get a Chalmun and an Arleil Schous. I'm excited for The Retro Collection set coming to Target. But Hasbro has yet to show me something for The Mandalorian and Grogu 3 3/4-inch toys that seems exciting, the kid line is just the wrong scale, and I don't know that I've seen any pipeline reveals for 2026 that make me excited. Every all-new item is crafted very well - that new General Veers? Amazing. I'm just not excited to get yet another General Veers/AT-AT Driver, even if it's perfect, because I have a few perfectly good ones already and that's the challenge to winning over my enthusiasm. Zero waves have been "all new guys" this year, and you can't get an "A" for repacks of 2025 product alongside a couple new guys.

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FIN

If you're not hitting Ross, I have semi-good news. The Acolyte set is being dumped for $19.99, assuming you like Kenner-esque The Retro Collection figures, this is pretty fantastic. If you like the show (or not), it's $3.33 a head with some cool robes and lightsabers... and the non-Jedi Aniseya characters all seem to fit real well into other dioramas and scenarios. I admit, Sol and Jecki and Yord are slightly less useful or interesting, but on the whole Jedi are kind of a drag. But Osha? Could fit in with Rebels or dang near anywhere. Mae? Space ninja, could fit in a Cantina or Jabba's Palace. Mother Aniseya's unique outfit could fit in pretty much anywhere. I wouldn't build out a High Republic diorama thing only because, well, there's not much to be had there.

Maul: Shadow Lord is on. I watched the first two episodes last week, and the next two aren't live as I post this. Measuring it against the metric of "is it as good as an average comic book?" I'm inclined to say "maybe," mostly because it's really heavy on exposition. Reviews are positive - but few - which tells me most outlets flat-out didn't want to put reporters on that beat. That's not too unusual as a TV show ages, and you could make a pretty good argument for this being something like season 11 of The Clone Wars. I felt the first two episodes felt a lot like a mix of "this could be opening crawl" and "this could also be a video game," but that's not abnormal in the streaming era. TV shows tend to give way too much backstory and not enough "weekly adventure story," which may make me a nostalgic unsophisticated cave person but I can live with that.

A Maul show is a lot like a Boba Fett show. And as I wrote that short sentence I realized "wait, it really is" as both have popular, cool-looking characters from big big movies that didn't have a lot of dialogue, who sell a lot of merch and have big fans, starring in new shows where they leave their old jobs to become crime bosses despite previously dying on-screen. I have to wonder if this was an intentional formula being deployed or just a weird coincidence.

Modern Disney is pretty good about converting characters into icons, for good or ill, which means that we're probably not going to get anything that changes up your perception of who either guy is. In The Phantom Menace, Maul's a man of few words and many stabbings. He wants revenge. He looks cool. Presumably Disney won't want to make him a good guy (in this particular story) or have him dabble with giving the Light Side a shot, or saving orphans, or whatever - so he can keep being who he is in the public imagination. I assume this comes from a very mercenary place after Disney sure as heck changed perception of "happily ever after" Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia by systemically killing off all three while for some reason also reducing their product output. There were no The Rise of Skywalker Leia toys out of Hasbro. That was weird. But I digress.

So, Maul. I was thinking it was silly they're burning off two episodes weekly, but now I kind of get it. Not much happens in those first two, and stretching it out over 2-3 months might lose the audience. Hopefully I'm proven dead wrong as the show goes on, because I'm going to watch it. But I do assume we're (or at least, I'm) past the point where the level of show-and-toy engagement isn't going to connect with me personally, in part because the toy line is a little too small without much hope to expand.

--Adam Pawlus

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