1. With 3D printing only getting cheaper, do you think there could come a day when Hasbro will sell digital files of their past 3.75” scale figures for people who have the means to make their own?

I’m just about ready to give up on ever seeing ROTS Anakin or Cody again, and I’m sure that other collectors feel the same about various different figures that are unlikely to ever get a retail release again.

What do you think? Impossible?
--Derek

Impossible - if you want the quality to match what Hasbro produces. There are lots of people selling stuff on Etsy and the printer quality isn't there yet. Someone still need to make molds and have people paint these things in order to make something that most of us would consider to be acceptable, and even then they're not super-articulated.

The more time goes on, the more it seems as if there's no way to do this without genuinely disrupting the toy/licensed product/consumer product industry. Someone would need to crank out something lower-quality from a printer like perfect green "Army Men" figures first. I haven't seen any output that I consider to be a high-quality item yet that also would probably be held to toy safety standards for this country. There are people making printable Star Wars items now, but they're unlicensed and they just aren't the real thing. They require a lot of work to finish them, and I would best describe a lot of them like a new garage kit. In the right hands, you can make something incredible - but if you're going to put several hours of work into sanding and finishing a figure, maybe you just can buy one on eBay at a slightly higher price instead.

3D printing has been a real thing for years, but when it comes to collectibles (and toys) I don't think we'll see licensed and approved stuff in the near future - certainly nothing that's comparable to what we're being sold today. A few years ago we saw some attempts at licensed character products in this space and it seems like it was a fad.

The last massive disruption I remember that came at a time where it was easy for the consumer to make unlimited cheap (or free) duplicates was CDs. Napster and file sharing made music distribution easy and fast in an era of CD burners. It dramatically altered the music business. I assume any licensed and approved toy printing business (regardless of the quality of the toy) would need to be a part of some digital rights management (DRM) scheme that limits the user to how many of an item they can print, otherwise what's to stop me from getting the Vlix file and selling them - or giving them away?

There will be more Commander Cody and Anakin figures at some point, but even 3D printing wouldn't let you roll your own super-articulated versions. We haven't even seen perfect simplistic figures yet - the resolution is still a little blocky, "painted" full-color figures appear translucent or waxy so far.

A postscript - the rumor mill around Hasbro Pulse and HasLab mentioned experimenting in other techniques in action figure production several years ago, beyond just crowdfunding. Alternative manufacturing techniques were whispered about, but I was never able to confirm if things like "let's try US manufacturing" or "hey maybe we should print on demand" were true as far as creating a whole figure goes. But we did see Hasbro invest a lot of resources in marketing the Selfie Series figures, a $60 figure with a one-off printed face on it. They may have other experiments in the works, and 3D printing a toy on demand would do wonders to eliminate the need to invest in freight and warehouse space. But the hardware won't be there for a few years, at least, not for the kind of product you all want. It wouldn't survive the rigors of your breathing on it.

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2. Has there been any info on new Mission Fleet? I enjoy the line but seeing as we've only gotten a few releases here and there, sometimes it seems like it could be dropped behind the scenes. I know the N1 is supposed to be coming, but do we know about anything else?
--B127

It is very rare for Hasbro to ever say "we're done" or "we're resting this line," usually things just get quietly muttered about and swept under the rug. That appears to be what's happening with Mission Fleet - as far as I know some things just plain aren't going to make it out.

Generally speaking Hasbro has struggled with kid lines in recent years, I think mostly due to the overall brand statement. In the 1970s-1990s, being Star Wars meant pulling from 3 movies and maybe some comics and games. In 2023, there are hundreds of episodes of Star Wars you can watch, plus dozens of games, maybe a thousand comics, novels, and so forth - so any non-movie-specific wave of product has a huge uphill battle. The Obi-Wan Kenobi stuff never made it out, and while it's not impossible I would say it's incredibly unlikely.

I assume executives want to change a line that isn't working, but nobody really wants to buy deeply into a line that you can't even buy the main cast of a movie or the current TV show. I expect they'll have something new to show in the future, but without some level of specific focus I assume whatever comes next - no matter how good it is - will struggle to find its footing.

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FIN

The first SDCC 2023 exclusive for Star Wars from Hasbro has been revealed - and it's a Krrsantan with a couple of extra accessories at a $13 mark-up over the normal release. Before you say "I'll just cancel one and get the other," keep in mind each has a unique head sculpt. While the SDCC version has more gear, the standard release has a closed-mouth face sculpt that actually seems to look a lot better. At this time, unless I get a freebie, I'll probably skip this one until it goes on sale, at which point I will remember this moment and go "You know, maybe I don't need it." Hasbro asking $40 for one version and $28 for the other, a combined $68 for all the versions of Krrsantan's gear and faces, is a little preposterous. The "basic" version of the figure was a little pricey in the first place, especially considering a Retro version is coming and will likely be $10-$12... and make a lot of us just as happy. Is it the best? No. But at this point I've got so many figures that I don't think the vast majority of these ultra-premium figures are making me any happier than the $7-$8 figures we got back in 2007-2008. They weren't super-articulted, but you got coins, droid parts, and usually "good enough" articulation for them to sit at a bar or pilot a ship. $68 for Complete Santo Power is the sort of thing that makes me look at my collection and start going "you know, I bet I can sell some of this stuff off before the audience ages out of the hobby and maybe put that money into Oh Sees records."

As I get older - and this really kicked off hard in 2005 and was especially intense in 2017 - the big exclusive announce dumps really get me down. Last year we had mountains of 50th Anniversary of Lucasfilm figures that brought new packaging and face deco to figures I paid $20 for, for $28 each, and others I just plain never could get in stores or online which really broke my completism and lead to me just kind of not wanting to deal as much with The Black Series at all. The trooper packs and now Santo for The Vintage Collection don't make me feel great either, and Disney's impossible-to-get debut Pride droid and that Mickey Mouse Chopper aren't helping things. There's always been a little too much work in collecting this stuff, but the premium price tags are making me feel a lot better about skipping more and more toys.

I assume we're entering a sort of endgame as the 1980s kids enter their 40s and the 1970s kids are in their 50s. There's only so much money to go around as retirement, kids, and dubious economic outlooks have everybody wondering what's next. A SAG strike joining the WGA strike means there won't be much new stuff shot for us to watch next year either, and I don't think I'm saying anything too extreme when franchise fatigue starts to set in. (I'm shocked both Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi got "best series" Emmy noms, though.) Secret Invasion started off slow enough that I didn't want to watch it and the rumors about Echo are hard to decipher as being true Hollywood facts or the kind of nonsense a certain kind of fan might make up when there's something about the star of a show that they don't like. But the plan to dump the entire series on one day in November certainly makes it sound like there's not much faith in it, and it doesn't seem like any new Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, or other thing is really getting a lot of love in the action figure world. TMNT seems to be doing OK, though. And good for them, they've got a kid audience, excellent prices, and what seems to be one of the best-quality action figure toys running right now. But I digress.

If everybody isn't trying to extract whatever value they can out of their IP library while an audience still cares, I'd be surprised. But hey, Comic-Con is next week. I'd say "maybe we'll have something new to look forward to" but potential boycotts and a lack of interesting takes on old franchises (or new ones) makes me think that this time next year, rather than looking toward the stars, I will once again be joining Mikey Day in asking if it is, in fact, cake.

--Adam Pawlus

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