1. So just before the ghost was announced as the haslab someone pranked the internet with a photo of an endor playset. Now I was pretty convinced it was going to be the ghost and am happy about the ghost, but for a minute that got me thinking: Endor could be amazing. Two giant trees with some ability to customize and make an even bigger village if you bought two sets. I bought two of the throne rooms so it’s evidence people will spend the cash. There could be some extra pieces that encourage people to buy two. The real gem with Endor would be how many figures it could display. The ghost takes up a lot of space without holding a ton of figures. Endor could hold a ton. Then they could do a pack of repainted Ewoks to help populate. Troop builder set with Endor soldier etc.

There may be a lot of money in Ewok figures still, were Hasbro interested. We haven't gotten many lately - Kenner-deco versions of the figures, or the cardback photos, would vary slightly from existing releases. It might be a fun way to try something to expand the line and keep familiar-to-some names in circulation too.

The cantina could work in a similar way. It could hold a ton of figures we already have. They could include 4 figures as the tiers and they could be the original 4 alien costumes done in modern sculpts on vintage cards. Announce a couple of 4 packs, with some resculpts (Wuher, bosheck , tonnika sisters) (hammerhead, labria, the other duros, the guy in bossk’s suit with a helmet.
--Michael

I'm guessing the future for mass retail (or collector retail) playsets will remain the $50 mini things with a single figure - but after Boba Fett's Throne Room I'd really love to see more items like that. They're expensive, but they scratch an itch and make me feel like sticking around the last decade was worth it. $200-$250 is a drop in the bucket compared to what we're spending on figures now, and a new playset is so much more rewarding than reissues of old figures with new paint for $17.

While a 3 3/4-inch scale Endor could be amazing, it's also a set that might be better for fans to make themselves. The original Ewok Village doesn't have a lot of Star Wars-specific elements other than the spit on which to roast Han or the net, and even those aren't exactly original creations. Fans with a 3D printer, or on Kickstarter, could probably make a tree village that would be robust and scalable without needing to wait for any sort of license approval. A tree house playset is nothing that's necessarily specific to Star Wars, and I assume Hasbro will never deliver one due to the 1990s aversion to Ewoks from Generation X at the time. We got the bunker - I assume that's where it ends.

Hasbro previously did give us a smaller, modular Cantina in sections over several years from 2002 to about 2008 as accessories with $7-$10 figures. Bar sections were included with some figures complete with stools, curved sections were sold later, and there were even Disney Parks-exclusive Cantina Bandstands. We never fully got it built out with things like the booths, walls, or stairs, and I assume we'd need to see a more fully-realized HasLab playset or something like a $200 central piece where other, more expensive sets build it up over time. We're also probably never going to see official Tonnika Sisters given the rumblings about unmasked human figures and various likeness contracts I've heard since Disney, but things can change. I'd love to see a bigger one, and let's be honest - time is running out for some of this stuff as fans get older and their money has to go to other things. I'd love to see Hasbro shift gears to higher-end playsets bundled with figures because I don't think a lot of us are currently looking at The Black Series as a satisfying experience. Figures are nice, but without vehicles, playsets, or other interactive elements, it's all clutter.

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2. Is that it?
--You

That's it! I have a work trip and only had the one question, so send in your queries for next time and future week's installments. And maybe check out Ross or Ollie's for cheap stuff, it's certainly a good season for surprise 70% off toys there.

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FIN

It's a weird time to be a fan of Star Wars. I'm not sure that Ahsoka had the impact one might hope, but at least figures are starting to make the rounds and hopefully will keep fans interested until the next thing comes out - Skeleton Crew. Which, as of now, I don't necessarily expect to be soon. We've also got final seasons of Andor and The Bad Batch on the horizon, and hopefully The Acolyte. And not much else - a lot of the upcoming stuff as streaming goes seems to be swept under the rug, with Lando becoming a movie and the A Droid Story movie probably having been quietly canceled. I have nothing to base this on other than we've gone three years without an update. There is Young Jedi Adventures though, and I'm not entirely sure how that's playing out just yet.

New figures are starting to hit stores, so you might see The Vintage Collection Cad Bane showing up alongside some other new releases. That's good! Prices are still on the high side and the line doesn't seem terribly cohesive, with stuff getting marked down quickly across the board for a lot of "collector" brands beyond just Star Wars. It can be exciting for fans but I don't know how it bodes for the future of this kind of stuff - honestly, I'm kind of surprised there's still an adult fan market for so many of these toy brands. There will always be some of us, but to the extent that it still exists sometimes feels precarious without more of a push to a new generation of figure fans for when we're all done. The LEGO kids should be fine, though.

I'm mostly just happy we've still got a few batches of The Retro Collection on the horizon, and soon. A Return of the Jedi set with Mon Mothma and Yak Face is due to ship in weeks. That's amazing. A set for The Phantom Menace is coming next year, but has yet to be fully revealed. Two waves - one for The Book of Boba Fett and another for Ahsoka - are expected in a few months. While 2023 has been a little slow for the Kenner format, there's so much coming up that it's hard to not be incredibly excited to get something like 14 all-new figures in the next three or four months. Possibly more, depending on when Maul and friends are revealed or ship. The only thing that could be more fun would be, well, more. And some vehicles. Some higher-priced items like that could be pretty exciting, particularly if it means toy features and other fun things.

Also exciting, the Ewoks cartoon Wicket and Kneesaa figures are shipping from some stores if you pre-ordered. Are they worth the asking price? Probably not - but for a new coin and a season one deco Wicket, well, I'm goofy about that stuff. I can't not be excited for any new flavors of things I loved in the 1980s, particularly since we get precious few new items like this. I hope it keeps going - Logray and some Duloks would be a delight. Even through these are just repaints, I'll take repaints to keep away the memory hole-ing of Saturday Morning cartoons.

As to 2024? I'm really not sure what to expect. At some point they should be making a new movie, announcing a new show, or generally giving us a reason to be super excited about the next big thing. Still, it's kind of amazing that the whole revival line will have been running for a whopping 30 years next year, with more or less nonstop figures and occasional spurts of vehicles. I can barely believe it, until I look around and go "Oh yeah, that's what 30 years of this looks like." I have no idea how long the license will run for at Hasbro, or how long until Disney looks at it all and says "let's rest it for a few years," but at least we sometimes still get a new Jabba thug or two. Sure it took ten years or more since the last new ones... but it's something. And next year we hopefully get a giant The Ghost and maybe something else new, so even though things do seem oddly slower (or at least less new), there's a lot that can still be made. Or a little. Some. A bit.

--Adam Pawlus

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