1. I just found the Young Jedi Adventures figures at Target- they're fun! I like the show (obviously for a younger demographic, but enjoyable anyways) and the toys are fun and honestly a little more articulated (6POA) than I thought they'd be. It seems like an updated Galactic Heroes type line. Do you think we could see this new style expand into other eras/movies/shows? It feels nice having a line in the basic price point again.
--B127

I hope so - and I hope it's a big success. Assuming kids watch the show and don't grow out of it quickly, this is probably the most cohesive Star Wars line in years with a mostly-unified scale plus vehicles and playsets to go with the figures. Hopefully they'll build it out, Spidey and his Amazing Friends did well initially but it seems some stores are already done with it. Hasbro doesn't stick with things for very long, so cross your fingers a new kid line can run alongside some classic franchise thing.

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2. With the amount of product ending up at Ollie's recently, do you believe this is all the "clogged in the pipeline" from during the pandemic arriving that stores just don't want anymore? It appears to an enormous amount of Black Series product, with some Vintage 3 & 3/4" figures? Also, am I crazy, or is a lot of it also "exclusives" that just never made it to stores?
--Jeremiah

A large number of exclusive toys have never been spotted in the wild (as far as I know, mostly Walmart.) That's a story for Hasbro and/or the Walmart buyer to tell, but obviously there are other homes for these products that are happy to sell them with open arms. A large glut of toy product across the board has made it for some stores to order literally anything, even exclusives, given the amount of unsold inventory persists in stores, warehouses, distribution centers, and so on.

What I believe you're seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire toy business - not just our segments - needs a hard reset, or at least a good flushing. Nearly 23 years ago Toys R Us and Kay-Bee got hundreds of thousands of "old" Star Wars products allegedly for pennies on the dollar, resulting in a massive flood that did a good job making kids happy while devaluing the entire 1990s investment class. It's kind of amazing - but there could be some of that happening again.

If Hasbro truly is/was sitting on $600 million of product, with Mattel and other companies with similar quantities, that means there's a lot more to come at Ollie's, Big Lots, 99 Cents Only, Ross, TJX, and anywhere else who are on the speed dials of certain people at Hasbro. Some of it was stores not wanting it due to plenty of other inventory, some of it were companies saying "we need to fill every order" when the secret to the toy business' success is you need to just barely underserve the demand. People want Star Wars because they couldn't get it for decades, and pre-orders or reveals make us want something for months and months. If an item just shows up in stores with no fanfare, nobody will care and if you have too many pre-orders, you might cancel your current ones for next week's exciting reveal.

People are buying less, Hasbro is increasing prices, and nobody seems interested in putting out something that's a little easier on the wallet - even if it means a reduction in articulation. (Those 6-inch figures don't need super-articulated legs when they have a plastic clamshell coat over them. It's a waste of money for us all, but I digress.) For most consumers - the ones that would never read anything I write - a toy is a toy is a toy. If they can get their kid a $6 Marvel Legends figure at Ollies or a $10 Titan Hero Series figure at Walmart, it doesn't matter - the birthday present has been bought and that's a wrap. The massive tidal wave of product still waiting to enter the market will have a chilling effect on sales of brand-new toys, because the clearance stuff is a lot more attractive for people who aren't 20-50-year-old men with jobs buying it for themselves. There are millions of toy customers buying for children who will buy whatever they can find at a fair price - and I expect that's going to dump cold water on collector stuff for at least another year or two. That means more clearances, lower runs, and probably scarcer stuff as things shake out and reach whatever the new normal will be.

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FIN

Depending on how you want to look at it, SDCC was fine. I wasn't able to get in the Hasbro panel (a first) so I'm catching up after the fact, but it seems like while it's not the 3 3/4-inch paradise of 15 years ago, you can still pick out some decent stuff. The Black Series fans are on the hook for a lot of cash given all the holiday figures, the $110 Starkiller set, and the Jabba set, but there's a $500 Ghost (as predicted for the last couple of years) for 3 3/4-inch collectors. Based on how it's worded, the figures appear to be on exclusive cardbacks - which is probably code for "will be in the main line later if they don't make stretch goals." It does not fit with the Rebels Phantom "Shuttle", and I was unable to confirm if it works with existing Rebels 5-jointed figures or theoretical retro figures. (Heck, you've already got an Ahsoka Tano.)

It was a lot more fun when Hasbro just had one scale to push and generally kept everything within the confines of serving a story - even made-up clone concepts looked like off-camera designs that fit in with your other toys. I see the Holiday figures as perfectly nice nostalgia pieces 20 years ago, but when we start getting things like the (admittedly incredibly clever) wooden solider Snowtrooper figure, that's when I pull out the abacus and say "I'm not going to spend $100-$400 on these things." And they seem to be selling - possibly to a wider audience than hardcore collectors would ever do - and that's great. But it also means hardcore collecting is a lot less fun or compelling, and the kind of thing we all need to evaluate every now and again anyway. It doesn't mean we like the stuff any less, but we shouldn't be spending thousands of dollars just to be "complete" either.

Aside from the Ghost on HasLab, the two most fascinating things we saw were from The Retro Collection. The previously leaked Return of the Jedi set with Yak Face and Mon Mothma is a Shop Disney/Hasbro Pulse exclusive, while The Phantom Menace set with all-new Darth Maul, Battle Droid, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala, and Jar Jar Binks is set for Target. For those keeping track, that means there's no "retro" Anakin Skywalker as of yet. I hope they expand the line with at least one more batch of The Phantom Menace figures, because Anakin, Mace Windu, Captain Panaka, Senator Palpatine, C-3PO, and Aurra Sing would all be a pretty awesome set, don't you think?

I assume this means we're probably looking at a transition for The Retro Collection into more boxed sets, which is probably sensible from Hasbro's bean counting perspective (selling 1 $72 box rather than 6 $12 figures looks, on paper, like you're doing more with fewer development resources despite the fact it's the same exact product plus an extra box to design.)

As to the Ghost, it seems as if it is actually bigger than the big Millennium Falcon and seems to have a lot more going on in the interior. The price is comparable to the overpriced Target Galaxy's Edge Millennium Falcon a few years ago, and with any luck it could be fully funded by the middle of the week. It's extremely impressive in person - so is Boba's Palace, also back up for pre-order - and if you have the chance to see it in person, you will want it. So maybe support it right now. The weirdest thing about it is that Chopper isn't a complete droid - which begins to make me wonder if they're going out of their way to not make droids for a reason.

Assuming you no longer feel that absolutely everything Hasbro makes must appeal specifically to you, it's a good year. You have lots of options and if you can let things go, I bet you'll have a much nicer time. --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.

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