1. Any chance that Hasbro has been holding back some Vintage collection reveals until after Rise of Skywalker came out? Now that I've seen the movie, I have suddenly perceived a lot more gaps in my collection.

I have a wishlist for the Mandalorian, too, of course, but you've already told us that what we've seen is all that we're getting. I sure would like a Kuill on Blurgg, though...
--btgoff

I have good news and no news. Things change! And Toy Fair is next month.

In the Disney era, the new movie season ends shortly after the home video release of a new Star Wars movie - but Solo was a pretty solid exception. Since The Rise of Skywalker had what may be the smallest line from any movie to date, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know of much drive for more products yet, and Hasbro has been known to make stuff later. The Force Awakens 6-inch Luke, Leia, and Maz Kanata came out a couple of years late. Crait Luke Skywalker also came out over a year after the movie. If we decide to look at classic movies, we've seen stuff years (and decades) later.

With no new movies in the works, Hasbro has about two and a half full years - if not longer - until the next "Force Friday" launch window. If fans start asking for The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker characters in a big way, odds are Hasbro will see to making a few of them. If not, enjoy your exercises in rereleases and exercises in nostalgia.

Since The Mandalorian kept a lot of things under wraps, I'd be much more hopeful for more toys from that - with fan demand - in time for (or after) season two. An ongoing TV series helps promote toys longer, and in the 1970s it used to be TV shows over movies that got all the attention. Small screen Star Wars is probably going to help the future of figural product, but Hasbro is not super excited about making a ton more of it. So buy the good stuff, make lots of noises about how you're sick of reissues (assuming you are), and don't wait for clearance if you want this stuff to continue. I'll bet you'll get 6-inch for a while, but 3 3/4-inch needs support. The line is kind of a bore due to the items being released, and fans aren't biting. When you see something good, buy it. Pre-order it. Army build.

 

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2. Hooray! I like Star Wars once again. The Rise of Skywalker is great. Do you think we can expect more TVC figures for Poe and Finn?
--Derek

It depends on who is calling the shots now - and that, we don't know. I would anticipate much of 2020 being recycled molds for The Vintage Collection, mostly because that is what they're showing us so far. If the line continues Rise of the Skywalker I'd put my money on main characters, troopers, and the Knights of Ren as that seems to be where Hasbro goes these days. (Main heroes, any villains, masked troopers.)

It would also not surprise me if we never saw any Rise of Skywalker 3 3/4-inch figures again unless they appear in other media, and Hasbro moved to a format of just the main guys in The Vintage Collection with reissues until the old tooling wears out. 3 3/4-inch seems to be suffering from a lack of variety and tiny portions, making it easy for collectors, kids, and even retailers to ignore the series for months at a time.

From where I sit I hope they keep putting new figures from all the movies (even the other four Disney-era pics) in the line, mostly because I still can't believe there's no Bazine Netal or General Leia 3 3/4-inch figures from The Force Awakens. There's also no Hospital Suit Finn, but I'm still amazed we got a Bacta Chamber Luke nearly two decades ago.

FIN

Am I allowed to say I didn't love The Rise of Skywalker all that much yet? There were some neat aliens, but I can't say it was my favorite movie for would-be toy designs.

I guess now we're entering the "controversy" stage, which seems to be a given after every one of these movies since and including The Empire Strikes Back. Contemporary magazine letter columns maligned the non-ending and green Muppet. Really! Return of the Jedi was the fandom whipping boy until the special editions, mostly because of Ewoks and - as Kevin Smith documented - more Muppets, and a number of other critiques. Each subsequent film went through the wringer for different reasons, but that's tradition now.

This week we saw a lengthy Reddit post claiming of an "Abrams Cut" of The Rise of Skywalker exists - which no doubt, does - but that a lot of edits in the alleged 3+ hour cut made for a much better movie. If you're an old fan like me, you no doubt have a relationship with deleted scenes dating back decades. People used to insist the Biggs scenes were shown in theaters, just like people claimed they had rocket-firing Boba Fett action figures like a kid. But that's not the point we're making today. A movie can be saved by good editing, or altered by bad editing, but on the whole the movie is a movie. Snipping out frames of bad effects or poor dialogue does wonders, but at its core the story and characters are still fundamentally - usually - pretty much the same. If you liked it, you might still like it, except now it has enhanced texture; (See: Aliens' alternate cut. Same story, more flavor.) Sure, you can weed out some incompetence, but there's only so much you can do to a gem or a dud.

Going over the lists of changes - a few more quiet moments, some scenes allegedly cut because of international distribution - it's tough to determine if it's legit or not. Any fan of movies can tell you movies have multiple edits and cuts before the final product hits the big screen, and thanks to changes between the merchandising and the final movie edit there's little doubt that something very different was, at one point, intended. But are the allegations true as written? I have no idea - but oh, do I hope a tell-all book of the 2010s at Lucasfilm comes out. With the Disney stewardship of the franchise and the lost Detours series, I assume the stories to be told would be amazing.

The fervor for deleted scenes - what might have been - drove numerous fan pages in the early days of the internet, thanks in part to tantalizing stills from storybooks, trading cards, and pages from scripts, novels, and comics. The thought that more and possibly better Star Wars might exist that we would never see powered tons of clicks, but here we are 43 years after Star Wars and we've never got that alleged supercut of the original film with the girl on Han Solo's lap in the cantina, or Camie and Fixer, or whatever else might have been. I don't have high hopes for this alternate Episode IX seeing the light of day, but I also don't assume it would fundamentally change anyone's opinion. If you liked it, you liked it, if you hated it, you hated it.

But the one thing that's certain, Galaxy of Adventures 5-inch figures are $3-$5 on clearance depending on where you live. So I wouldn't hold out too much hope for a US release of all of those at this point. Also, I hope Hasbro goes back to new 3 3/4-inch figures - new ones do tend to sell! As opposed to reissues, in cans.

Of course, opinions change. Those Ewok movies got a lot more interesting over time once you got past the fact they were low-budget TV flicks, and there are still fans clamoring for an official release of the objectively bad Holiday Special. I'm sure we'll have a lot more to say and learn about the sequels in the coming years, with The Rise of Skywalker being the best Let's Play video game movie ever to get a wide big-screen release.

...one last update, a rumor started going around over the weekend that the 2022 Star Wars movie should kick off a series 400 years before the original trilogy, or as fans might say, "shrug." If true I'm sure the Disney bigwigs are huge on more Jedi running around, but the Jedi were dull characters in the prequels. If they don't plan on making these new heroes weird or fun, it's not like lightsabers and middle-age Yoda are probably going to be enough to re-ignite the kind of excitement Star Wars only gets when it goes away for ten or more years.

--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, and we're down to 2 questions per week until we get overloaded with questions to re-expand back to 3 or more.

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