Star Wars: Is there anything Hasbro won't do?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Over the years, there have been quite a few figures produced by Kenner and Hasbro that didn't quite sell according to expectations. At the same time, a few figures were deemed too obscure or questionable to make, yet a lot of them have happened. One of the slower sellers of the 1990s was Malakili, the Rancor Keeper. Flash forward to August 2008, and Hasbro confirmed a new version of the formerly terrible selling figure was actually in the works for an upcoming assortment. Kenner also said that poor sales of Han Solo (Hoth) and Luke Skywalker (Dagobah) meant new versions were pretty much off the table, yet here we are, with two more Dagobah Lukes and probably close to a half dozen Hoth Hans.
We've also seen Hasbro relax their stance on non-movie and concept-based figures, large vehicles, and environments. Just like a man with focus hitting on the hot receptionist at work, fans have managed to wear Hasbro down. That's why we have Imperial Shuttles, Wuher, and, for some reason or another, BoShek. Just two or three years ago, Hasbro said they didn't want to make a figure of Yarna d'al' Gargan as the character amounted to little more than a space prostitute-- yet here we are, and we've all seen her in stores now. So, after nearly 13 years, what kind of things won't Hasbro do?
5. Klaatu (1983 Kenner costume)
While called Klaatu in 1983, the character now known as Wooof is one of very few figures which have not been made in the 1995-present figure line. (Others include the 1984 Imperial Dignitary Sim Aloo, the 1984 Ewok named Warok, the 1983 Ewok named Lumat, and the original deco of the Power Droid.) For one reason or another, Hasbro has been pretty dodgy about making this one, giving the standard "no plans at this time" response. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but at this point it seems the only reason to not remake the figure is to always make sure there's a few figures on the modern to-do list, or for spite. Could be either way, actually... but it's been so long that it seems unlikely we're going to get one in the short term.
4. Ackmena (Bea Arthur)
The 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is a touchy subject. Some aspects of the CBS television program have wormed their way into the Expanded Universe, like Boba Fett's original design returning in 1985 for the Droids animated series, or Chewbacca's family appearing in the Wookiee Storybook and an issue of Marvel's Star Wars comic series. Other aspects were immediately chucked down the sewer, like all of the musical and comedy talent who appeared on the show. Bea Arthur played Ackmena, the night bartender at the Mos Eisley watering hole from the original film. She sang, she looked like she could kick some butt, but she was one of the goofier aspects of the show. Today, fans have started lobbying for an action figure of her, which Hasbro seems to be laughing off as something of a joke. As such, it could be some time if the company ever decides to do it, but as we've seen "never" generally means "not right now."
3. Owen and Beru Lars (corpses)
Despite dead bodies having some great costumes, Hasbro has been pretty good at maintaining that an inactive body doesn't make for a great figure. With three characters seeing release as Jedi Spirits (Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker) it seems that the term "dead" is relative-- these three are pretty lively for the recently departed. There have also been decapitated figures like a Tusken Raider and Jango Fett as well as the bisectable Darth Maul. The charred remains of Luke Skywalker's guardians have been requested by fans for years, but Hasbro keeps skipping out on them. With the recently released Attack on the Lars Homestead gift set, it seems increasingly unlikely that these will ever appear in plastic. Really, there was no better opportunity to do it.
2. Jar Jar Binks (Episode III costume or Super-Articulated Episode I costume)
Fun fact: Hasbro has not released a new Jar Jar Binks action figure since 2002. Even more surprising, no Jar Jar action figures of any kind have been made by Hasbro since 2002. Aside from a Galactic Heroes figure, the character is pretty much completely off the radar of merchandisers, although who knows if this will change with The Clone Wars. Aside from an oddly statue-ish figure, Hasbro hasn't bothered to make any action figures for this space klutz after Episode I's merchandising juggernaut ended. He hasn't even appeared in Battle Packs or exclusive sets. As such, it would almost seem like the perfect time to release a new one, but since 2002, Hasbro has only released a tiny handful of new products from the first prequel. A new sculpt of Jar Jar seems almost unthinkable, but as mentioned above, we're getting a new Rancor Keeper, so it has to be just a matter of time.
1. Brea and Senni Tonnika (or the Tonnika Sisters)
In the original Star Wars, there are two girls with green spandex costumes and beehive hairdos. In the 1990s, Galoob Toys actually made one of them as a miniature figure in their Action Fleet line, but the figure was removed as the line progressed and Kenner (and later Hasbro) never made a full-size action figure. Having been told "the official story" from actual official sources numerous times, I will say that the stories aren't too consistent, but it seems the big deal is one of the actresses simply won't allow it to happen. It might be a financial block, or just a personal decision to not want a figure made, but apparently it has to do with a likeness rights issue. (An issue, I should add, that has been resolved for all subsequent films.) It's unfortunate, as these characters have actually been highly requested by fans for over a decade now and were frequently made as custom figures back when the line first started. Maybe some day things will work out, as having a figure made means you can sign it, meaning you can get free vacations to sci-fi conventions and fees to sign at said conventions. It's an opportunity in the making!
Based on Hasbro's various denials and about-faces on items, I'm going to say it's a safe bet one or more of these will be in collector hands by the year 2010. Any predictions for the collectors of tomorrow? Leave a comment!
Posted byAdam16bit at 10:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: Action Figures, Editorials, Hasbro
Q&A: Getting Your Clone Legacy On
Monday, August 4, 2008
1. Now that Joker Squad has been reveald, can you tell us if Jes Gistang is a different sculpt from her squad-mates? From the photos it looks like her midsection is lengthened, but what about her, um, 'upper torso'? Any other differences? Thanks!!
--Soja Rinn
As far as I can tell, the arms and torso are the new body parts-- the legs seem to be the same, and, of course, the head is new. Any other differences are likely to be a surprise to me as much as you at this point.
2. The four astromechs that came in the Wal-Mart exclusive Build-A-Droid 2 packs all had background stories (at least a sentence) on their packaging. The four astromechs that were in the Legacy Collection Waves 1 and 2 don't come with backgrounds. Wookieepedia.com doesn't help either with entries like (for R7-Z0):
R7-Z0 was an R7-series astromech droid which was primarily colored white with a black dome and yellow trim.
Do you know the background stories for the four new astromechs?
--David
One of the problems with the droids is after a while, there really isn't a backstory beyond "this was a prop in a popular movie from George Lucas." Anything more than a sentence or two tends to be a stretch, but there are a few tidbits here to share.
R4-D6 is going to be the source of limited fan arguing for a while. According to a lot of sources, the bluish R4 droid is actually R4-I9-- and Hasbro/Lucas got the names wrong. Maybe. It's tough to tell, because official Lucas reference material often conflicts with other Lucas reference material, one of the more recent examples being R2-D1 and R2-D3 who were eventually renamed R2-M5 and R2-C4. So here, you don't have a backstory so much as you do a potential argument.
Meanwhile, R4-J1 really does have a backstory on Wookieepedia, although I haven't actually picked up the book which features him. If anyone wants to sell me your old worthless RPG books for my reference library to check such things, drop me a note.
Meanwhile, R7 droids have very little backstory as of yet. R7-T1 appeared (by name, at least) in a novel. So he was assigned to Luke, and sports quasi R2-D2ish coloring. As far as I can tell, there's no concrete official information on R7-T0.
3. Has Hasbro ever thought of doing an exclusive 4-pack (using some existing sculpts) to create a "denizens of..." series? This [snip] could have 4 random folk from Tatooine or Coruscant or Bespin or Nar Shadda. These would be nameless bystanders/creatures/locals that would fill out some of our diaramas. Maybe there could be a contest where you come up with a story for the individuals. As an avid collector (mostly of the original trilogy) I dream of looking up at my version of Mos Eisley and not knowing a few things about some of those background folk. A little mystery is nice.
--James
I'm told by numerous licensors that an important thing that Lucas' camp considers during the approvals of a product is the story. If you can't put a paragraph on the packaging explaining just who or what it is, they're disinclined to produce it. There are exceptions, as seen in the above question, but this element of story is pretty important. Otherwise, it'd just be any old toy, and not something uniquely Star Wars.
This is sort of why random people from Nar Shaddaa might be a tough sell. What you're asking for is random people from a random planet which many (I dare say most) fans wouldn't recognize as being Star Wars unless you told them. Diorama makers and army builders do buy a lot of figures, but not enough to warrant something this obscure just yet. With The Force Unleashed, Hasbro showed it could throw a bunch of figures at fans with little to no name recognition (and in the case of the apprentice, no name) and still see strong sales. Perhaps it's a compelling design, or the promise of the story to come-- but there were some great designs in there. Where was I?
I wouldn't mind seeing some pop in to sets here and there, as a boxed set, it might be a tough sell. The production size on Hasbro's products don't tend to be as small as, say, Sideshow's, and as such convincing fans to actually buy a box of nameless shlubs is something of a challenge. Obviously there's a decent amount of collectors who will buy anything and everything, but it's not a sizable enough market to justify a set. BoShek may be about as close as we're going to get for a while, but as you can see, Hasbro's focus changes as each tier of characters gets fully exploited. They're going to need new figure fodder some day soon, and this may be a future avenue for toy production. Although I have to say that as a fan, I get kinda depressed to think that my hobby is now being viewed solely as an avenue for someone to crank out new figures that I personally cannot identify or name. I'd like to be able to have some name recognition for these guys.
4. Now that the animated collection is out do you foresee this being a movie thing similar to the Indy stuff or do you see it becoming as large as the legacy or realistic collection is? For me I feel it has a long way to go and I can't wait to see how much of this animated stuff they will produce.
On not such a positive note: I'm having a ton of trouble keeping my animated Grievous standing and ideas other then gluing him to the stand to keep him upright? I actually customized mine to have a peg in one of his feet even stuck to a stand he falls over, any tips would be greatly appreciated
--Chad
Television is (and for a while, was) the go-to place for licensed products. Having a weekly show on the TV is like a commercial that people make an appointment to watch-- if the sales are there, I expect animated and TV-based figures to be equal to or surpass movie product eventually. It may be impossible to reach the size of the "realistic" collection, especially given the amount of molds they have to work with-- unlike the movies, Hasbro is starting from scratch here. We'll be lucky to get 30-40 new molds a year, really.
Animated Grievous doesn't stand very easily-- basically, you're on your own here, with any luck Hasbro will retool the figure with foot holes or more stand-friendly designs.
5. Ref your Q&A comments from the last batch - I agree that the Sarlacc Pit playset is both a build up and a let down. It's nice to see the pit and the skiff, but yea they could have done something else with the figures. Especially since the new collection focuses on ROTJ. Maybe some new guards, at least 1 or 2 to pad the already-released figures.
On the other hand, it is a "playset" of sorts, like people have been begging for for years now. You get the elusive skiff, and the Sarlacc! The same with the Lars' set. You get the homestead playset (sort of) finally. IMHO it's better than nothing, since we've gotten nothing for so long.
Anyway, is this a new direction Hasbro is going to start going, are they testing the waters for an actual full-blown playset someday?
Also what is going to be the price of these things? The Lars set only comes with 3 figures, if I'm correct? The skiff set comes with 5 figures and a vehicle of sorts.
--VirdenBoy69
I don't know if "playset" is really a good term. It's an environment, and it's a set, but I'm not seeing a lot of "play" in there. The line as it stands this year seems have a certain air of experimentation within the 3 3/4-inch brand. Hasbro has developed Unleashed and Transformers to the point where they're happy, but Choppers and other lines went away-- so they have to find other products for collector and fan dollars. Some fans want a $8 figure, and others want big, $50 items. This year, we're getting over $600 worth of what I consider "high end" action figure items-- that is, vehicles and sets priced at $35 or more.
I don't necessarily see an item as "better than nothing." Nothing is OK. We've spent thousands of dollars collecting this stuff, I personally don't mind if they skip a few things here and there. I have little doubt they're testing the waters, but for what, I don't know. A $100-$200 Death Star seems like the grand finale of such a program, but that's going to depend greatly on the reception fans end up giving the high-dollar items this holiday season.
These two new environment packs are going to be about $50-$60 each-- and yeah, the Lars set only has 3 figures and a creature. It's really expensive unless there's something cool hidden under the house, which is entirely possible.
FIN
First up: Figure of the Day. Some said "hey, you missed Saturday and Sunday!" Actually, after nearly 3 years of doing this 7 days a week, I decided to scale back just because it's starting to kill me. This is sort of my after-job job (and doesn't pay well), so I figured a 28% reduction in workload would be a good thing. So for now, it's going to be 5 days a week, so you'll have something to read at work every day. I'm also going to focus on more new stuff, as that has been requested a lot. Why not? May as well make it easy to decide what's worth picking up, after all. So for now, I'll be cranking out 5 FOTDs, 1 Q&A, and who knows what else. Thanks for reading!
Oh, what else is new... oh! I found out that Lucasfilm quietly discontinued pretty much their entire TV catalog of Star Wars titles, and like an idiot, I didn't buy them all at launch. So the Ewok live action films? Out of print. Clone Wars? Gone. Ewoks & Droids are still out there, but are definitely harder to find. I attempted to order Clone Wars Volume 2 and the Ewok adventures from Kmart's web site over the weekend, and let me tell you, that's not a site set up to take your business. I'll keep you posted if anything actually shows up in the mail.
Got questions? I bet you do. Email me with "Q&A" somewhere in the subject line and hopefully I'll get to yours in the next column!
Posted byAdam16bit at 12:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: QandA
Wal-Mart Exclusive Clone Wars 501st Trooper Out Early
Sunday, August 3, 2008
If you can't get enough of the hunt, you may be in luck this weekend. Wal-Mart stores here in California are already selling their exclusive Clone Wars 501st Legion Clone Trooper. We found them mixed in on the pegs with other figures for under $7 a pop, a great price-- unlike another retailer who upcharges for exclusives who shall remain nameless. More pics and impressions to come!
For those keeping track, Hasbro gave a release date of August 15, 2008.
Posted byAdam16bit at 2:21 PM 0 comments
Labels: Action Figures, Broken Street Dates, Exclusives, Hasbro, The Clone Wars (TV), Wal-Mart
Weekend Sales Round-Up: Star Wars Discounts
With The Clone Wars and The Legacy Collection, a lot of stores are running a lot of deals. Here's what you should look out for.
GENERAL
Numerous stores are actually in something of a price war-- the basic figure line started off around $7.99 and a lot of stores are now charging $6.99 or less. Your mileage may vary, but this sort of thing happened during Revenge of the Sith quite a bit.
BEST BUY
No Star Wars deals this week, but a Starship Troopers "Trilogy" DVD set includes an action figure, which may interest all one of the readers of this blog.
ENTERTAINMENT EARTH
Summer blow out sale, just under 90 items on some level of clearance. Includes Republic Elite Forces for $65, Titanium Cylon, Luke, and Darth Maul for $11.55, and other stuff.
KMART
Nothing this week.
TARGET
"Gigantic savings on Star Wars." $16.99 for Galactic Heroes scenes, basic vehicles. $24.99 for the Clone Wars Ultimate Lightsaber. $49.99 for the LEGO Torrent Starfighter. $24.99 for the Clone Trooper Voice Changer. $16.99 for the electronic roleplay blasters. $19.99 Leapster 2 Clone Wars Math game.
TOYS "R" US
Nothing this week.
WAL-MART
Nothing this week.
Posted byAdam16bit at 9:38 AM 0 comments
Labels: Action Figures, Deals, Hasbro, Target, The Clone Wars (TV), The Legacy Collection
Star Wars Build-A-Droid Wave 2: R4-T1 & R7-J1
Saturday, August 2, 2008
A few weeks ago, I looked at the first Legacy collection build-a-droid figures, and how you could switch around all the parts and everything. The second wave is very much like the first, except these have been painted differently and come with different figures.
So far, here's the breakdown as to who comes with which parts. As I've noticed with wave 1, this may change-- Hasbro made it a point so that every case has enough to build 3 astromech droids (or, when the time comes, 2 protocol droids). This means that some figures may come with either of multiple pieces, in addition to multiple figures coming with the same piece. Confused yet? We'll work on a chart to explain it at some point soon.
Here's the current breakdown with the first shipment of these figures:
Dome & center leg: Clone SCUBA Trooper #BD10
Body: IG Lancer Droid #BD13
Left leg: Obi-Wan Kenobi #BD9
Right leg: Clone Trooper #BD16
Packaging real estate being at a premium, Hasbro opted to leave off any information as to who these droids are. The green R4-J1 is one I'm not quite familiar with, although Wookieepedia claims it is some sort of scavenger droid. I guess that works!
Dome & center leg: Quarren Soldier #BD15
Body: Mon Calamari Warrior #BD14
Left leg: Padme Amidala #BD12
Right leg: Saesee Tiin #BD11
According to the Expanded Universe lore, R7-T1 was assigned to Luke Skywalker at some point after Return of the Jedi to replace his aging R2 unit. Luke was also given a new vehicle, and in the end he went back to R2-D2 and his X-wing. So what you have here is a toy which Luke got, played with, and got bored with.
As with before, each figure is designed with four "sockets" on the sides of his body, two on each side. The upper pair is for where the legs normall go, and the lower pair allow you to have some fun by adding additional limbs of your choosing. The sockets are designed to be fully swappable, so if you're an army builder and you end up with a sack of extra parts, you should be able to come up with something rather than just end up with a bag of busted machinery.
They're a lot of fun to mess with, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the whole wave (and especially R7-T1.) To assemble these droids, you'll need to pick up characters from the original Clone Wars series, which is like saying you'll have to eat all your dessert if you want your dessert. I can't say I see a problem with this.
Click here for more exciting images of what kind of parts-swapping you can do with these figures.
Posted byAdam16bit at 10:35 PM 1 comments
Labels: Action Figures, Hasbro, The Legacy Collection
New Star Wars Galactic Heroes Scenes Out Early
While Hasbro said they wouldn't be out until September at their panel, it appears their data was wrong-- things are coming out early! Fortunate fans can expect to see the following at retail right now (as we spotted them at a Target): Darth Vader's TIE Fighter, Escape from Mos Eisley, Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter, and the Geonosis Arena. (No sign yet of the Skiff or Dagobah sets.) Happy hunting!
Posted byAdam16bit at 10:30 PM 0 comments
Labels: Galactic Heroes, Hasbro, The Clone Wars (TV), The Legacy Collection
Star Wars: The Legacy Collection's Saesee Tiin's Lack of a Cape
In the past week, fans have been gifted with a few dozen figures. Between build-a-droids and new sculpts, there's really something for everyone. I was particularly excited about the Clone Wars-themed Legacy Collection wave, based largely on the 2003-2005 animated series. Each figure has a lot of nice little touches, but a few things were left out. Notably missing is Saesee Tiin's cape.
But there you go-- that's what Saesee Tiin would look like if Hasbro sprang the extra penny and included a cape with the figure. I rather like it, and while it's not a perfect match, it's better than what I had before. Which is nothing.
You might be asking "Adam, why didn't you just use a spare Obi-Wan Kenobi cape from the new clone armor release?" Good question. Due to how the cape attaches to the figure, it wouldn't work-- there are two loops which fit around little nubs on Obi-Wan's sculpted torso. The Mandalore cape is just a piece of elastic which fits around the neck. There aren't a lot of brown capes in this figure line, so I would say that, as of today, this is your best bet. I'd also say I fully expect a rerelease of Saesee Tiin in a Battle Pack in the next two years which will include an official, better cape... but I'm just not that patient.
Posted byAdam16bit at 10:16 PM 0 comments
Labels: Action Figures, Hasbro, Playtime, The Legacy Collection
