Adam's Star Wars Newsletter #003 **************** CONTENTS I. Happy I Am Your Father's Day II. The New Hasbro Announcements III. The New Hasbro Releases IV. Fan Product Spotlight V. Fin **************** I. Happy I Am Your Father's Day Star Wars Celebration has moved! Now it's set to be in Anaheim, CA on May 26-29, 2022, which ties in nicely for the 20th anniversary of Attack of the Clones. Will I be there? Probably not! The roughly biennial marketing blitz was pretty fun when I was younger and less involved in the plastic business, and now that most announcements also show up online I am old and cranky enough to happily pay the shipping to get an exclusive on eBay and skip the flights, hotels, and/or paying for parking. (This will, of course, immediately change if they decide to focus a theme on the 1984-1988 goofball death throes of the franchise on TV and role-playing games. I'd be there in five minutes.) As Star Wars the movie and TV series continues to expand, it's easy to find analogs in things like The Simpsons. People swear by the first few years, but not everybody stuck with it for the long haul, and there's endless debate as to what was better. The fact, of course, is that the best thing is probably what you saw when you were young enough to appreciate it for what it is before being saddled with expectations - and the same is true of conventions. I take great joy in seeing things like Jaxxon and retro Kenner figures, while anybody under 30 probably doesn't care quite as much. That's the fun of spreading out fans over multiple generations - the 10-year old of 1977 is the 54-year-old of 2021, and it's kind of remarkable that so many of us stuck with it for so long. Thankfully, the toys and series on the streaming services keep reaching out to the olds with all kinds of surprised and nods, and now that The Clone Wars kids are getting older they're finding a lot to like too. I don't assume the Resistance kids are going to make much of a splash down the road, but hopefully time will prove me wrong. Or they'll just put Flix and Orka in something else, and I can watch that instead. Your pal, Adam Pawlus **************** II. The New Hasbro Announcements Exclusive items denoted below. You can pre-order most of these from sponsor/employer Entertainment Earth at this link, and we may receive a small percentage of the sale if you buy something: https://bit.ly/35c8Wuh The Black Series 6-Inch Figures __ Antoc Merrick (Target) __ Baze Malbus (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) __ Bodhi Rook (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) __ Captain Cassian Andor (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) __ Chirrut Imwe (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) __ Galen Erso (Target) __ Jyn Erso (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) __ K-2SO (Shared Online Fan Exclusive) Archive Collection __ 501st Legion Clone Trooper __ Darth Revan __ Obi-Wan Kenobi (Revenge of the Sith) __ Princess Leia Organa The Vintage Collection __ Bo-Katan Kryze __ Hoth Rebel Soldier __ Kuiil __ Mythrol Lightsaber Squad figural lightsabers __ The Child __ The Mandalorian Mission Fleet __ Anakin Skywalker BARC Speeder Strike __ Battle Droid Destruction __ Battle in the Badlands set __ Bo-Katan Gauntlet Starfighter Siege __ Clone Commando Clash set __ Grogu's Hover-Pram pack __ Mandalorian Trooper Mayhem on Mandalore __ Outer Rum Run set with The Mandalorian, Grogu, and the Razor Crest __ Outland TIE Fighter Imperial Assault __ Tech AT-RT Ambush **************** III. The New Hasbro Releases The Black Series 6-Inch Figures Shared Exclusive Publishing Collection __ Carnor Jax (actually Kir Kanos) __ Darth Maul (Sith Apprentice) __ Jaxxon __ Luke Skywalker with Ysalamiri The Clone Wars (Lucasfilm 50th Anniversary Collection) __ Anakin Skywalker (Season 1) __ ARC Trooper Echo __ Clone Pilot Hawk __ Obi-Wan Kenobi (Season 1) Theme Park Exclusives (Disney, not Hasbro) __ R2-RNBW **************** IV. Fan Product Spotlight While not news as such, I picked up some backdrops from Cardboard Galaxy. (They're no longer being sold, but other ones are.) I got a Retro Nevarro street-inspired playset, which looks a lot like the chipboard dioramas Kenner sold at Sears as exclusives in the 1970s and early 1980s. The one I got isn't particularly thick, but it's nice and the graphic artistry is good. https://www.ebay.com/itm/184799116557 If he makes these again - and I hope he does - you should note that it's sized specifically to fit in an IKEA DETOLF display cabinet. Since it's not particularly sturdy, that's probably an ideal place to keep it so you don't wrinkle or fold it. I'm hoping he does more to fit with any new Kenner-style releases, or failing that, maybe something that looks like the planets Ingo or Annoo. I always got a kick out of the customs line. **************** V. Fin Believe it or not, I was expecting some other news that didn't make it. For example, a release date for Star Wars: Visions, the Japanese animation anthology show that I am beginning to wonder about. Star Wars projects have a habit of getting swept quietly under the rug and rarely do you see press releases announcing something isn't going to happen - your Josh Trank projects, your Rangers of the New Republic, your Detours. There aren't many big events I can recall in the near future - so I'm not holding my breath for a D23, Investor Day, Celebration, or probably even SDCC announcements. Hopefully it'll just pop up, but I'm not hearing any whispers of books or t-shirts or toys as of yet. (This, of course, means nothing in the era of figures like Chewbacca getting code names like Alien Sidekick. Anything can happen!) Now that it's effectively summer, we have a pretty decent docket of stuff to watch. I'm still slowly savoring the old Ewoks cartoon, The Bad Batch continues to stream weekly, and the only thing we really have on our calendars is The Book of Boba Fett in December. There's plenty of time to sneak a cartoon in there, but we also have ten more weeks of The Bad Batch. Presumably we're not going to see Visions start before the middle of August at the absolute earliest, assuming it is still A Thing. --Adam ****************