Adam's Star Wars Newsletter #006 **************** CONTENTS I. Prologue II. The New Hasbro Reveals III. The New Hasbro Releases IV. New Stories V. Fin **************** I. Prologue A HasLab failed? Well, the second one failed - Cookie Monster didn't make the mark in 2019, despite being a good item for the price. The Black Series Rancor monster wasn't a terrible item, but the $350 price tag was harder to swallow when you realize that you're getting about $100 in stretch goal items that, let's be honest, you may already have in some form. A $250 Rancor-only was more of what I was anticipating. Well, $200 really. After all, Hasbro sells us $200 transforming city robots that stand 24-inches tall - an 18-inch figure for $350 doesn't really stack up and presumably someone got a whiff of Hot Toys money and is trying to cultivate that audience. (I do not blame them.) I've been writing about this a fair amount in Q&A, so be sure to check that out for more rambling on this topic. A lot of new toys are going up for pre-order and showing up in stock lately, so if you missed a pre-order over the summer it might be good to check online again. I missed Crosshair (Imperial) and the Stormtrooper 4-pack, and both showed up at Walmart.com and HasbroPulse.com in the last two weeks, respectively. I still need to get my mitts on those two Vintage Collection ARC Troopers from Walmart, though! As of my writing this we're about one week away from The Book of Boba Fett streaming on Disney+, and I can't say how certain I am about the next movie coming out as planned. Considering how many movies have been smothered before release, it would not stun me if we saw the movies quietly go away - as investments go they're quite risky these days. **************** II. The New Hasbro Reveals Exclusive items denoted below. Follow the following sponsored affiliate links to place pre-orders (we may get a cut of the sales on these affiliate links): Amazon New Star Wars Pre-Orders: https://amzn.to/3l37odz Entertainment Earth New Star Wars Pre-Orders: https://bit.ly/3E0SvBh The Black Series Figures __ Boba Fett (Throne Room, Deluxe) __ Boba Fett (Tython) __ Dr. Evazan __ Fennec Shand __ Imperial Senate Guard (Gaming Greats, GameStop Exclusive) __ Migs Mayfeld (Morak) __ Ponda Baba __ Princess Leia Organa (Yavin IV) The Black Series Figures (Holiday Edition, Exclusives TBD, not officially announced) __ First Order Stormtrooper (Holiday Edition) __ Mandalorian Warrior (Holiday Edition) __ Protocol Droid (Holiday Edition) __ Scout Trooper (Holiday Edition) __ Wookiee (Holiday Edition) The Vintage Collection __ Ahsoka Tano & Grogu (Walmart exclusive) __ ARC Trooper (Big Bad Toy Store exclusive) __ ARC Trooper (Lambent Seeker, shared exclusive) __ ARC Trooper (Umbra Operative, Entertainment Earth exclusive) __ Boba Fett (Deluxe) __ Fennec Shand __ Imperial Stormtrooper (Nevarro Cantina, Walmart exclusive) __ Incinerator Trooper & Grogu (Walmart exclusive) __ The Mandalorian & Grogu (Maldo Kreis, Walmart exclusive) __ Shoretroopers Army Builder Pack (ShopDisney/Pulse Exclusive) Disney Droid Factory __ R5-D33R __ Gift Set (repacks with new scarf piece) R2-H15, R2-H16, R3-H17, R4-H18 **************** III. The New Hasbro Releases The Black Series __ ARC Trooper (Umbra Operative, GameStop exclusive) __ Bib Fortuna __ Boba Fett (Tython) __ Dr. Evazan __ Fennec Shand __ Imperial Stormtrooper (Jedha) __ Migs Mayfeld (Morak) __ Ponda Baba __ Princess Leia Organa (Yavin IV) __ Trapper Wolf (PulseCon) The Black Series Gift Sets __ Cantina Showdown (PulseCon) The Vintage Collection __ C-3PO (Droids, Target exclusive) __ Stormtroopers Army Builder Pack (ShopDisney/Pulse Exclusive) Disney Droid Factory __ R5-D33R __ Holiday Gift Set (reissues with new scarf piece) R2-H15, R2-H16, R3-H17, R4-H18 **************** IV. New Stories The Book of Boba Fett The Disney+ streaming series debuts December 29, making it the last new entry of the year. Rogue Squadron: Movie Delayed Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie was delayed, so said a report on November 8. A number of Star Wars film proojects have been delayed since the Disney takeover, and it's hard to know what is merely delayed or what is quietly just never going to be. Not much was known about this one. Dark Horse Comics Returns to Star Wars Publishing In 2022, the publisher will do an anthology, ongoing stories, and other printed material initially focusing on The High Republic era. It appears they're getting the IDW license - IDW is known for also having Hasbro character comics, which the rumor mill seems to indicate may be leaving IDW soon as well. **************** V. Fin The Book of Boba Fett begins next week - and there's no massive launch this time either! Only a few items are expected to go up, and as far as I know, those pre-orders have already gone live. There will undoubtedly be more items later, but what? And when? I don't know. And I'm OK with this - midnight madness always felt like the worst our hobby had to offer, with lines and people and speculators galore. The pre-order model is a mixed one, and hopefully some day a real store chain will return to focus on toys. (The one new location of Toys R Us is unlikely to be a huge deal in the short term.) There are a lot of fun things to look forward to as the year goes on, and three streaming series sound a lot more exciting than just one movie. Also it means there will be more characters than Hasbro can make as figures, so we can probably forget deep cuts or classic weirdness on a grand scale. If we're lucky we'll get the heavy hitters from each show, eventually, in at least one of the myriad formats. As of Wednesday, New York Toy Fair 2022 is still expected to take place in New York City. As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 rages on, surprisingly few events have been canceled outside New York City so far - last weekend we saw an abrupt halt brought to both Broadway and Saturday Night Live, so it's entirely possible most new toy previews will continue to be on our many personal home screens in the new year. But until then, hopefully your holiday season continues to be merry. See you next time! --Adam ****************