Star Wars Mission Fleet! Rising plastic costs have been a strike against good toy vehicles since the 1980s, with Hasbro having to find clever or different ways to make smaller or different ships for your figures. In 2020, the next attempt is Mission Fleet - a series-spanning line with original trilogy, prequel, and TV-based ships. There don't seem to be any Disney-era movie items in here, it's just Lucasfilm-era stuff and The Mandalorian. It's neat.

If you go to a good site, they'll no doubt put together great galleries with insightful, useful commentary - but since I was unable to squeeze in most of the areas where the good collector stuff was, we don't have pictures of everything.  I'm working on galleries now of some nifty new toys and we also have a text dump of my tweets from the Hasbro Media Day presentation.

Highlights: Walmart has retro Kenner for The Empire Strikes Back, pretty much a lot of it all leaked early, The Vintage Collection showed 2 figures (one reissue, one resculpt), and while there's a lot of interesting product - in every definition of the word - long-time collectors are unlikely to be feeling that this is Their year, even if it's an diverse batch of stuff. 

Ad: In stock now - Star Wars The Vintage Collection Skiff Vehicle - Exclusive! Hasbro doesn't do a lot of new mold vintage ships, but you can get this one right now.

In stock while supplies last.

Editorial comment - I (Adam) just opened mine and put it together - it's great.

Playsets! Vehicles! Reissues! Retools!  Hasbro takes you on a rollercoaster of love for the first 30 minutes of Return of the Jedi in The Vintage Collection this year. Exclusives are coming - some presoldout out before the official announcement - so buckle up for a fascinating and frustrating year!

Disney theme parks have been selling an extra large $100 Sandcrawler, and now it's on ShopDisney.com.   It's been popping on and off the web site, but it's there now.   Check site for special offers, like free shipping.   It's compatible with 3 3/4-inch Hasbro figures, and looks like it has two figures loosely copied from previous  Hasbro designs.  (Mine isn't here yet.) If you're in the market for a big vehicle and the Sail Barge is too long to wait for, go get one today.

UPDATE: The item was backed with 8,840 Sail Barges sold, over the 5,000 goal.

HasLab's Star Wars Sail Barge now has over 7,600 supporters.  Obviously some must be doubling up, but that ain't bad - ends in just under 12 hours.   For those who haven't been following along at home, the vehicle includes a Yak Face on a Power of the Force cardback (seemingly with a slightly different image and Canadian-style layout) and needed 5,000 people to buy it for Hasbro to start production.   It's $499.99 plus applicable tax, and currently only ships to the USA and Canada unless you go through a third-party or set up your own freight forwarder.

A surge of support on the HasLab Sail Barge came Wednesday morning after EW.com and StarWars.com posted Check Out New Photos of the Fully-Painted Jabba’s Sail Barge Prototype from Hasbro.   While we all expected to see painted pictures before the end of the funding period, we didn't expect that it might include a bonus.   Now take notes on this part, some fans are unclear and you're going to be one of the smart ones.

Hasbro sent along a note today to let us know that the crowdfunded 3 3/4-inch Jabba the Hutt Sail Barge - which will come in a vintage-style box, no  less - is now open to Canada.

Currently the tally is at 2210 fans plus mine, and you could be up here too.   Historically Canada does about 10% of what the USA does, and given the high prices to ship an item with extreme dimensional weight a lot of each item's price is going to go to getting it to your door.  Of course, it can't make it to your door if you don't sign up here now.

And the rest of the non-toddler stuff!   There are 12-inch figures, a new wave of Micro Force just hit in the last week (and can be seen here), plus there are more lightsabers.  The real surprise to me was a smaller Force Link 2.0-enabled Millennium Falcon which is not figure compatible.

While putzing around Hasbro's showroom, I got a look at the decent - not huge - new Millennium Falcon.  What was interesting was that a lot of it was blocked out - there's a thing between the mandibles that could well be cargo or an escape pod.  The box doesn't specify in its current state, but we do get a look at the ship from oh so many angles.  Packaging, too.  You want to see this.  Read on.

Hasbro to fans - "Put up or shut up."  Well, not quite as bluntly.

Today Hasbro announced HasLab, it's own crowdfunding site. The goal is to do Kickstarter-like runs for ridiculously great toys for ultrafans, and they kicked it off with the most improbable thing in the line's rich history - Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge.  Yes, a 3 3/4-inch Sail Barge.  No, you're not dreaming.

I should be packing, but Hasbro sent along a shot of the most excellent flagship... ship.   Let's let them talk about it while I upload photos and listen to The Ramones albums.

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY 3.75-INCH KESSEL RUN MILLENNIUM FALCON VEHICLE
 (Ages 4 years & up/Approx. Retail Price: $99.99/Available: Spring 2018)
Make the KESSEL RUN in less than 12 parsecs with the MILLENNIUM FALCON! Relive the adventure and imagine flying through every obstacle like ace pilot HAN SOLO with speed and action. Fans will experience flashing lights and sounds as they pretend to race along KESSEL RUN.

I had some time, so I threw up some more prototype pictures of the Landspeeder.  Maybe you didn't see them, maybe you did, but here they are again with more angles.   A panel for The Black Series was rescheduled from the web times, and I caught a livestream of it.  As far as I can tell, there were no product reveals in the stream - so let's gawk over this Landspeeder some more!

So there aren't any more new vehicles on display, but it's worth noting that the Wampa with Luke Skywalker is sized similarly to the recent Probe Droid with Darth Vader and Bala-Tik with Rathtar - and should be in that same assortment later, you lucky so-and-sos.   I'm happy to see so much new stuff from The Empire Strikes Back, and the Wampa looks nice in particular.  New figure 2-packs, including BB-8's dark friend, are there too.

While there's not much here you haven't heard of or seen teased, it's worth a look!  The Vintage Collection is back, and an exploded prototype of the Imperial Hover Tank shows an incredibly high piece count for the vehicle, which is sure to have a price to match.  Snoke is here with his gold bathrobe and slippers, and massive head wound, and missing jaw chunk.  Who does he think he is, Karloff?  Read on for more!