1. Congrats on finally opening your Sail Barge! I have not open mine yet either and I only have one question: Once you open it all up, does it fit back inside the original box?
--Eric

No, but it's close - the sails are too tall, and to fit back in the box you'd have to dismantle the barge or get rid of the giant inserts. The core barge's length does not change with assembly, but it does add some greeblies, feet, and the sails. The sails are intended to be removable for play, but those things were a pain to set up - I wouldn't want to collapse them, personally.

 

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2. Do you think Hasbro honestly believes that a battle droid, peasant Anakin, and Queen Amidala will sell more than a re-release of Shae Vizla, the Endor commando, or any one of Jacen/Jaina Solo or Felucia Shaak Ti?
--Derek

This basically boils down to the Expanded Universe. Disney-era Lucasfilm haven't completely disregarded not-necessarily-canon characters, but they've certainly gotten swept under the rug a bit. Darth Revan and Jaina Solo made the rounds as 6-inch figures, but the love of other characters like Dash Rendar, Delta Squad, Galen "Starkiller" Marek, and countless others may be left waiting for a big fan demand for a rerelease. (That's up to you guys.)

The Endor Commando is likely to see release eventually if the tooling is still good - I would place bets on any of the original 1978-1984 characters and troopers for return engagements - but The Force Unleashed is likely to be a stretch. It's awesome Jon Favreau snuck in the Incinerator Trooper on The Mandalorian, and it's also awesome the "Gaming Greats" series have squirreled in a few 6-inch repaints (and retools) from non-canon sources, but for some reason Hasbro and friends are not nearly as bullish on 3 3/4-inch figures. From where I sit I can tell you 3 3/4-inch interest is down a bunch for many characters - but the high-demand, newly-sculpted guys do pretty darned well. (The Armorer is the Armorer, regardless of size.)

I absolutely think it's worth fans making a fuss over who has really high secondary market prices. It's something I pay attention to when it comes time to have talks about rerunning classic characters. (I'm sorry/you're welcome.) Right now the sheer volume of the 3 3/4-inch line makes it impossible to keep tabs on everything, from secondary market prices to tooling, to what even exists unless you've been along for the ride for the last 25 years. Tooling availability is also a concern when rerunning a toy. A lot of people who are in decision-making places aren't superfans, generally supercollectors don't get jobs working on their favorite toy lines in part because we're kind of eccentric people and also because we generally don't have the other qualifications for the job. As such, the only thing you can do is to raise awareness, to make the forum posts, to be the squeaky wheel. But also know that right now, most of the action is, sadly, 6-inches tall.

3. We all love arming building with our clones.... but at this point, Hasbro has put out so many unique clone figures that even one-of-each collectors will have a sizeable army at their disposal. Given your FOTD columns, do you know how many unique clones Hasbro has released since 2002? How about unique Mandalorians? R2 units?
--Flembar

Due to the various scales, and how people count, I don't. Does Boba Fett count? Jango? Silver or gold figures? Concept figures? Figures with new hats? It's hard to say, especially with all the scales. I know there's over 250 flavors of Clone Trooper, but not exactly precisely how many different strains, or what may constitute as "new" to you.

There are over 200 Astromechs, many of which may be coming from Disney's Droid Factory line. (I count them under the Hasbro umbrella.) Also many of them are R2-D2s.

Mandalorians are a much shorter list. If we're just doing characters, we've got Jodo Kast, Boba Fett, Jango Fett, Concept Boba Fett, Animated Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, Heavy Infantry Mandalorian (Paz Vizla), Sabine Wren, Mandalorian Police Officer, Shae Vizla, the generic Clone Wars Mandalorian Warriors, Jaster Mereel, Pre Vizsla, Mij Gilamar, Rohlan Dyre, Montross, Mandalore, Dred Priest, Fenn Shysa, Rab Bralor, B'arin Apma, Tobbi Dala, Isabet Reau, the Armorer, the Clone Wars Mandalorian Super Commando (Maul's group)... am I forgetting any? Probably. These are split among various scales and styles, with many having multiple armor variations - especially Boba, Jango, and Jodo. There are also a lot of versions left to do from TV - especially the Filloniverse. You could probably do a few very good years worth of figures based on The Clone Wars and Rebels with a focus mostly on Mandalorians and troopers, in whichever scale you choose.

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Be sure you send in your questions for next time. The mailbag is out of on-topic questions, so if you got some, send some in.

Target wisely reran its Star Wars The Black Series Carbonized Collection The Mandalorian Toy Figure - I recommend ordering one, even though it's $5 more than last time. It's a very good looking figure and a (literal) shining example of what this kind of paint does to improve an action figure. Here's my review from last year when I found one at a store.

Sadly, last weekend's Remnant Stormtrooper didn't seem to be available, and I missed the Pulse exclusive Mandalorian Armorer. Pretty much everything else I wanted to get I could order - but those two so far remain elusive. I guess that's what we would call an otherwise good year. (Oh, and the Disney 4-LOM, Droids 5-pack, and the CB-23.) But - other than that? - and the plagues, and the death of my best friend, and now David Prowse, and all the other misery? It could be worse. It could always be worse.

I hope you're checking out The Mandalorian - as always, not going to spoil Friday's installment but it was really good as always. We've seen them lean a little more into the animated galaxy this season, which hopefully bodes well for new toys. With Bo-Katan showing up a couple weeks back, she seems like a good candidate for a figure - be it live action, or whatever it is you call Hasbro's interpretations of animation in The Black Series. Or both! They could sell different versions without much problem.

Looking forward to 2021, I'd say things look good for toys. For movies, I have no idea. I don't assume we'll see the end of theaters but I would love to see Disney consider making Star Wars the Saturday afternoon serial it was always meant to be with weekly streaming releases. It took a few years but CBS managed to do almost 6 months of streaming Star Trek shows ever week - if all goes according to plan this year would have had 33 new installments. We haven't had that many new episodes per year this century. I'd love to see Star Wars offer up something new every other week - right now all we're expecting are Bad Batch and a hypothetical season three of El Mandarino next year... and that sounds pretty good.

I've felt - especially since the prequel era began - that Star Wars tends to do best as a nostalgia property. "Here are toys of things you like" are an easy sell. "Here are stories about characters you like or are similar in time to them", also an easy sell. I cringe at the prospects of this "High Republic" thing, or the ancient "Old Republic" era, because I don't know if I need the Star Wars equivalent of the revolutionary war or an attempt to recapture the lightning in a bottle you only get from a very, very well-received video game that people played for dozens and dozens of hours. We've been very fortunate with three of the four post-prequel small screen projects, and I hope we get to see more stories taking place in the shadows or along the borders of the eras that have proven to be fan-friendly. The Clone Wars blossomed into something great - so did Rebels. The Mandalorian could outstay its welcome, but so far it's the best thing of the post-Lucas era. I'm reasonably excited for the future, and for whatever Lucasfilm's 50th anniversary gets us. Which is probably not Indiana Jones 5 - that's still set for 2022.

--Adam Pawlus

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