Question #2: from June 27, 2016:

And a wildly speculative one: Do you think we'll get a new Mon Mothma or Rebel Trooper with Rogue One?
--Shaun

My answer from 2016 With commentary from 2025:

I would probably bet heavily on no Mon Mothma, given how Hasbro treated Princess Leia for The Force Awakens. Her lack of inclusion in her main outfit at all - and her lack of mainline availability - is almost hilarious in its short-sightedness. (I assume this had been done due to some edict from above?) It's the same with Luke. With that in mind, if Hasbro didn't see Leia as worthwhile, I don't think you're going to see a new Mon Mothma in Q4 this year.

After the Resistance Troopers, I am assuming you won't see many Rebel Troopers or if you do they're going to be white. It's possible they'll find a place for them - I can only assume they'll want a familiar counterpart to Stormtroopers, but maybe they'll have something new. Between the two, I would not place any bets on Mon Mothma.

We're slated to get a Rebels Leia this Fall, but I'm not exactly bullish in Hasbro's approach to fleshing out women in this toy line unless they're the star of the movie. I'm not saying this as a knock, either - Star Wars is largely a boy-driven line and I doubt the doctor who patched up Chewbacca has a big enough following to warrant a figure just yet. (But maybe in a year or two after repeated home video watches.) Heck, I don't even know her name. Let's look it up. Hold please.

...Ah, here we go. Harter Kalonia. I'd like to see her made too, but my guess is we won't see the likes of her, or Mon Mothma, or those endlessly awesome Takodana aliens until the new movies slow down and this line goes on some sort of collector life support.

For those keeping track at home, we did get new versions of these figures eventually, kind of, sort of. There hasn't yet been a Rogue One-specific Mon Mothma, but we did get a The Retro Collection Return of the Jedi one and also one for Andor in The Black Series. Both may be "close enough" to Rogue One for different reasons, but neither is spot-on.

We have had many reissues and retools for Rebel Fleet Troopers as well, including a The Black Series figure and a few retools of The Vintage Collection. The Retro Collection came out in May. It would have been nice to have had a bigger splash for Rogue One overall, because it is packed with cool figure designs and Hasbro breezed past them rather quickly. Its 10th anniversary is 2026, and I'm not expecting much for it.

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FIN

How is it going? It's going OK. Interestingly, more Q&A does not necessarily bring on more readers. But you knew that, because you're not reading this. We'll be going back to 2 questions a week in September, mostly because this is a lot to keep up with and I'm being sent to opposite ends of the country for toy reasons. That's a time sink.

Taking a step back, Rogue One was a neat toy line and could be a great jumping-off point for a HasLab. It would be swell to get a Tantive IV Blockade Runner HasLab project this year to celebrate 40 years of Kenner not making its prototype and/or delivering next year for Rogue One, but obviously that's not going to happen. Heck, maybe we won't get that new Gunship either, that's on you guys either way.

Hasbro's 2016 Rogue One line was good and probably underproduced. Product started lagging on shelves, so that last wave of figures - you know the one with Fenn Rau and the other Shoretrooper and all the other goodies - was in short supply. (Heck, I still need to open one of my Fenns Rau.) The line only had 5 joints each but the sculpting was good and Hasbro delivered a really great mix given it was a new movie year. Sight-unseen, we got cool aliens like Moroff, Admiral Raddus, Bistan, plus the requisite mean characters. Obviously it wouldn't be enough if you want everybody with super-articulation and also 90 figures, but it was a pretty good collection.

It'll never happen - but I'd love to see Hasbro revisit it for The Retro Collection. Wouldn't Antoc Merrk's X-Wing (with a pilot) be fun? Wouldn't you love to see some Kenner-style Shoretroopers and maybe a rerun of the Death Trooper? Anyway.

It's popular to dunk on Hasbro - and if you'd like to dunk on them for The Last Jedi line I'd like to join you - but I can't really fault what we got for Rogue One. Hasbro even went back and improved some, the newer Krennic is a big improvement. It's a line worth pursuing if you overlooked it at the time, in part because they tend to be quite cheap thanks to some of it getting dumped at 99 Cents Only Store... which also no longer exists.

--Adam Pawlus

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