1. Adam, after so many years collecting, what items did you:

- acquire with great difficulty
- consider your sentimental favorites
- regret purchasing for any particular reason
--Derek

"Great difficulty" is hard to say - ultimately I wouldn't say anything in the internet era is difficult so much as expensive. Sometimes I had to wait, or to ask around, but on the whole there's very little you can't get as long as you have the money or patience. There are some items I own which are rare to the point I don't know if any evidence exists of them on the internet, but they cost me $1, and I found them by accident. There are some exclusive products I've developed with various manufacturers (from "make a thing like this" to "use this mold, here are reference colors, and so on") but even that isn't terribly difficult. Once someone is agreeable to engaging in any kind of transaction, you can usually get what you want if you're willing to suck it up and pay whatever it costs. I've had some challenges with Disney's build-a-droid bins, but employees or friends have helped on more than one occasion. If something sells out and I'm not willing to pay eBay's price, well, there are some items I still don't have. I'd love an R2-RNBW but I'm guessing that is unlikely to happen until the market plummets. I used to have to get old Kenner stuff from garage sales, antique shows, and occasional networking - which is hard when you're 10 and there's no collector community - but I learned that you can get a lot if you just keep asking people who want to take your allowance.

In 1989, $60 for a Power of the Force Imperial Sniper mini-rig seemed crazy to me - but I got one around 1998 for $60. The one item that has remained the most difficult for me to get is - say it with me now - Vlix. Every time I come close to being able to afford one, the price shoots up. When they were under $1,000, I didn't have $1,000. I've got $1,000 now, but they're $10,000-$20,000 and when I ask about getting them made as an exclusive, obviously, there has been no Vlix produced. I assume this is one of those things Hasbro might be keeping in their back pocket as a holy grail, last-item-of-the-license kind of a thing. I don't want to come off as impatient, but it would be nice to get a toy I wanted when I was 6 before I turn 60.

"Sentimental favorites"? I've got a slightly worn Boba Fett on my desk I got around 1988 by going through a friend's older brother's friend, which I got with an IG-88 and his X-Wing, for a grand total of $12. (Worth it.) My old Droids figures mean a lot to me, and probably the stuff I got as a kid would be the stuff I'd hopefully never have to sell. I've got a soft spot for the Episode I AAT - a scarce but not rare release - because Mark Moudreaux walked me through the sculpting work and features at a sci-fi con in Plano, TX in 2000 while I helped set up the Hasbro display with the final Episode I items and sample packaged Power of the Jedi stuff.

"Regret purchasing" might be difficult to answer but I've lost interest in non-3 3/4-inch Star Wars. Star Wars was super scarce for most of my younger years - so you grabbed what you could find. A postcard would be a rare surprise, or a book, or Bend-Ems. If I knew it would grow to over 3,000 figures, I'd have been more selective and would never have bought figures beyond 3 3/4-inch scale stuff. The 12-inch and 6-inch figures are all really nice, but I don't think anybody ever assumed the franchise would go this long. I have to believe a lot of us are giving some thought to if things are worth continuing after putting in thousands of dollars and hours. I also assume I might have regretted the HasLab Gunship I backed at the last minute, but we'll see how that shakes out. It's definitely an "I don't need this, I have all the other releases, so why did I buy it?" item - but it'll probably be awesome when I get it in-hand.

My old Kenner stuff and The Retro Collection figures will be the very last things I ever sell, or die with, because they make me irrationally happy and are fun. I don't have to fuss with finicky ankle joints and balancing anything.

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2. How did The Mandalorian and Grogu do for weekend #2?
--Nobody, but I wanted to talk about it and nobody wrote in with more questions - so here it is

The fact that we're in week #2 of a movie and nobody is writing in questions means my relevance is probably about ten years past its prime (true) and that people don't seem especially interested (also true.) Box Office Mojo has it at $3 - it only brought in an estimated $25 million, which is pretty bad for a major franchise entry that just ten years ago was pumping out some of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

But it might not be a catastrophe, for a variety of reasons.

1. So far it has made $246,000,000 worldwide. That's a lot of money for a movie with a $160,000,000 budget, and it's a lot more money than Disney would have raked in by making another season of the show for Disney+. Disney+ subscribers can still wait and see the show, but Disney got to expand their take significantly by moving it to the big screen.

2. A bunch of stores have big in-aisle displays for Star Wars right now. Is stuff flying off the shelves? No. Does any of it look new? Not most of it - I found this movie release so dull I'm currently obsessing over this completely nuts Operation Recall toy line. (In short: some guy hired a bunch of ex-Hasbro G.I. Joe guys to make new 3 3/4-inch o-ring figures more or less the old-fashioned way and the results are very enticing!) But I digress - the unsold figures are there, reminding people about the new movie and maybe they'll stream it later this year. It's marketing.

3. Starfighter is coming next year and from the sound of things, Disney had moved on to it before this one even opened. They still see money in Star Wars for 2027 but I haven't even heard rumors of any of the backburner projects coming out in 2028, or 2029, or 2030. At least 2027 sounds like it's going to be entertaining.

Very few franchises are relevant in a big way around their 50th birthday. G.I. Joe started in 1964, and in 2014 it was pretty much circling the drain with repaint exclusives and fan club stuff. Star Trek started in 1966, and in 2016 we got Star Trek Beyond. (Admittedly, a fun movie.) On the other hand, Batman started in 1939 and in 1989 we got that Tim Burton movie which changed its fortunes for the modern era. We got Spider-Man in 1962, and in 2002 we got the Sam Raimi movie that changed his fortunes.

The Mandalorian and Grogu was a movie made to be safe. And sometimes, not taking a bet gets you tepid results. It had everything I could have asked for from a post-Return of the Jedi movie as a kid, so I'm pretty happy - but to anyone else? It's a TV episode. I'm hoping to sneak out and see it again this week, with a theater all to myself.

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FIN

There's a Free Poster on Mando Monday at AMC Theaters, and maybe other chains are doing something as well. It's not unheard-of to goose audiences with a poster or even a free toy, but it seems poorly marketed for a pretty decent bribe.

A pal wrote in asking "So, is Star Wars dead?" in so many words and while both he and I know the answer is "Star Wars is forever," you're getting to see how pop culture investments pay off. When Woodstock turned 50, it seemed like nobody cared - Generation Jones didn't seem to care, and rock & roll has been slowly sliding out of vogue no matter how many new Frank Zappa posthumous releases I buy at the record store. Disney (the company), Nintendo, and Transformers (the brand) seem to be focusing a lot on new, young customers and continue to reap generational rewards. Star Wars, Star Trek, Muppets, and G.I. Joe haven't successfully chased down new young fans and... well, you're seeing how it turns out. Star Wars was huge in the 1990s thanks to that first generation, and then the cartoons, and comics, and novels, and VHS tapes, and pent-up demand for more movies and toys. I don't know that there is a massive cultural demand for more Star Wars right now because enthusiasm in action figures and storytelling got mined pretty heavily since the Disney takeover - we've never gone more than a few months without a new TV show or movie. We are not left wanting more.

It'll never happen, but I'd love to see them take a short break. Not "we can't decide on a movie," but a real break - they likely will not do this because there may not be huge market demand for these characters as a lifestyle brand as people get too old to collect or to care. I've heard fans say it's too much effort to keep tabs on which story comes in which order, and I personally find micro-seasons of mini-series spread over several years to be obnoxious. Ahsoka kicked off in 2023 and will return in 2027. That's a longer wait than the hotly anticipated sequels to the original Star Wars, and we got a new one of those every 3 years.

I think there's still interest in more, but someone over there is going to have to take a disciplined approach and focus on a simple two-track system. Pick a pony for the "new" thing, and conclude it before starting something new and different - while continuing to make appropriate classic LEGO sets and merchandise. Next year alone, we'll be dealing with a 50th anniversary celebration (will it last more than a week?), Ahsoka season two (will it double up on episodes per week?), Maul season 2, and Starfighter. And it's not impossible to think this could all be dropping between January and June, but we'll have to wait and see.

I've been watching in this Q&A feature dwindle, and I've generally chalked it up to me not having as much to write about with enthusiasm and my waning interest in action figures as we saw them shift from "toys" to "collectibles" from 2010 to 2020. (With the exception of The Retro Collection, of course.) It feels like the brand is being treated a little too much like a precious thing, and I don't know that you can really excite and ignite fans without doing something outrageous and new... and following up on it before the heat wears off. I'm fired up for more Mando adventures but I assume we won't see anything for a few more years, and by then, will the non-hardcore fans even remember it?

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

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