1. I visited the TRU at Mall-Of-America in June last year. It was the same old TRU that went under. Out dated waves of toys at inflated prices. So many toys that had long been put on clearance at Walmart and Target. So, my question: Can we expect TRU or any other chain to last and grow when they are using the same old broken play book?

Attached pictures show entrance and entire Star Wars toy section at Mall of America.
--Darth Ray

I spent a lot of time rewriting this answer, and I think the short answer is "no." Mattel is in the best position to make a play for kid action figures right now, while Hasbro seems to be steering hard into the adult market. Things could get interesting given the shake-ups in some licensing outside the Disney world.

The current Toys R Us is not the old Toys R Us - all those people were let go. A new company has the IP, and almost all of the American stores are licensed out to Macy's or Calendar Club (or possibly other companies) who run their own stores under the old banner. There are a number of stores called Toys R Us but they all buy separately, they are not a united company sourcing product for all locations of the store.

Could Toys R Us be one big happy entity? Sure, but they probably make more money licensing out the name. That could change, and in its current form Macy's is doing a pretty good job while the very few stand-alone stores I've seen have been more in line with the non-chain toy stores of the 1990s. They have stuff, they may even have a ton of stuff, but it's not the newest stuff. Heck, I remember in the late 1980s when Toys R Us had floor-to-ceiling pegs of unpopular figures during Inventory Season, or old stuff that just sat depending on the neighborhood. The key difference then is, with no Internet, old stock had the potential to be exciting if you missed a figure or a toy. Now, you can just see on your phone that The Vintage Collection Reva is ten bucks or less online... but maybe all those unsold Mando toys are about to pay off.

I think the best you can hope for, short-term, is for companies to make the most of what's out there. GameStop has a toy section - maybe it can be upgraded a bit. Five Below has stocked a number of really good toys, and maybe manufacturers could develop things for their unique pricing needs. They won't be stocking $28 figures, but maybe something good for $5-$10 could work there if timed right. Those low-cost chains are dying for product, but more toy companies need to develop a quality durable product that's refreshed regularly. Kids love those chains, and the stores are dying for more stuff. Hasbro's product (and indeed, Star Wars in general) is pretty expensive. I doubt kids are begging their parents for a $30 6-inch figure that doesn't do anything but look cool.

Dollar Tree could carry more toys as they expand their price tags. On Sunday I was greeted to an island of sub-$10 Monopoly, Yahtzee, and other regular full-size Hasbro games. They could expand into figures and other items, too.

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2. I doubt that I'm the most common Star Wars figure, ship, and display collector at this point. While pondering what to do during semi-retirement, I realized that amongst other things that I want to do more of what I did not get enough chance to do during late my childhood early adolescents. Basically, this was the prime New Hope to Jedi period. From a collecting view point, this means I want more never produced things or large improvements on things I had/have. For example, a new and improved Death Star cake slice, a larger scale Sandcrawler, a better scale y-wing, a tie defender, and oddly a larger scale U-Wing since it retroactively fits that period of movies. Any hope (no pun intended), or should I get a 3D printer and go for it?
--Dan

It depends on what you want, and on your ability to be honest with yourself. What is it you actually want - toys, boxes, or display pieces?

If you're collecting sealed-box stuff, I'd say team up with fans and print your own fake boxed toys. It should be cheap and enjoyable!

If you want a toy to play around with, do not get a 3D printer. Ever. What you get is basically like having a prototype, and they can be fragile.

If you want a display piece, or a giant garage kit that will take a long time to make look nice, a 3D printer is great. You're going to need to paint and glue and maybe sand things. In my experience, the end result on some consumer printers is pretty good but won't hurt Hasbro's bottom line. I got a cheap Bambu printer and it can't squirt out something decent in clear to save its life, but a lot of other one-color things look fine if it fits the build plate. (Spoiler from the future: most things do not fit on the build plate because designers are not thinking about the end user's assembly.)

Last year was a pretty good year for official old trilogy stuff. We got a new Bantha, a Darth Vader's TIE Fighter, a Cantina Adventure set, an actual Cantina, and a Landspeeder (just to name a few.) And just that stuff was something like $840 before tax and shipping. I'm very much on board with the 1970s through 1980s (honestly I'd go as far as 1995) as far as video games, cartoons, theme parks, and comics go - but I don't know what Hasbro will want to crank out as they split focus between the old guard, the prequel generation, and the hypothetical current class.

So long answer longer, I would not recommend a 3D printer to someone who isn't a modeler/customizer/builder. If you want to play with anything, rather than treat it like a model, you're still going to want to lobby Hasbro or any other company that might get a 1:18 vehicle or playset license somehow.

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We're days away from The Mandalorian and Grogu toys launching, and Disney's marketing department has succeeded in making it no big deal. It's small, products have been trickling out for weeks, and there's zero hype. This is reasonable, as the product is not particularly "new." Not a knock at Hasbro - what they're doing looks like a spectacular representation of the costumes at hand. But everything looks similar to something any long-haul collector has, not like the prequels or sequels or spin-offs when we got new faces. Literal new faces, character actors we knew and love, familiar heroes and villains, or somebody new that made things interesting and fun. I feel like this is the first movie toy launch you can sleep through and unless you are a compulsive completist, you might actually be happy with what you currently own.

I think it does wonders to release products to inspire the imagination (and open the wallet) of fans and collectors. Nothing seems out of reach, there's no "ask Santa" products, it's just very much more of the same. If everybody is worried about a risky new movie, I guess that makes sense, but Disney is weirdly not hyping the new movie either. The next Star Wars Celebration is next year, and there is no big convention to hype the new movie. I don't feel like there was a big panel last year either, and Disney seems increasingly spoiler-averse in silly ways. I think they were totally right to keep "Baby Yoda" a big secret in 2019 - but how much else have we seen that would have ruined a surprise? Obviously, you don't want to give away the entire show, but we're being given no reasons to be excited, no real hints of story, and no real reason to want to get hyped up. Usually tiny dribbles of new information or pictures would get people excited, but this particular movie seems so closely guarded that it seems like people keep forgetting it's even coming out.

On the bright side, you have some new toys coming. If there are any never-before-made new 3 3/4-inch vehicles from this movie, I am unaware of them. Hasbro's new kid line ActionVerse are larger, 4 1/2-inch figures, so any compatibility with current toys will be purely coincidental. Will there be a post-release pre-order campaign? I have no idea. I hope so! With any luck people will love this movie and it'll create demand for new stuff. I think that's unlikely, only because any hype can probably be fed by the last six years of product on eBay, Amazon, and the odd clearance rack. There are plenty of Hasbro The Mandalorian masks to be had, although the full-head collector helmet remains in short supply after several years. Presumably, they'll make more, but it's going to miss movie timing.

--Adam Pawlus

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