1. In your last column, You alluded to the notable lack of a Luggabeast at launch (or Happabore for that matter) which I find wrong seeing as how we've gotten one beast/creature for every film up till now. I mean count em with me here.....
TPM - Opee Sea Killer/Kaadu
AOTC - Reek/Nexu/Acklay
ROTS - Dactyl/Can-Cell
ANH - Dewback/Dianoga
TESB - Wampa/Tauntaun
ROTJ - Rancor
I remember there being a repackaged Jungle Rancor from Force Unleashed for the CW film as well, I believe. But zero for TFA. Why is this? Same economic reasons and percived lack of consumer interest for larger vehicles? Next to lightsabers, dog fights, and weird aliens I can't think of anything more classic Star Wars than crazy creature mounts and hope we see some soon. Especially with a figure to ride it and preferably electronic sounds/realistic skin. Reasonably priced woukdn't be too much to ask for long as I'm dreaming here,
--Grant

While we got beasts for every film, we didn't always get them at launch. Right now we're flying so blind we don't know what's coming, and I might take issue with your Revenge of the Sith critters - one was more or less deleted, the other I think you mean Boga. But, we got toy creatures, yes. The baby Opee is arguably dubious due to its small size as well, but we also got the Fambaa and (some got the) Eopie - plus Jabba. It was a good time for creatures, to be sure, as Hasbro also had "Battle Bags" with 4 PVC figures of creatures in a sack with water-activated slime. The figures were really nice.

It's possible any of those Luggabeast or Happaborre beasts might show up in one of the vehicle assortments as a surprise. (Did you know Boba Fett's Slave I is due to ship in the same one as the Jakku Landspeeder/Snowspeeder? 'tis true.) I don't recall the exact timing for the original trilogy beasts, but we did get them all within a year or two. Which means we're well still within the margin of error, especially since for all we know - and I mean I don't know - if something is on deck. I'm finding out about a lot of this stuff at the same rate as you, so anything being kept secret at this point may be rather pointless. It might be coming, it might be an exclusive - I don't know. Since we've still got two months for the movie, I don't see a big problem here yet. Maybe next September, I'll be a little irate, but they get a free pass until the Marvel lull - thanks for nothing, Captain America.

 

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2. Are the new TFA line of Titaniums the same molds as the old line? Thanks
--Bryan

Most of the old vehicles I've looked at are the older molds, but there could be changes I have yet to identify. Deco is definitely a little different, copyright dates have been scrubbed off the tools entirely, but it's basically the same toy you bought earlier. The new Y-Wing, for example, is the same mold Galoob used around 1995 except now, all mention of its origins are gone, the Lucasfilm copyright is gone, the year is gone, but the landing gear now easily flops down loose if you look at it funny. The deco is also slightly different, putting it in the "just different enough to make you mad" designation. Hasbro continues to rake in dividends from its acquisition of Galoob, while similar products from Mattel are just a few pegs over.

It's not a new Y-Wing. Sure, it's different - the mold was changed - but not in a way most people will find significant.

3. I'm happy about the return of the Micro Machine line, but were the original molds for the OT items damaged? (The ones I picked up in the park look different than the original Micro Machines...I'm thinking specifically about the Corellian Corvette, though I haven't yet had the opportunity to dig out my old ones to see if they are different or if I'm remembering them incorrectly...)
--Sam

No idea officially. Some stories I haven't been able to verify is that Galoob - unlike Hasbro - contracted much of the engineering and sculpting out to China/Hong Kong, and it's possible after a company change and two decades the molds were last deployed - I believe an X-Wing in 2002 was the last true MicroMachines product for Star Wars. Tools are big things that are expensive to store, and some will wind up as an anchor for a boat somewhere. I know from conversations with Hasbro that new molds are, at times, a better investment than maintaining a current tool, especially since new/different manufacturing techniques can lower your cost quite a bit. In a movie year, that investment could pay off handsomely especially if you can keep using the mold again and again for another ten years.

They're different, but I dunno why for sure. At least the figures seem right on the money. (And did you see the shots of that new boxed set? Yummy.)

When I asked Hasbro about why they were making new molds for some vehicles a few years ago - rather than just keep releasing the ones they had - they said that it was cheaper to manufacture them differently than it was to keep shipping the same toy that was already developed. Depending on how much mileage you plan on getting out of a mold, they're not wrong - and so far they seem to be getting more than a little mileage out of those new tiny vehicles. The new Blockade Runner is indeed significantly smaller, while others look and feel very close to the originals. Minus the paint.

 

FIN

As our time in the weird, long hammock continues we've got a few nice new things to consider. For starters, Rebels is back on - I found season 1 to be nifty but derivative, trading mostly on cribbed shots and characters from the first three films rather than going down the more difficult road of trying something new. The new season started this week, and I was also reviewing Season 1 now that the Blu-Rays are out (and, I might add, quite cheap when you find them in the used bins). I can't say that as individual episodes it's doing much for me, but it's still neat, there are good ideas in here, it's just that they seem to be trading so heavily on my love for the old stuff that there's not much in the way of new connections to be made. Perhaps the license to deploy TIEs and Stormtroopers helped - with The Clone Wars, I didn't really care much for the prequel characters (or clones) until the show so it did wonders for my appreciation of that era. There's not much weirdness, but I'm hoping the show will pick up and grow into itself soon. Like The Clone Wars, it too suffers the burden of being a sequel, a prequel, and a new franchise all at once. Except here, it's in the shadow of something huge looming over the horizon rather than what was most likely the last sputterings of a once-proud but now largely maligned franchise.

Depending on how things go in December, this can change.

We're also still slogging through the gap between the toys and the movies, roughly 45 days and counting. For those keeping track, the previous longest gap between toy and movie launch in the modern era was Revenge of the Sith at about 55 days. The key difference there, though, is that we had a pretty solid idea of what was going to happen in that movie and what the last act was going to look like. Here, we just got through more big shipments of more new toys, with little idea as to who many of these guys are, what function they serve, and if they'll even make the final cut of the movie - which is supposedly still not finished. I appreciate that we have Rebels, but it feels like it's totally buried under the movie hype and Hasbro's toy launch didn't incorporate many of those characters and toys to help. Also deep cable. Also a lack of real action figure support from Hasbro last year thanks to either lower runs or poor support at big box stores. Ah well. It's been a while since anyone was left wanting more when it comes to Star Wars, so perhaps that wouldn't be the worst thing...

Having said that, I just watched the Rebels Blu-Ray this weekend - as well as the season premiere - and it's not bad. If you squint you can see between the lines and the sniff of helping to push some toys and to nakedly refer back to events - and blocking, and music - from the original trilogy. "Why can't my lightsaber do that?" reeks of a fantastic marketing line, and the show does look great when you can see the textures in super-high resolution. Some characters come off as a little too perfect. Maybe that will change.

--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.