SPONSOR SHOP
1. I have two questions I would appreciate your thoughts and perspective on. Please feel free to edit or just skip them if you feel they carry too much of an agenda, I am primarily interested in your opinion and not necessarily the rants and diatribes commonly found on the various forums.
I am interested in your perspective as someone who works in the toy industry, especially as it pertains to question 2.
1. How do you think the negative reaction around the INT-4 price change will affect the Vintage Collection line moving forward?
2. What are your thoughts on the accuracy of Hasbro's communication? For instance, when Mr. Evans took over as Brand Manager, he mentioned bringing "balance" to the Black Series and Vintage lines, but later clarified that balance didn't mean equal figure counts. Similarly, earlier statements suggested an expansive 50th Anniversary line, but recent interviews at SDCC indicate it will be smaller and focused on HasLab projects. It seems there may be a disconnect between how the community interprets the brand team's language and what they intend.
By no means do I think there is intentional duplicity in what they are saying and I also strongly believe that they really do enjoy working on Star Wars toys and care about the community.
Yes, I know that that the above statement seems to be in contradiction of question 2, but I guess I'm wondering if it really doesn't matter what the brand team plans. What matters is what Hasbro leadership team decides. Maybe that should have been question number 2.
For full disclosure, I plan to continue buying Vintage Collection figures as long as they are produced, but I would value your take on these trends.
--Damon
The very short answer I have would be "it is what it is" and "nobody ends a long-term collecting relationship because they have only one problem." The first two years of The Retro Collection required I call in favors or make business deals to make things happen for me.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is say less. Fans want more. If we want more detail in our product, it costs us more money. If we want more detail in our reveals, sometimes things change and fans will remember. Specifically, us - we hang on details and something like IG-11's rank badge or a lightsaber hilt being wrong can ruin some peoples' day. It's kind of a miracle that so few things have been a big problem for large groups of fans, and for me as a collector all I can really do is say "Well, that's the price, do I want it or not?" When it comes to reveals, mistakes happen. I would hope we treat the messenger with the level of understanding we would hope to receive when we were in a similar situation at work. Going forward, I would anticipate they may elect to never reveal prices again and leave that to the retailer (even if it's Hasbro Pulse.) They very, very rarely ever mention pricing in those streams or panels so this was probably just an odd situation that didn't go as planned.
Pricing on collector-level toys has gotten a little high with labor, oil, tariffs that were on the books are a whole separate mess, and everything else that's been going on since COVID. You may also notice that a pre-order went out for a 2027 Transformers Deluxe figure at $29.99, up from $27.99 for the current ones. It's understandable that customers for collector toys are getting a little old and tired. I've heard collectors of a lot of other brands lately comment that they hope those lines end - not because they dislike them, but because there's so much stuff, and it's so much more expensive. I'm not even sure what a toymaker can do with that information. I get it - I tend to get more excited about dead lines and small lines, because I can read (or write) about them and get my head around the whole thing. Star Wars is a little too big for that anymore. (...but Retro isn't too big!)
So for #1, I would say that it might bump off a few more completists. Also, there aren't many completists left. People dropped a format, or stopped picking up all the variants, or might have seen an exclusive set not on their preferred cardbacks and said "don't want it." This is just another item in that arena, and some fans will stick around and as we all get older, some just want a reason to quit. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's an exclusive not being available in what they consider a fair manner. As a group we've fractured over the past 30 years, and our opinions aren't consistent. For some people $10 figures in 2010 were the last straw. We know exactly how many fans bought Cantinas and Barges. These aren't large numbers, and we're probably seeing the Sun setting on the brand as a thing made for Generation X (and Millennial) collectors. Maybe we'll see Hasbro shave off paint or parts or details next time - the INT-4 looks impressive. But does anyone need a detailed interior? Hasbro might cost that out next time as the collector doesn't benefit from it. We certainly do have to pay accordingly, and I don't mind paying less.
As far as communication goes in #2, this a tricky place. "Balance" is open to interpretation, and I've seen fans misinterpret Hasbro's comments quite frequently. Also, I've seen Hasbro misinterpret fan requests quite often. What does balance mean then? I don't know, and I love that Steve Evans does a lot of extra stuff just for us without us even having to ask. I bet he wants to tell us every single thing they're working on. I won't speculate what he is hinting at for 2027, but I do know fans will always find a reason to be upset. We're not a unified hive mind, we all have different preferences, and there are literally thousands of things we all want that don't mesh with the thousands of things others want.
It's important to remember that line plans change - often. If something in the news happens that may make an item seem poorly timed, or if a factory goes sideways, or someone at a licensor just said "no" for some reason? What a collectible company representative may have hinted at might just not happen. There's a good reason that they formerly told us new things about 3 months out, and for all we know we'll see more things tighten up again. How much have we heard about the Starfighter toys? Or movie? Or anything? Not much.
In short, it's in their best interests to clam up about anything that isn't a lock and it's potentially damaging to give us hints. We've probably seen the end of this manufacturer using a publicity event to name prices because you don't know what the end retailer may decide the final price to be, even if it's Pulse. Maybe there's overhead hasn't been considered. (I don't know, I'm not privy to this.) Steve's been good to us, I hope he can keep communicating with us if he wants to, but there are few collector lines that won't eventually have their customers want to kill the messenger. We're in an era where you get more engagement with fans if you make them angry, and goodness knows there are a lot of things you can choose to be angry about. If you're generally just writing about what you like, that's not as attention-getting. Me, I say you should skip anything that makes you unhappy. You'll be better off.
2. Adam, I saw some recent reissues that EE is promoting, like the remnant [stormtrooper] 4 pack.
Don't you think that Hasbro could keep the regular stormtrooper in either single issue or 4 packs year round and it would sell?
--Derek
Well, first I need to make a correction there - those often aren't reissues. You'll notice that once in a while, some shops put up other stores' exclusives with an ETA of 1-2 months away. Or Walmart suddenly stocks a former Pulse exclusive. Sometimes, that's existing stock being opened up to another outlet. It happens, especially now that items don't have exclusive stickers on the boxes. They pumped those brakes around 2018 after Toys R Us went away, and I think the last items (not counting Target's Target-branded items) were probably in Pulse's Marvel Legends 375 line that had Pulse branding on the top.
I think lots of fans want Stormtroopers. I think it's safe to assume that any collector with dioramas or playsets or ships to fill would probably buy a Stormtrooper here and there if they're in a store and they haven't bought a new toy in a while. I really don't think 4-packs are the way to go as a permanent fixture, just because fans will fold their arms and wait for a sale. It might be a good thing to bring back as a made-to-order pre-order thing if and when we get a new Death Star, Star Destroyer, or other Imperial installation.
Should Stormtroopers be available year round, though? My vote is "in very limited supplies." I think it would be great if Vintage, Black Series, and assortments permitting Retro would be well-served to have a plain white Stormtrooper in assortments every 2-3 waves. No changes, nothing new, just put them out every 4-10 months in whatever minimal quantity makes sense and then trot it out again a few waves later. I don't think you benefit from having an item with the goal of being permanently available - repeatedly, sure - but it's good for something to sell out and come back, too. Even Mando and Darth Vader, it was great that there was an attempt to keep them around for a bit so people that wanted them could get them... and now they went away again. I would be happy to see characters like that on some sort of a loop with a similar they're here, they're gone, they're back again later method of distribution because fans seem to believe any figure they see on the shelf for more than a few days is a failure. There are few degrees of success in most online fan commentary - either it's sold out and Hasbro screwed up, or it's available and Hasbro screwed up. Fans do not seem to be particularly generous when it comes to comments on distribution.
With Retro coming back next year, my dream would be to see a return of regular assortments (every 2-3 months) with a Stormtrooper in them here and there. We saw this in 2007, when each new The 30th Anniversary Collection wave that needed filler figures frequently got one or two Stormtroopers. It gives Hasbro a better return on its tooling investment and if they're spaced out, can limit risk - you really don't want a store to suddenly have 14 Stormtroopers. The customer base is unlikely to be able to absorb them in a timely manner.
Special thanks to our generous Patreon patrons, especially: JT, Jared, Bobb, Christopher, Daniel, Dan, Tim, Jayson, Matthew, Michael, Robert, Stephen, Todd DrReiCow, Eddie, Jeremy, Mario, and Todd! Thanks for helping us keep the servers on!
FIN
Before we dive in to a rant about the new movie reveal, let me say I went and saw The History of Concrete and strongly recommend seeing it if it's near you. It's really fun, goes on wild tangents, and is one of the funniest movies I've seen in ages. When George Lucas first started talking about digital cinema opening the gates to more creators and talent, this feels like exactly the kind of thing I was picturing. I want more stuff like this. I also saw and enjoyed The Stunt Driver, which seems very much a movie for kids of the 1970s and early 1980s (or more accurately, their dads.)
We're being told yet again that a new director was hired for another new Star Wars movie. I've been feeling most movie announcements aren't for us but rather shareholders, and the actual making of the movie is not necessary for their business. Back in 2023 they announced 3 movies which have not come to pass, this year's Mando movie doesn't quite fit the bill of what was being described here. I'm not saying the Jon Watts movie won't get made, but it dovetails into what was asked above. You can tell fans too much. If you don't deliver the goods, you're going to lose a bit of trust. I still believe in what Hasbro is doing, but every new Lucasfilm movie announcement has me picturing fans taking a long drag off of a cigarette and saying "Sure thing, honey, you go ahead and make that movie, we all believe you." George Lucas made ridiculous announcements - like in 1983 predicting Episode I in 1998 (hey, he was close) - but he rarely announced vaporware.
I don't think it's possible for any one single incident to ever hurt a fandom. One bad TV episode, one dud movie, a bad action figure? It happens, we get over it. But nothing announced at that triple 2023 reveal came to pass, the Filoni movie sounds very different from The Mandalorian and Grogu which resolved very little, and that whole era has Ahsoka season 2 (and maybe more, who knows.) Plus there's a solid dozen or so other reveals since 2020 that have not come to pass. It's not that we don't want to believe or be excited, but we have been trained to not trust official reveals. I don't expect any of the floating reveals from the past decade will ever come to pass.
When it comes to new Star Wars movies, it seems a fear of spoilers combined with so many of them just being vaporware has cost Disney-era Lucasfilm something very important: free fan marketing. I don't know that it's worthwhile to do a rumors page, we don't see a lot of fun early photos anymore, and we don't seem to be getting a healthy drip of news and teases to keep us interested in the new movie. Instead, we see movies we were excited to hear about just up and vanish without comment. I'd love to say I believe them that Rian Johnson really might do three more Star Wars movies, but it's been nine years so I have to assume that ship has sailed.
We're all getting older, and now that we're in a world with 13 theatrical Star Wars movies, 2 made-for-TV movies, and literally hundreds of TV episodes with thousands of figures that there's only one thing we can agree on: we've made it. Aside from that, some fans want more focus on the games, or the comics, or the books. Some people want more sequel trilogy toys. Some people want more Kenner-style vehicles. We're a massive, diverse, multi-generational audience who cannot ever hope to agree on any single topic again. This franchise could not survive on 3-6 movies alone, but it might not be able to thrive as an ongoing multimedia, multiplatform engine for content.
Disney has been fairly mum on Starfighter, which kind of spooks me for a movie that's eight months out. We should be getting major trailers, and instead we're now being told "and here's the next one." I'm beginning to think the old way was better - one movie every three years, nothing seemed rushed and each product launch was more or less an event. But I don't have shareholders to worry about.
--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.
Social media? Sure. Bluesky | Fediverse | Mastodon | Tumblr | Instagram
| I'm on Instagram! All Pictures from a GameBoy Camera. |
     |
