Q&A: Star Wars Spirit, Yoda, and Luke's Lost Limb

By Adam Pawlus — Sunday, January 7, 2018


1. This might be a spoiler but do consider the Yoda released in the 2nd wave on the Last Jedi figures to be the "Last Jedi Yoda" or would you foresee one being released.
--Bob

No. Hasbro's ability to really take ownership of having done a specific version of a figure from a specific movie is all over the map. Generally speaking they're not awesome at it, and in the case of this Yoda I certainly don't consider it specific to the new movie. From where I sit, it seems like Revenge of the Sith Yoda. Similarly, those who have access to in-progress code names (cough cough) know that the Darth Vader from Rogue One was explicitly called out as being from the 1977 film - not the then-new one.

For those wanting to argue this point and not taking the lightsaber as a hint, the robes are too smooth - and also, there's no way Disney and Lucasfilm would have given Hasbro the Yoda secret as it might have gotten out. Maybe they'll do it some day, but I wouldn't bank on it being any time soon given how long they've been going between Yodas. I don't doubt someone at Lucas Licensing insisted Hasbro make a Yoda in the line, but I can't imagine they were very generous with details.

Given the amount of hindsight being given to the line, I assume it may be quite some time before Hasbro cranks out a The Last Jedi-specific Yoda. Or anybody else from the movie.

 

 

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2. Since the spoiler gloves will be coming off as of this Q and A, I wanted to ask if there will be a "force ghost" set with yoda, ben, anakin (whether it's hayden or not isn't the issue), and Luke. It probably would be after the solo movie line, which I expect should start launching trailers by January to get people excited for May, unless the release date has been pushed.
--Delphia

You will not see this set this or next year.

As much as I'd love to say "Gee, we never know!" we haven't seen a heck of a lot of action figure sets with 4 or more figures outside the Kohl's exclusive repacks in recent years. Given we've never seen four Spirits on film in the same scene together, I can pretty much guarantee we'd never see an item like this unless someone inside Hasbro starts pushing for it after reading your question - and it would have to exist first. While we have seen a Force Projection of Luke, we've not yet seen a Force Spirit or Ghost - once he died, we hadn't seen him again.

Given it's extremely unlikely the Spirits of Obi-Wan and Luke will appear together in a movie - it's not impossible, but it hasn't happened yet - I wouldn't get your hopes up.

 

 

 

3. What do you think happened to Luke's hand, perfectly preserved floating in the clouds of Bespin?
--Matt

My sincere hope is that it's never, ever addressed.

Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm just going to assume some enterprising Ugnaughts were hunting down scrap metal they could sell for a few credits, and took it to a dealer on the occupied Cloud City. The hand itself was most likely discarded because if you saw a severed hand, you'd probably either call the cops or pretend you saw nothing. I assume the parts and pieces of a lightsaber are valuable - possibly more so to a collector of artifacts - so it would strike me as very unlikely the hand itself came up to avoid alerting anyone of any sort of foul play.

Star Wars hasn't really given itself up as a lover of forensics, and outside of midi-chlorians we've never really seen much attention given to anything related to genetics or some sort of material physical marker. We saw how Ugnaughts treated a repairable, sellable droid - I assume any flesh that would get in the way of the smelt would probably have been thrown in the furnace faster than you can say "ice cream maker."

Part of what makes any big story great are its mysteries. In some cases, the question is far more important than the answer. Yoda is currently more mysterious than Boba Fett, and is all the better for it. I would very much to never have a definitive answer, and if that means multiple "official" conflicting tall tales on the subject, that would be an absolute delight. An urban legend inside Star Wars would be way more fun than "Kylo Ren found the hand and is using it to flip the bird to pictures of his parents."

 

 


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FIN

It's January! As of now we've seen leaked Solo imagery and a couple of products, but no movie trailer. The movie is set for May, and the next best opportunities to release a trailer would be Super Bowl Sunday (February 4), or with Black Panther (February 16). If Lucasfilm gives in to the value of anticipation rather than secrecy, the latter could be a great way to get people excited about the new toys months before launch so we're all on pins and needles waiting to get them in our grubby hands - rather than seeing them, shrugging, and going about our business. The perception of rarity, the "I don't have this yet" time, is so valuable. For some reason, Lucasfilm threw out over two decades of excellent toy marketing in exchange for some free mainstream publicity - and I honestly don't know what would have been the most valuable to them overall.

It's my sincere hope that Toy Fair has more to offer Star Wars fans other than an excuse to take a nap, because there's no greater opportunity to put new toys in front of an eager media. Well, maybe not too eager - in the real world we actually have things of considerable value happening five days a week lately. It's strange to see entertainment news taking new and different forms, but here's the world in which we live.

We'll likely see something in a few weeks - but what? I have no idea. The big highlights from last year included items that were ultimately canceled for the US market, for all intents and purposes, and now we wait to see if that will repeat itself once more. It's a strange era to be a fan.

--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.