1. Why does [McQuarrie Concept Boba Fett] say made in 2006?
--Noah

There's a short list of things I just basically throw my hands up and say "well, there's really no good answer" and this is on that list. Some figures are designed early, and some just use the wrong date. There are even some figures that could have more than one different date on the feet, depending on when you got it. If you look at all your figures, you'll see some figures with a previous year's date, or in some rare cases, "figures from the future." There aren't any 2008 figures out there (yet) but this sort of thing has happened before, more often on packaging than on the actual figure.

2. regarding the EE Mystery Figures pack...i have never dealt with EE before, and was wondering if the price for this set will increase or stay at the great deal of $66.99? also, what is the approximate production run for these sets? if you were me, and i was a little strapped of funds now, do i have time to save and order the set without it selling out? are they gauging a production run relative to pre-orders?

did you have any personal involvement in the set? does any figure bear a striking resemblance to our faithful q&a guy under the helmet? where did they get the head-sculpts?
--Soja Rinn

To everybody but Soja: I swear this isn't a plant.

By and large, Entertainment Earth doesn't mark things down-- there are blowout sales once in a blue moon (they just had one a few months back), but usually with exclusives, it takes years for a sale. There might be a bundle, but more than likely the price you see now is the price you're going to pay a year from now, if units remain. Which they may or may not, sales are good. Since the item is coming in November (formerly October), production runs are basically set in stone-- but the thing with pre-orders at virtually every online store is you don't get charged until it ships-- so if you order it (or almost anything) today, you won't be billed for a few months. Amazon, Toys "R" Us, Shop Star Wars, they all pretty much work this way and have figured this out. (There are stores that haven't, so it's good to ask.)

I go by this rule-- will me buying this item prevent me from buying something I need? (Rent, gas, etc.) If the answer is yes, you can stand to wait and take your chances. If you've got a decent wallet for your toy budget, it never hurts to get that order in there because it's hard to tell if the item will sell out or not, as a second run of an item of this nature is pretty gosh darn unlikely. (Not saying it's impossible, it just doesn't seem like an item that would warrant a neverending production run.)

I had limited involvement in the sets-- some of the figures, I had nothing to do with, while others, I/we gave notes on, changes were made, and the sets are as you've seen them now. (I'll save them for the amazing toy industry tell-all book I'll no doubt write in 2045 if I have not yet fallen by my own hands.) None of the figures resemble anyone who is now (or to my knowledge, has ever) worked at Entertainment Earth, although there are a few figures that will no doubt remind you of some people you may have seen at Hasbro's booth at conventions over the years. While it'd be cool to have a figure with my likeness, a) I'd prefer that nobody know it has my likeness, and b) if anyone found out, I'm sure a lot of people would customize it with a firecracker and/or a magnifying glass. What can I say, it seems I'm just that popular. That and I don't think there's any demand for "Mandalorian Hipster Doofus" figures.

3. In your July 16th Q & A "Goofball" has a problem removing the little peg in the Hilt when the Saber broke. The best way I have found is to take a small pin or needle, hold it in pliers and heat the tip with a lighter. When it's hot you stick the pin into the peg - hold it very steady - let it cool and the peg pulls right out on the end of the pin. If it's really tight you might have to put a little notch on the pin to grab the plastic when you pull out the peg.
--Bobadoug

Fixing lightsabers. Drill a small hole in the blade and the handle, thus cleaning out the old pin. Use a short piece of twisty-tie wire from a Hasbro Star Wars(tm) vehicle packaging. Use super glue to glue it into the blade. If you picked the right size drill and wire, you should now have a fully-functional removable lightsaber blade as the plastic coating of the wire provides a little 'give' to enable the blade to be held firmly in place but also be removable. I would reccommend a hand-held pin-vice for the drill bit - I'm not responsible if you drill yourself with an electric drill! I also use a magnifier since the lightsabers are pretty small. I have successfully repaired both plastic and metal handled lightsabers using this technique.
--Nick

That's more work than I care to try, but thanks for the assist! (As always, the authors of this column take no responsibility for anything, ever.)

4. I am trying to secure a set or two of the hasbro figure stands. The problem is they wont't ship to Canada. I haven't seen any on ebay. There is currently a set on there that looks identical but the stands are gold. It comes with the stickers and everything. Do you know if this is legit, or some cheap knock off. Any ideas on how I am going to get myself some of these. I thought there would be tons on ebay but nothing.
--Chad

Well, when in doubt, ask a trading buddy-- a lot of us would be happy to order things to send your way.

There are no known licensed gold stands from Hasbro, so odds are those are customs/fakes/otherwise not worth your while. Hasbro does skim this column from time to time, so hopefully they see that Canada needs stands, like Mars needs women.

5. I'm cool with the "Legends" figures! What I'm not cool with is the inaccuracy with respect to the coins that represent the movie the character appeared in. In wave one the R2-D2 has and EP V coin, the text on the back of the card seems to indicate it should have had an EP III coin included. Recently, I have seen wave 3 pics that have the Imperial Officer with an EP III coin. This could technically be accurate if you were to believe that this Imperial Officer is somewhere in the background in the Star Destroyer at the end of EPIII, but that is reaching, especially when the finished Death Star is pictured on the front of the card! The thing that is sad is that they could have included an EP IV, V, or VI coin and it would have been accurate with ANY of those choices! My question is with respect to R4-I9, which is included in wave 4. I have seen pics of the carded figure and the droid comes with EP IV coin. Was this black Imperial Droid in EP IV or EP VI??
--Jeff

According to this article at Wookieepedia, who is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, you can find him on Yavin Base. I can't honestly say I spotted him in the movies before, so I'm going to assume that this is right.

As far as the coins go, meh. The R2-D2 is a reissue from the Episode III line, comes in Episode V packaging, and sports sounds from Episode VI. So where do you begin with the complaints? Some things are just screwy, so I just acknowledge this and move on.

I assume the Officers were errors-- figures with the wrong coins aren't entirely uncommon. We'll see when they hit, though!

6. I recently purchased the super expensive Ralp McQuarrie art book. I thought it would be nice to get the current McQuarrie concept figures to go with it. I then realized that some (all?) of the holiday star wars figures are based on Ralph McQuarrie's work as well. So I started digging and I also noticed that two of the three EU vehicles from POTF2 (cloud car and snowspeeder) are based on his art. Are there any other figures or vehicles that are directly based on his artwork that I am missing?
--Dan

As you pointed out, Ralph McQuarrie painted a variety of holiday cards for Lucasfilm, including Jawas, Yoda, and R2-D2 & C-3PO. As those figures were inspired by his non-concept art, you might want to give those a look as they come with replicas (of sorts) of the original greeting cards as well, and are a great way to expand your McQuarrie stash. Darth Vader (the red one) is not based on anything-- not even the greeting card he comes with-- so don't get it.

So that's 13 figures in 2007, the 2003 McQuarrie Stormtrooper, and the 1998 EU vehicle (mostly)-- and, no doubt, more are eventually coming.

7. What would be a good price for some EE Exclusive clones [from 2005]. This ebay seller that lives near me says he has all 4 of them, and will sell all 4 for $25 each. What you think? Are they worth getting or will these be released in the Legends line.
--FierceBlueMonkey

It depends on you and what you want, and why. Only some of the EE clones are being reissued-- the "battle damage" variants are, so far, still Entertainment Earth exclusives. As such, if you want those, you don't really have a choice. Price is another issue, and like many things, doing some simple math may make this decision easier. This guy will sell you all 4 boxed sets for $25 each. At retail, the Clones are going to be $7 each, meaning $28 for 4, and the Battle Damage ones won't be available.

Buying the EE ones from eBay/elsewhere makes the most sense-- today, anyway. Who knows what reissues tomorrow might bring?

8. Do you expect Hasbro to re-issue an A-Wing, seeing as there's a new (incredible) pilot figure coming out and that there hasn't been one available since 2003?
--Dan

I really, really hope so. At press time, no such announcement has been made (I wrote this a few days earlier) but I've been dropping not-so-subtle hints about wanting a McQuarrie-inspired blue deco on the ship for a while. Hasbro made a Titanium one, and I love it (thank you Hasbro peeps) but I'd go nuts for a full-size one.

Now, if you want the original (i.e., a red one) it was sort of overproduced a while ago and can be had somewhat cheaply. It was $19.99 with a pilot figure in 1997-- a bargain then and a bargain now. The toy, sans box, is about $6 or so before shipping on eBay which is way, way better than you can hope for should Hasbro reissue it again. I figure we're about due, but given how many vehicles we're getting this year (including the continued production of older vehicles), I wouldn't hold my breath. I mean, Y-Wing, X-Wing (2006), several Jedi Starfighters, AT-RT, etc. It's a big year for vehicles.

9. Do the excellent Ultra figures of 2004 command interesting prices, or are they all pretty much worth what they cost? I've got a complete carded set, and was kind of thinking of opening them all, as they do take up quite a bit of space in my room [and they are all incredible figures that probably won't be available again]!
--dsl

Check eBay. That's what it's for-- there's no better indicator of what you can get for something, give or take a few bucks, than eBay. We've seen General Rieekan reissued in 2006, the Jango Fett figure is a barely modified version of a previous release (and has since been reissued without the magnet forearms), the Wampa is coming back this year, and so on. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them come back, but it's hard to predict what and when Hasbro will do something. Sometimes they'll make a new figure, sometimes they'll bring an old mold back-- my advice to you is to stop worrying about what your toys are worth because odds are you'd have made more money investing in a certificate of deposit or something. If you're bored and want the space, opening your figures makes for a fun weekend project.

10. My son just got Vintage IG-88 and opened it - both arm are immovable where they connect to the body, like you had said. Do you have any suggestions for getting the arms to move freely, maybe some kind of lubricant that I could work into the joint with a Q-Tip or toothpick or something to loosen it up, but that would not destroy the figure? It's a shame, as it's an excellent figure. The legs suffer from the same problem I'm afraid (however the knee and elbow joints are fine). He's still a kid so he wants to actually play with the figure, instead of just displaying it (like his father does with his :) but he obviously doesn't want to break it trying to move the arms and legs.
--HMckennedy

There are customizing tips including dipping the figure in boiling water, or freezing it, to help free up the joint. However, I've tried it with mine and it doesn't work-- my advice to you? Return it and get another one (or just break it and get it over with, and then return it) or ask Hasbro for a replacement via their customer service page. Or get it on clearance at Target when it's down to two bucks in a month or so. I bought these with the intent of enjoying them as toys, but Hasbro's desire to make a figure for collectors sometimes gets in the way-- frankly, I'd rather have a good toy. Hopefully we won't see these kinds of problem in the future as it seems the whole line is prone to some breakage here and there.

FIN

This was written before Comic-Con. As such, there may be references I missed from the show-- you see, to get these columns all done (FOTD, Q&A, etc.) I actually have to pen some of them a long time in advance, as there's really no way to run a couple of sites and also take a day off. So if it's dated, well, come back next week for a fresh one. Here's some new filler at the end.

My server (and laptop) are acting up. I now get to decide how I want to handle road trips in the future, and if it's worth trying to find a way to get a cheap, reliable (read: Apple) machine for future times in other cities. On one hand, my PC laptop sucks, but usually works. On the other, the keyboard is crapping out and my server ate my files. And I'd rather keep the money. Such is life.

I currently have now had a decent look at Mystery Exclusive (now officially Elite Forces sets) test shots (NOTE: NOT FINAL FIGURES). I've so far deciphered three of the Mandalorian faces. There's probably little more awkward than going up to Hasbro employees and going "so, uh, so this figure set we're selling. Is this you?" (They goof with the hair colors and such so it isn't obvious.)

The most interesting thing to me was Llats Ward. I thought it looked funny in the case, and when I got my hands on it, sure enough, they did something neat-- and keep in mind, this is just a test shot-- turns out the head was molded in flesh color and painted in flesh color. Wow. That's like crazy going-the-extra-mile. The painted face looks a kajillion times better in terms of production values. I'm really impressed with it. I have no idea if this was a test shot only thing or what I can expect from the final-- either way, wowie zowie, this looks nice.

It looks like all of the figures were hot glued to the base and/or weapons were hot glued to hands. I discovered that convention case lighting can melt hot glue very easily, and am now testing the properties of the freezer on the clear adhesive. If the freezer doesn't help, time to go get some more light bulbs.

I haven't yet checked to see which (if any) of my Comic-Con reports got posted because I was working almost all weekend and just got back now, posted a mess of FOTDs that I couldn't get posted, and now I gotta finish stuff up so I can go to bed as I got work again tomorrow. Anyone who's envious that I get to go to Comic-Con as a vendor, well, don't be-- there are perks, but man, it's a tiring ordeal. Especially when you're the kind of person who doesn't exactly do lots of talking most of the day.

Anyway, Mandies. Woooooo. Yes.

Got questions? I bet you do. Email me with "Q&A" somewhere in the subject line and hopefully I'll get to yours in the next column!

Click here to read the previous installment of Galactic Hunter Q&A!