1. Any idea when we should expect to begin seeing the release of the next Clone Wars animated wave of figures hitting shelves? I'm all caught up with everything again (whew!) and now I'm bored. Unless you have a spare animated blue battle droid or animated 501st trooper from the speeder bike set...
--Dan

Given that we're right in the middle of clearance season, "any day now." As the stores engage on post-holiday resets and receive new shipments, these may show up very soon. Also, I realize you're probably being facetious about being bored, but there's over 30 years of stuff to buy for pennies on the dollar on eBay if you're really hard-up for toys. Might I suggest Playmobil, or LEGO?

2. In your opinion, since you work in the "action figure world", when are we seeing updates for characters such as: gammorean gaurd, admiral ackbar (my fav especially after the first robot chicken SW episode), Ponda and Dr. Evezon, and will the 2nd imperial scannin tech come out? He aint going to end up like the damn beardless hoth trooper is he? Also, any more concept figures on tap? Thanks for the answers by the way, quick responses. If you were selling to me thru ebay youd get positive feedback. haha!!
--jonathan

As of now there are no other previously unannounced concept figures on the way-- aside from the obvious (i.e., that they'd have been announced) it seems Hasbro isn't doing any next year yet. Of course, Hasbro won't be doing any new previously unannounced basic figures for a very long time, because, clearly, they hate us and want us to spend our money elsewhere. (Although I will say, my expertise in reading retail body language may be calibrated poorly this time of year.) I do expect updates of some of those Return of the Jedi characters eventually, but if you look at the entire line since 1995 you may notice that very few characters from the movie have received updates save for main characters. Sure, we've seen upgrades on Paploo, Bib Fortuna, and the Scout Trooper, but Wicket still sucks, the Gamorrean needs some work, and who knows if we'll ever get a genuinely new EV-9D9? Ponda Baba is in some stage of preproduction, I believe Dr. Evazan may be but I have no way of knowing for sure. The second Imperial Scanning Tech's future is presently unknown for certain-- it isn't optimistic that it will be showing up as no packaged samples have surfaced yet, but weird things and surprises do happen.

3. While I love the detail Hasbro has given us lately, I noticed that the only At At Driver figures with the correct red stripe on the back of the helmet are the Vintage one and the POTF2 one. I was wondering if they plan to correct the new Removable Helmet Driver, who is otherwise perfect.
--Marty

Not in the "Legacy" packaging, if ever. Hasbro production seems to be finished before we see these new figures, with a few exceptions. I would not expect any running deco changes on any of these figures in the Legacy packaging from here on out simply because most of them aren't going to be seeing multiple shipments.

4. I'm a little upset to hear that Hasbro is canceling the comic- packs slated for spring 2010, and the Ulic Qel-Droma wave that was suppose to be out now has been pushed back to March 2010. I've been anticipating that wave for months ever sense SDCC this past July, and to hear that it's been canceled has made this STARWARS lover go to the dark side of the force. My question is to you is do you think Hasbro will make another expanded universe wave to make up for the disappointment of the many STARWARS lovers like my-self who wants to see more of the expanded-universe characters made into plastic? ADAM you know what I'm coming from here. "WE" are the ones that get's up morning after morning sometimes in the middle of the night depending in the location buying the STARWARS products that keep the popularity of the famous line going, The comic-book fans ,the novel fans and the video game fans and so on. Sorry got a little cried away. But Hasbro, I hope YOU get the picture. EXPANDED UNIVERSE ACTION FIGURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--Marze

We may be the crazed people who get up early and keep the line going, but we aren't the ones shelling out enough money, nor are we the ones working at retailers making decisions on who buys what. (Well, OK, some of us are. But most of us aren't.) The comic packs' fate seems to have been written in 2008, and the lack of new material in stores in 2009 pretty much killed it. Even if it all sold through really well, which it seems the red-carded comic packs are doing, nobody seems to care-- the stores are basically feeling like they're done with it, and there's not a lot you can do to change their mind. If Wal-Mart's exclusive wave is slam-dunk hit and they go back to Hasbro and say "hey, make us more of this stuff because it's making us money," maybe we'll get lucky. (Spoiler alert: it won't, and we won't.)

If you want more Expanded Universe stuff, at this point your mission is to evangelize it, buy it, give it as gifts, and make sure your fellow fan knows why they should get it. Post to forums, start a blog, encourage people to (gasp) read the books and comics, and maybe more fans will be created. A key thing to remember is that many fans of the fiction don't cross over-- some read comics but will never buy a toy or read a column like this one. Likewise, some buy toys, but don't read the books. Thankfully, there's enough of an overlap (or enough of a consumer interest) that has resulted in numerous waves of Expanded Universe figures over the years with varying degrees of success. In Legacy alone, we received tons of figures based on the 2003 Clone Wars cartoon, deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi, numerous comic packs, a Joker Squad gift set, an Imperial Engineer, and in just a few short months, another entire wave of Expanded Universe goodies. Oh, and there were the Droid Factory 2-packs at Wal-Mart too. Hasbro has not been slouching when it comes to product from games, comics, books, and other sources, although it does seem that the vocal fans (for example, yourself) aren't getting what they want, which is part of the problem. There are so many hundreds (or are we at thousands?) of stories to pull from that Hasbro simply can't satisfy everybody. While I'm happy to see BL-17, Obi-Wan in Clone Armor, and K'Kruhk alongside my giant Darktrooper, I can understand that others have a different focus. Sadly, this is life, and there's really not much you can do about it.

Also, as much as you may hate to look at it this way, Star Wars today really is about the Expanded Universe. For example, there's this cartoon on every week that gets tremendous ratings and is driving a huge portion of the sales as of late. I fully expect to see more figures from non-cartoon sources every year, for example Hasbro has let us know that Toys "R" Us will be getting some more Force Unleashed items in the very near future. There really are a ton of non-movie items out there to get, but considering there are over 100 figures released in circulation every year, it's impossible to do everything to satisfy everybody. So I put it to you, Marze-- what are you going to do about it? Start a site? Rally the fans? Put your money where your mouth is, and buy the stuff that's already out there that you like and don't have yet? The ball is in your court.

5. So how much money does hasbro make off the collectors anyway? I always got the impression that it added very little to the revenue and everything had to be kid driven with maybe a few figures released for collectors in limited runs. Now they are saying the collector slowdown is primary reason that some things are going away. What's up?
--J

The truth: nobody knows for sure.

Hasbro can speculate based on whatever reports it gets from its retail partners, but when you get right down to it nearly all toy purchases are made by adults. Kids don't have jobs, and as such, it's not like they have market research telling them that if a figure is being bought with some Wizards of Waverly Place-themed VISA card, that it's probably bought for a young fan. Really, all anyone can do is look at the shelves and see what is or isn't selling, which is sometimes counterintuitive to what fans ask for and as such, we (as a group) sometimes make up conclusions which may or may not be true. It's possible Hasbro is as well, because there are some situations which are really difficult to get your head around.

Example: Bane Malar and Yarna d'al' Gargan were both shipped in the exact same case ratios. Every case that had one, also had the other in the exact same number-- but one sold through fairly quickly while the other still languishes on pegs at retail at some of the Big Three retailers (Toys "R" Us, Wal-Mart, Target). Does this mean kids loved Bane Malar? Does it mean that collectors, despite making a big fuss over it, have a sign on their collections which reads "no fat chicks"? Does it mean that collectors love figures in big neat helmets? (The latter of which seems like a definite yes, by the way.) It's tough to say-- because nobody is psychic.

Certain figures have a wide appeal, sometimes this is described as "kid appeal" but really, it's more of an entry-level purchase or an item that makes an appealing gift. If you are someone (or know someone) that has no Star Wars toys, odds are you're likely to buy them a Luke, a Vader, some Clone Troopers, or maybe another recognizable and popular character. They aren't going to start off with Gargan, which is a problem that affects many toy lines. If a kid is going to get in to Batman, he's going to need a Batman. If someone will start collecting The Simpsons, you'd better be sure they can get Mr. Burns or Homer, but a couple of years in the only figures most fans saw at retail were the likes of Luigi or Fat Tony-- characters that appeal only to the hardcore, been there since day 1 fans.

If a collecting base is big enough-- and this includes the people that buy stuff to resell at flea markets or eBay, which helped sales a lot for quite some time-- you can make and sell pretty much anything. Hasbro is not in the "limited edition" business in any real sense of the word, some items may be tough to get for one reason or another but Hasbro really wants to sell a ton of something because that's how they make their money-- it's better to sell hundreds of thousands of a single item than a few thousand of dozens. Based on their behavior since 1995, I do not expect this to change.

Truth is, like the comic packs, it doesn't matter why something isn't doing well. Once retail buyers for the big three decide it's done, it is-- end of story. We haven't got to that point yet, but by not ending the Legacy SKU earlier this year, odds are the line is going to suffer more because those unsold Gargans and blue-carded figures are going to bring down the line's averages. The last few months have seemingly done quite well, but we'll know for sure in January and February when we see what is (or is not) rotting on the shelves after the crazed holiday shopping season is over. Besides, we've had a wonderful run-- if it ends, or goes to a purely kid-driven The Clone Wars line, it's been a spectacular action figure series to the point where it may be one of the biggest of all time. Or darned close to it.

FIN

That's it! 2009 is over! 2010 is the 15th Anniversary of the modern line, and it looks like Hasbro is holding back the next wave of new figures after the Expanded Universe Legacy wave to coincide with pretty much that date. August? Oy. At least we've got a suite of exclusives to keep us busy. Anyway, short week, so I'm gonna go watch a movie or something. Send in your questions! My backlog is getting empty.

Hunting notes: Target stores have Buy-One-Get-One-Free packs of Legacy Build-a-Droid and Saga Legends for $7.49 a pop at many stores. Also, Star Wars Transformers BOGO packs are $14.99. Target's Rancor has finally been marked down on clearance after nearly 8 months. Wal-Mart has marked down many (but not all) Hasbro exclusive toys, including Transformers Universe items. The AT-ST is not on sale but supposedly pretty much everything else is if you can find it.

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!

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