Toy Bender

It’s been almost a sort of a reprieve from horrendously nerdy questions around here. I just haven’t had the time to post an update about them! Well, there’s a time for everything and now is the time for nerds to ask questions that make Hasbro employees cringe.

Action Figs.com gets this party started:

ActionFigs.com: Since there has been buzz about doing a Willrow Hood (ice cream guy) figure, is there a chance that you’ll visit other obscure characters from Bespin such as Treva Horme, Wiorkettle, and alien Bespin guard Utris M’toc? These characters are visually more interesting than Hood (many people think so), and Trooper M’toc could be the basis for a potential army builder as he’s a Bespin security officer.

Hasbro: Well, Willrow has the advantage in that he has a sizeable(sic) amount of fan support as shown by his relatively strong vote showing in the Toy Fare Fans’ Choice poll last year. We like the Utris idea…a strong possibility for the next time that we do a Bespin guard.

If you know who all those characters are based on name alone, you need to reevaluate your life. It may be time for some changes.

Action Figs also asks:

Action Figs.com: Hasbro’s made it clear that the McQuarrie Signature series concept figures have exceeded expectations. There’s plenty more concept art designs to mine for new takes on main characters, villains, creatures, and more. With the Evolutions line returning with new concepts, would Hasbro consider doing a McQuarrie- or concept-art-inspired Evolutions pack, showing the different stages of a character from inception to finalization? Also, can we hope to see concept figures from ROTJ some day?

Hasbro: We will not be doing any of the McQ (or other artist) concepts in the Evolution line - we feel the place for these figures is in the basic figure line. We do hope that the concept figures will make a return some time, although it will not be in 2008. If and when they do come back, it’s possible a RotJ figure could be in the mix.

No concept figures in 2008? What kind of retarded is that? They’re obviously super popular because I can’t find any EVER. I realize that they’ll run out of protype figures, but it seems odd that they are giving it a rest for an entire year.

Switching gears, Jedi Defender asks a question about Indiana Jones:

Jedi Defender: You mentioned in a previous Q&A session that there will be 30 figures in the Indy line next year. Are Indy figures in 2009 a certainty or is it more of a “wait and see” type of thing and see how 2008 goes first? We’re just curious if this is going to be a toy line with legs under it like Star Wars has been, or if it will be much more subdued in character choices/variety.

Hasbro: We are actively planning and producing for a multi-year run. IJ is something we are committed to and hopefully fans are excited about it as we are.

Awesome! There’s a chance yet they’ll make your favorite obscure Jones character now!

Jedi Insider

Jedi Insider: (Reader question by Die Fighter X) Now I realize this is a long shot, but who do I have to bribe over at Hasbro to get a figure of Darca Nyl? Even more of a long shot, our buddy Darca in his mercenary armor from his early days before getting his sweet nomad uniform and slugging it out with Lycan. Again, I know a long shot…but with the contract with Hasbro as far into the future as it is, that leaves room for a lot of “secondary” and Dark Horse characters.

Hasbro: It is certainly true that there is room for a lot of great comic-only characters in the lineup, and based on the reception to the comic packs (thank you!) we hope to have a long future with them. That said, Darca has yet to make the cut, based on his appearances in Tales, but his recent battle with Vader in Rebellion was very interesting. We have to see where he goes beyond that (and if he survives…). If Darca turns up elsewhere, we’ll continue to give him a look for a further out opportunity.

This is one of the many times I’m glad I have no idea who they are talking about.

Jedi Temple Archives now asks what source most of the upcoming Star Wars figures will come from:

Jedi Temple Archives: In the most recent Q&A you stated:

“For 2008, we are going to take the classic total down by about one wave. So from the current 60 figures this year, expect around 53 figures or so. Episodes III-VI will each have waves along with a The Force Unleashed wave and a couple other surprises in there.”

Does the 53 figure number include the figures from the Clone Wars line? And can you give us a little insight into what the themes of these waves might be? And is The Force Unleashed limited to one wave only?

Hasbro: Sure thing. The 53 is just for “classic” only which encompasses everything other than the new Clone Wars (all six movies, EU including comics and videogames, the earlier Clone Wars, etc.). Clone Wars basic figures has a whole separate line..exact number of figures to be announced at a later date. Yes, The Force Unleashed will be one wave (and what a wave it is!) next year. However, that may not be the last we see of TFU….stay tuned.

No matter how the line breaks down I know I won’t find the ones I like. Still, I can’t wait to see what Hasbro has cooking for these upcoming waves.

Sandtroopers.comhits Hasbro about the “good guy” army builders:

Sandtroopers.com: Dear Hasbro, With the release of the Battlefront - Renegade Squadron game can we expect to finally see a super-articulated Rebel Commando figure in 2008? Since you can use the legs, backpack and helmet from the 2006 Endor Rebel Trooper you only need to sculpt a new upper body, arms and head. There could also be a running change including the rodian and the sullustan heads based on the customizing feature from the LucasArts website.

Hasbro: No plans for 2008, but we have a more articulated Rebel Commando on our longer term “to do” list. Your idea for a figure set is really cool - we will look into it.

What? I’ve seen the movies, 99% of the Rebel commandos were humans. That’s right, HUMANS saved the galaxy you lame aliens.

Sandtroopers.com asks about the rumored AT-TE:

Sandtroopers.com: Will the AT-TE come with some new type of clone driver?

Hasbro: We have not officially confirmed (despite reports from the Dallas show) that there will be at AT-TE in the line. We merely said that if we did it, it would have to be pretty big. Folks are reading between the lines at what we have said earlier, and that’s fine, but it’s a big vehicle to tackle and it’s not 100% certain yet that we will be able to deliver. So….until we have officially confiirmed(sic), which we hope will be Toy Fair time, it’s still a wish list item. There are so many uncertainties with cost, etc. that we would also have to see what is left for a budget to see if a new driver could make it in or whether we would look to do a driver in a different pack.

I’d love for Hasbro to make one of these things, but I neither have the money or the space for it. Please Hasbro, send me one for free and pay for a storage shed for me. K Thx.

Yoda’s News asks about the Galactic Heroes Line:

YodasNews.com: There are certain Galactic Heroes figures that where never available except for in multi packs (like the Shadow Stormtrooper, the Mace Windu battalion clone, or R2-Q5) that contained a lot of figures that collectors that had collected the Galactic Figures line from the beginning had already bought. Are there any plans to re-release these previous multi pack exclusives in a regular two pack, perhaps to reward or thank collectors that had been supporting the line since it was under the Playskool banner?

Hasbro: Good question, Mark. We had not planned this, but could take a look at it as a possibility.

Hasbro can never win. If they re-released these more rare figures, then the people that own them will be pissed that their figures are no longer rare.

The Ultra-Geeky Award^TM

Now it’s time for the Ultra-Geeky award. I bet you’re excited… or something.

This time we had a big upset, for Sir Steve’s Guide looked like they were coming in with a winner with this question:

Q: In the Art of Revenge of the Sith book, there was a detailed piece of concept art from Aaron McBride of the Mon Calamari Female Dancer. The concept is applied in ROTS as the dancers in the Squid Lake scene (yes, it’s really called that). What are the chances of seeing this Mon Cal Dancer design turned into a figure, especially using the striking design from the concept art? And if you were to make her into a figure, would you give her a name?

A: Long-term chances are not too bad - but it may take a few years. Actually, this exact figure has been “on the bubble” (not a bad pun) for a few years now, on our wish lists we draw up for a given year, but has been put off in favor of other figures.

It both saddens me and sickens me that someone would want a Mon Calmari dancer this badly to ask for it. I’d much rather a the big boobied Twi’lek that’s seen just outside of that scene than the gross fish dancer. Seriously.

The big winner of this round (TheJawa.com)
ran right up and out geeked the most winning geek site with this monster question:

TheJawa: Hasbro has obviously had a lot of success with the SA clonetrooper mold in all its forms (Clone Wars SA, RotS #41, Evolutions Commander, Clone Commander, Galactic Marine, etc etc). It’s well known that the tooling is very expensive and with the clonetrooper tooling you’ve obviously gotten a good return on your investment by being able to reuse that tooling over and over by just doing inexpensive repaints and/or tweaking minor parts of the figure to make “new” figures. And the fans are more than happy to buy them up too, so it is win-win for all involved.

So why has it taken so long for Hasbro to adopt the same policy for other army builders? Why not dive in and produce tooling for SA bodies such as the Tantive IV Rebel, Hoth Rebel Soldier, X-Wing Pilot, Hoth Snowspeeder Pilot, Mon Calamari officer, Imperial Officer (black/olive/whatever), Jedi Knight (human/humanoid), etc. After which, you could vary the heads, the ethnicity, the ranks, gender (maybe), or what not and get the same kind of ROI that you’ve gotten with the clones. So long as every “template” body is SA, has neutral leg pose (i.e. no more Codys or spread-legged puffy-knee Death Star Troopers please), has either ball-jointed elbows or if angled-cut swivel elbows then at least the arms can be posed straight (and not bent like the AT-TE Gunner), you can reissue that sculpt again and again.

One speculates that if enough thought is put into it in advance, you could even build into the tooling extra leg or arm parts that would let you produce figures of different heights as well so that the soldiers don’t all feel too generic. By now it should be fairly obvious that kit-bashed figures that are based on less-articulated molds like Dutch Vander or Major Derlin aren’t being greeted too warmly by collectors, we’d all rather wait until Hasbro makes the “ultimate” mold and then happily buy up all the variations churned out from that mold.

Hasbro: Thanks for the comments. We will say that it would always be our hope, eventually, to create ultimate versions of all of our figures but this is simply not possible all of the time and we have to balance out the line to help us meet our own targets. The expense you talk about - tooling - is a 1-time expense for the most part and that is a factor when we initiate products. But the more lasting implication of “super-articulation” all the time is the labor cost to produce, deco, and assemble each one - and that is a cost that increases in proportion to the number of parts and increases with time (as labor rates go up) and it’s one of the areas of biggest challenge to us to keep cost-balanced. If we went SA for everything, it would probably put us up to vintage-type pricing….which collectors might not mind, but this would be hard for kids. So, we pick our spots and evolve the line gradually….granted, not a sea change like some would like, but a good overall trend. Stick with us…we have some nice surprises planned for next year and beyond.

Wow, talk about taking the crown away from the king! This was a monumental geek effort that was executed flawlessly. Just the phrase, “One speculates that if enough thought is put into it in advance…” was enough to win this thing, but there was so much more than that. Way to go!

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toy, toy collecting, action figure, Hasbro, star wars