Toy Bender

I’ve fallen behind on my round up of nerd questions from around the net to Hasbro and for that I must apologize. I realize that not everyone who reads this site goes around dozens of toy sites everyday to find out the newest Star Wars toy news and info so I promise to be more diligent in the future. Now, unleash the nerd hounds!

This question from Action Figs.com seems to get a slightly snarky reply from Hasbro. Awesome.

Q:With the excitement generated by Sideshow’s 12″ figure line, does Hasbro have any regrets about cancelling their 12″ line, especially since it’s clear that there is a strong market for high-quality 12″ Star Wars figures? Did Hasbro recognize a deficiency in their 12″ Star Wars product which didn’t meet consumer’s expectations of quality leading to a lack of success, and was that a chief factor behind the decision to end it? Is there anything that in hindsight Hasbro would have done differently with the 12″ line to keep it in-house?

A: I’m not sure if you realize it, but the Sideshow line is produced under license from Hasbro, and that it was our decision to place work with Sideshow to relaunch the 12″ segment. The reasons were exactly as you state - despite the move to a super-articulated body format and a more proportionate head and hand size for our 2004/2005 12″ figures, we felt that the segment really needed the fresh start. We felt Sideshow could provide, with an emphasis on detail that we did not have the ability to pursue given how full our plates are already. The results, as you summarize, have been fantastic and right in line with what we expected when we embarked on the partnership.

I’m not sure what it is about Sir Steve’s Guide, but a lot of the times they ask some of the most inane questions I’ve ever seen. Take this one for example:

Q: In your response to the question of individual figure pricing in battle packs vs basic figure single cards, you stated that one of the major factors as to why the figures in Battle Packs can often be produced for less per unit is because the tooling for them already exists and thus doesn’t factor into the cost of reusing it - that argument is consistent with prior comments made by Hasbro about costs and mold development. Since that is the case, why is it that the various recent Greatest Hits basic figure lines such as Saga Legends have been the same MSRP as the new, non-refresh, basic main-line figures? (Please be aware that we understand consumer pricing is set by retailers and not by Hasbro, but we also know that retailers set their prices based in no small part on how much they’re paying per unit so when Hasbro raises retailers’ costs, retailers pass that on to consumers, hence the across-the-board price increases.)

A: The SRP for all basic figures is the same, whether or not they are 30th Anniv or Saga Legends. If we reduced the price of Saga Legends, it would draw an unfavorable (and confusing to the average consumer) value comparison to the 30th line. We want to keep our tooling budget healthy for our mainline figures, and pricing parity helps protect our ability to deliver more new figures like we have been doing this year.

Hasbro’s reply should have been: Because we’d like to stay in business. Could you imagine a parent walking into a store and seeing two different price points for two figures that look almost exactly the same? Why in the hell would they buy the more expensive figure? Please, let’s use some common sense before asking some of these questions, people.

Since there isn’t a place to ask Indiana Jones figures some questions pop up for that line. This one comes from Boba’s Bounty.

Q:So Indiana Jones continues to be a hot topic. When can we expect to see the first products hitting the stores? Will there be some kind of “sneak preview” figures like we had with Star Wars?

A:There will be no sneak preview, but the figures will get to retail several weeks prior to the movie, in approximately early May.

You know, I need to break the third wall for a minute and sound like a complete amature. How does one get in on these questions? Boba’s Bounty seems to be a small site just like Toy Bender. What the hell, Hasbro?

Let’s take a break from mocking and whining for a second. The Sith Empire.net asks one hell of a good question about a possible AT-TE.

Q: There have been many rumors about a possible AT-TE. Is there any truth to this? If so, when do you think we should see this?

A: It is true that we have been working on a model of the AT-TE, but we cannot yet confirm whether it will come out with the first season of Clone Wars, in a subsequent year, or really at all at this point. If it is prominent in the animation we would certainly like to do it. We would only look at releasing a vehicle this big in the Fall given the need to synch up to the holiday season. We don’t want to get hopes up too high in case something happens, but we like the chances that it will come out possibly in ‘08 but no later than ‘09.

Awesome! Save your pennies now!

The Sith Empire.net had a question that’s been bothering me for awhile as well.

Q: Last year, we saw a long awaited Republic Commando. Though many of us were very grateful, a few of us were upset that the commando lacked articulation in the knees (especially since the commandos were seen kneeling a lot in the video game). Is there going to be a re-release of the commandos with knees?

A: We don’t have any plans right now to do an updated version with knees. At some point in the future we should certainly look at it.

Argh! What was so hard about putting knees on this figure in the first place? They were already making super articulated Clone Troopers! Yes, sometimes I do geek out about such matters.

Here’s some questions from the last round of Q and A that I felt needed to be spotlighted:

This question comes by way of Galactic Hunter.com and is actually kind of funny:

GalacticHunter: Is there any figure that you guys actually dread the idea of making? If so why? (Character, cost, size, etc.)

HASBRO: Not really! We are up for any challenge, as long as we can manage the development and tooling costs and can hit our price from our vendors based on the what we feel will be the right consumer price point. Probably the only one we dread re-releasing would be Ephant Mon, given his obviously large size and much lower cost, which brings our average way down. But if we embark on another round of Saga Legends fan voting, we will honor our commitment to re-release him despite the costs.

I think Hasbro forgot to add: Any figure that the fans will not stop bitching about that we know won’t sell for shit.

Another good one courtesy of Galactic Hunter is this one:

GalacticHunter: Have any of the newsies’ speculative lists and spy reports (at Galactic Hunter, rebelscum, JediDefender, etc.) ever actually led Hasbro to consider a figure/concept? (If so, who, what…?) [While I'm on the subject -- I really want an R2-D2 figure zapping that ugly little Ewok on his backside. Can someone get on this for 2008?]

HASBRO: The Ewok idea is a great one and we’ll consider it. However, none of the speculative or rumor lists have inspired us to create figures; in fact, we don’t pay too much attention to them because they are based on conjecture or older lists, both of which have come from things we’ve either said or have created at some point. So we don’t spend time going backward. However, we continue to remain inspired by some of the other information vehicles fans have created, like lists of “figures yet to be done”, some fan-made customs, specific websites that get into serious detail we might not have known otherwise (such as wookieepedia and the site created by our friends at astromech.net), discussions that have followed some of the questions in the Q&A, and of course discussions at Conventions. That’s a lot of fan-spiration!

Watch out, Hasbro’s watching you on the internets!

Did you say you wanted geeky questions? How about this one? (I forgot who asked this one, but frankly it’s not that important.)

1) We recently polled our site to see what they felt was the best source of Expanded Universe Star Wars materials. By a large margin the most popular source of EU was Star Wars novels, 62%. In second place was video games with 16%, and comics in third at 10%. However, while Hasbro has toyed (no pun intended) with characters from video games such as the Republic Commandos and the upcoming KOTOR figures, the majority of your EU offerings have been from the comics, both Dark Horse and Marvel. We understand that with the comics you have the unique packaging opportunity to introduce buyers to the character in comic book form at the same time they buy the figures, but is there hope for the large number of book fans to get some figures in 2008?

I don’t have the answer to this because you have to listen to their “podcast” to get it it, and frankly I’m not interested in listening a podcast for one freaking answer. It’s kind of hard to make a figure of a book which consists of pictures in your mind. Besides, the comic books have almost every figure that appears in a crappy Star Wars Expanded Universe book. Just wait a little while Star Wars nerdlings, and your favorite generic Jedi will be made into a figure.

Okay, now on to the latest rounds Ultra-Geeky Award^TM for this round. Check this near perfect execution of neo-classical woman repelling dorkdom from 4-inches.de:

Q: The TAC Figure # 51 R2-B1 seems not to get its tool kit to repair the royal starship as pictures let assume. As this figure is based on the VOTC R2-D2 with extension arm could it get the very same exchangeable front panel (open and closed) and some tooling like a diagnostic and cutter arm? The little thing otherwise seems to be quite useless to repair the royal starship besides serving as a target for federal blaster fire.

A:The R2-B1 repaint is actually based on the R4-G9 body, so this suggestion (however cool) will not work. Thanks for thinking of it, though.

Simply amazing. 4-inches.de, I award you… oh wait! What’s that? We have another contender from Sir Steve’s Guide!

Q: Many fans feel that the Super Articulated Clone Trooper mold from the ROTS line is the best version of this figure, however there are several problems with the sculpt that continue to show up including: upside-down belt packs, one elbowpad strap smaller than the other, different-heights on the knee joints and a 1mm variance from the left to right upper leg leading to leaning figures, and an asymmetrical “cheek” sculpt on the helmet. Will these issues ever be addressed on future figures?

A: The belt pack issue is an assembly error and one we CAN address, but the rest are a little trickier. There are multiple unique sets of tools used in the production of the SA Clones, and what you are seeing may be inherent variety in the different sets. We will take a look at the issues you have pointed out to see if there is anything identify the tools from which these originate and anything we can do to correct, but it may not alway be possible until we have a need to create a new set of Clone tools.

Nothing can stop the geek juggernaut of nerdiery that Sir Steve’s Guide brings to the table with it’s absolutely detailed and overly nerd nit-picky questions! Nice try 4-inches.de, but Sir Steve’s Guide wins another round.

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