Nope... nothing witty this week!
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1 Here is a 3 in 1 question: Up to this year what would you say are the 5 best accomplishments of Hasbro in the POTF line? Up to this year what would you say are the 5 biggest let downs in the POTF line? What 5 ways do you think Hasbro could improve the POTF & Ep. 1 lines in general?
By "accomplishments" I mean, specific figure, attention to detail, the fact
that so many obscure figures have been made etc.
Seems a bit long, but what the hey, I've had off for a week, time to do some work.
Five best accomplishments of Hasbro's line? First and foremost, the
Removable Helmet Darth Vader figure is the best representation of the
character that's around four inches tall. It also proved that a toy
company need not have a pea-sized-head for a figure to have removable
headgear. Second, the Cantina Han Solo, the first Star Wars figure to
have an actual holster for its weapon. Plus the sculpt and
articulation are just so darned good. Next, the Luke/TaunTaun beast
pack, just because it looks so awesome. For #4, I'd have to say Beru... it's just a delightful looking figure and they packed in a Treadwell droid to boot. And at #5, I'm gonna go with the Cantina Band Member, which is the ultimate example of how to do an exclusive right-- because the figure was great and you didn't have to spend $50 to get all the instruments.
Let downs? As far as the POTF2 line goes, the biggest letdown is the
12" line because it's basically been rehash after rehash with a little
bit of new stuff since the end of 1997. Next, the Tatooine Skiff which
is as of yet unreleased, mainly because the original toy sucked, but
probably more because they told us it was going to be an all-new sculpt
(and some of us don't forget those things.) At #3, well, to be honest,
the POTF2 line has been really good, so I really don't have any
reasonable complain ts at that point, really. Up until last year, aside from distribution problems, things have been great.
As far as improvements go, nothing I haven't said before. First and
foremost, Hasbro's decision of assortments is just plain bad-- this
sales model cannot work with a line with such a heavy collector fanbase.
While I think McFarlane's got the right idea (6 new figures in a case
that doesn't ship for too long, tough-to-find stuff shows at the
collector club, and retailler exclusive repaints), odds are Hasbro won't
go for that. But I do think that a "new figure" assortment and an "old
figure" assortment would make a big difference... the little guy cannot
survive with Hasbro's assortments forcing 10 figures out of 16 on to a
store who CAN'T POSSIBLY COMPETE with Toys "R" Us or Wal-Mart since they
have to pay a bunch in the first place.
Second, character choice and timing. I don't mind really good
resculpts as long as the original toy is either old or looks so bad that
it should be redone... which is why I loved (and yes, I genuinely liked
it) the whole 1998 resculpt onslaught with the new Luke, Leia, Chewie,
Vader, C-3PO, etc. The originals looked odd next to the current toys,
and nobody could find the originals anymore. But very few people would
want a new Anakin or Vader every four months, especially when they can't
very well get the previous model, and the new tooling is probably
costing Hasbro a heck of a lot more than it would cost to just ship more
of the earlier model. But then again, I don't work there, so this is
just speculation.
And lastly-- I'm only gonna do 3 here-- is price. While the 2000
offerings like Shmi Skywalker and Sio Bibble look good enough to justify
a pricetag of $7, fact is most of these toys stand up badly next to
their $8 McFarlane or $6-$8 Resaurus neighbors. While odds are we
can't see costs go down, I'd love to see a return of extra weapons or
something instead of chips-- so it's like getting a mini-accessory pack
with each figure. (Like one gun.) Still, that's just me.
2 As a fairly new collector of star wars collectibles, you may have answered this question in the past, so please forgive me if it is a repeat. As a collector of the Action Fleet line of ships, etc., I have often wondered what the hole on the top of some of the ships (i.e., the snowspeeder, the y-wing, etc.) is for...? -Brett
This was placed there for the Action Fleet Playsets-- they include a nifty series of fuel hoses and such for the vehicles so there's actually a lot of play value in the toys. This is one of the reasons I like the classic AF stuff so much... I mean, it's all pretty cool, and dirt cheap now that Kay-Bee is getting loads of it for $3.99 a ship.
3 Since I haven't had the courage to open my Commtech Vader until I can find a second one, can you tell me if his lightsaber handle is removable? I've read reports that it was, but I doubted it. -Seb
Nope, not removable-- it's sculpted to the figure. Sorry!
4
Hard to say for sure. Hasbro royally goofed on
my second favorite figure of 1999 by shorting it like they did-- the
CommTech R2-D2 was MUCH better than its E1 counterpart and just looked
great. When I saw the new Jar Jar, I thought "Boring, but more fun
than the one I've got now-- I want one." And naturally, I can't get
it. I think it's Hasbro's way of saying "don't forget 1998" by
shorting stuff to make sure nobody can afford to stop paying attention
to the line in fear of missing something good.
(Of course, that's just my media-induced paranoia talking.)
5 Adam, how many episodes of the Droids and Ewoks cartoons were made? Are the two 90minute videos all that there is of these cartoons? -Jason
There were 13 Droids (only one season), while Ewoks clocked in for two with 26 Episodes. There's also The Great Heep, an hour long special with Droids characters, and the infamous Boba Fett Cartoon from the holiday special where R2 & 3PO look just like they do on Droids. There was an issue of the Insider with a complete episode guide, unfortunately, I don't have it handy.
J2 Communications released 2 videos with 2 episodes each for each series. I scored one of the Ewoks ones in a discount bin at Best Buy a couple of years ago, so they're still around if you're willing to look. The 90 minute videos are re-edited collections of the old episodes with new music, which I didn't particularly care for.
I think I heard Steve Sansweet (SW junkie and all around nice guy) say that Japan saw a release of the entire series on video, but I can't remember. Nobody has brought the show in its entirety to the US for quite some time, it ran on the Sci-Fi channel a few years ago and hasn't been seen since. Here's hoping Rhino or someone will pick it up and start releasing it soon.
6
Much of the vintage line was done before color photography was available to Kenner, plus the on-screen saber looked kinda funky. They probably did it just to make it easy to remember that Yellow meant Luke, either that or somebody thought it'd be funny.
7
I don't think it split the community, but it has bored it to tears-- the new stuff doesn't have the variety that POTF2 saw in its early days. While a lot of people don't like it, I am always interested in new aliens/droids/Jedi/etc. But the bulk of people avoiding E1 seem to be people who realize how much of this stuff they have and that their money could be better spent elsewhere.
8
The Furby Yoda is an offshoot of the Furby line, much like Shellby, and will appear on the upcoming Furby cartoon which is in development for the "BKN" (Big Kid's Network) sometime later this year.
It will be worth $142 when it comes out, despite retailling at $50, so parents can buy them and sell them in the paper come Christmas to teach their kids that the true meaning of Christmas is toy scalping.
Or it could be coming later this year to warm shelves at stores everywhere. (A friend of mine heard the voice at the toy show in Pamona recently, word has it the toy's voice totally sucks-- as in makes all the CommTechs look good. And he ain't as picky as I am when it comes to this sort of thing.)
9
Yup-- it's Toyetic License. That is, they can do whatever they want if it'll make for a neat toy. However I think some tech manual or something mentioned Vader had one on one or both Death Stars, but since I didn't buy those, well, can't really verify it for ya.
10
Well, yes, I think mail-away action figures
(especially ones that only use UPCs and not checks or receipts) are the
coolest things in the world. I went ga-ga over the Ambush Predator,
the gold Action Master C-3PO, even the M.A.S.K. tollbooth mail-in
from... geez, ages ago. (Man, M.A.S.K. was cool.) Hasbro used to do
TONS of neat stuff for GI Joe's flag points, even the TransFormers robot
points, but unfortunately, very few companies have done mail-ins lately.
Considering how of ten we see these things get dumped-- the Belloq in
Ceremonial Robes was available by the case (I think 144 figures) at
$0.03 a figure. Plus, these things are usually a loss for the company
unless it does AMAZINGLY well.
Personally, I'd like to see Hasbro releasing a figure by mail maybe 6
months early, for a bunch of points + S&H, and release the same figure
on a card the next year. But it probably won't happen. (Now what'd
be really cool is some sorta "Hasbro Collector Club" deal where a bunch
of lines have points, and you could use points from Batman, GI Joe, SW,
etc. all on the same offers. Build brand loyalty and offer cool stuff.
Nah, it'd never happen.)
A lot of companies have incorporated "points" and NOTHING ever happened.
Galoob's Star Wars offerings since at least late 1994, possibly since
the beginning (no cardbacks handy), had points on them, which were never
used for SW offers. I'm pretty sure Takara never used their Robot
Points on the Japanese Beast Wars line.
FIN
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