Hunh?
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1 I have a few questions for you, Adam. 1) There was some mention that the 300th figure Boba Fett had a holster with a removable pistol. Does this figure actually have a holster with a removable pistol? 2) Did Hasbro mention anything about the Accessory Sets at the Plano show or at any other time recently?
3) When asking Hasbro if they have plans to make a certain figure and they
reply, "No plans at this time.", for how long after that reply should you not
expect to see that figure announced as an upcoming figure? Six months? A year?
OK...
1. That was probably me (so you know who to blame for saying it in the
first place if it somehow doesn't make the final product), and yes, it
does. It looks to me like the a weapon similar to that of the 1970s
12" Fett, however, I did not get to see the weapon out of the holster.
Looks pretty slick, though. So in review: two guns, no waiting.
Never before has a figure been so well equipped for hunting wookiees or
other "damn dirty apes."
2. Didn't ask, but the message that these are unavailable because
retaillers didn't order them was pretty apparent over the past few
months... so if you want them, stores like Entertainment Earth, DNS
Toys, or the vile/lovely eBay are your best bet.
3. "No plans at this time" means "sure, maybe, someday. Not now
though." Hasbro's really, really lousy about letting us know about new
releases in a timeframe I'm happy with (i.e., at this point I wanna see
a list of everything due to be in stores before December 31 2000, and I
think I've gotten it, but I'm not sure)... so I'd say that "not at this
time" means the earliest you'd get a confirmation of the figure's
development is probably going to be six months, most likely more.
After all, there's a lot of unmade figures and not many figures on the
way per year comapred to 1999...
2 Has anyone yet seen what this new Han Solo (Bespin, Captured) is supposed to look like? Or even a description? -Ray
Not that's floated my way... I forgot to ask. Hey Andy, if you catch
this, chime on in.
3 If there are [lots of] cases of the POTF Commtechs in Hasbro warehouses,is there any chance we'll see these on clearence like the recent flood of Freeze Frame figures? -Shawn
Anything is possible. It all depends on what Hasbro decides they want
to do with this stuff.
4
After the glut of figures last year, last I heard there wasn't an
immediate plan to ship more figures to the great white north. As to
where and when, geez, stop asking those questions. :) If we knew when
figures would hit, this kind of forum wouldn't be necessary. :)
5 DO THINK ITS POSIBEL FOR U TO SEND ME THE NAMES OF THE FIGUERS UP FOR CONSIDERATION THANKS -JOSEPH
First, allow me to commend you on your well-written note. It takes
guts these days to stand up and say "I'll write in all caps to look like
I'm shouting, and punctuation is for sissies. And none of this
spell-checker crap for me, either!" I salute you, sir!
Short answer: all of them, except probably BoShek because he totally
sucks. Long answer: all of them, except probably BoShek because he
totally sucks and General Madine because he's boring.
(And no, I didn't edit this one.)
6
Well, I did talk to the guys at Hasbro about the card design, and a
significant amount of time, energy, money, and talent went into the
redesign which, well, not all of us our entirely thrilled with. It's
vibrant. And if it wasn't for Obi-Wan, I think it'd be a lot better
received. But I digress.
Sure, Hasbro sees the polls, the contests, and all of that stuff, but
there are all sorts of legal issues when it comes to using fan ideas.
The winner of our custom card contest came up with an incredibly
dynamic, unique, and dare I say, awesome interpretation for Star Wars
packaging. The rest were great, but like the new POTJ card, were
basically revisions of an existing design...
There are in-house designers and marketers, and while you guys may not
think so, a lot of consideration went into the packaging. Just because
we don't care for it doesn't mean there were some people sitting around
a table going "how can we annoy a ton of people on one of our most
popular figure brands?"
Now, if they put Jar Jar in the corner with a mostly white cardback with
a bubble that wouldn't allow the figure to stand up on its own, I'd
agree with ya. If the cardback was fragile, I'd agree. But figure
packaging, more or less, sucks accross the board. McFarlane's done
some nice stuff-- not all of it, of course, but a lot is well done.
Hasbro's had some nicer designs, but eh, most of their toys sell
themselves based on either name recognition (Pokemon) or fan loyalty
(TransFormers) anyway. Playmates... well, I don't think I can name a
Playmates Toys packaging style I really liked. Maybe the original
packaging of the Ninja Turtles about ten years ago.
In the end, packaging sucks. It pretty much will always suck because,
well, we'll complain. A lot of fans are complaining that the new Fett
isn't on a deluxe card and is instead in a box. (Oooooh. Like you
won't buy two anyway. :) Fact is, we like the toys, and we'll buy them
regardless of the packaging... I don't look at this as Hasbro getting
our goats, and yes, I would like to see something more drastic done, but
man, this topic's been going since POTF2 started five years ago. So
for now, I'm done with new packaging questions, and with that...
7
It's a totally new sculpt with new articulation and whatnot. Take a
look at our photo archive, the differences are pretty apparent with the
close-up shots and I must say, it's a nice figure.
8
First, well, odds are your timing was off. Looking at stores in my
area, unless you go a lot (and by lot, I don't mean only once or twice a
week in some cases) you will never see any 2000 figures. It's not
unusual to not see any 2000 figures in stores, I know I don't see them
around these parts all that much. It's a combination of Hasbro not
shipping gobs of new product in the cases and retaillers not ordering
that much new product.
As far as "when", that's the big question. There's a lot of these
figures sitting around in warehouses, so they've got to show up
eventually.
9
All info I received indicated she meant 4". I doubt you'll ever get
one with a Swoop bike unless Hasbro decides to continue the Invasion
Force assortment (the one with the Gungan cannon and such) which,
unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be doing.
As far as when, well, patience. These figure lines are planned around
18 months in advance, odds are we just got one heck of a sneak peak when
we found out she was in development. I'd be genuinely surprised if we
didn't see her in 2001. There's a long time before Star Wars
development ends, and Episode One won't necesarily end with the advent
of Episode Two. After all, we didn't see figures like the TIE Fighter
Pilot until the final waves of ESB, or Stormtrooper Luke or the Imperial
Gunner until almost seven years after the original film came out. Like
most things in life, waiting is a big part of seeing most of the
characters you want. (Not in my case, though, Hasbro's made everybody
from my "Dream List." Wuher & Dark Empire Luke... who'd've thunk
it?)
In a nutshell, she'll be out eventually. Fan interest is there,
Hasbro's aware of it, sometimes it just takes a while.
10
Actually, this just came up. I have no idea where these are still
available, actually. KB Kids has three of 'em for $25 a pop,
though...
The only one I bought so far is the X-Wing Luke helmet, which I liked
(and coincidentally, KB doesn't carry.) It's well crafted, nicely
painted, and full of detail. At a sub-$50 price tag, I'd say all of
them are worthy purchases, although some are obviously better than
others. C-3PO is probably the lamest duck of the bunch, but still, it
ain't bad.
These are some of the finest Star Wars items out there, and
unfortunately, there's only five different ones. Still, they're pretty
great, and if you're looking for something for your SW rooms to buy
before September, these are some great items. When compared to similar
items from Don Post Studios, Riddell puts the competition to shame...
really. The detail on the little Fett helmet is really something.
These items first hit a few years ago at prices ranging from $65 to $90,
and just didn't fly with collectors back then. Which is a real shame,
because these are collectibles that don't suck.
FIN Next update should be on... Thursday, probably.
Why did Galoob take out the Ponda Baba figure included with the Action Fleet Battle Pack Bantha? When the Bantha first came out, Ponda was there. Now he's not included in the later assortments. -Miscus555
I did get the chance to ask Galoob about this when it happened, and it
was (unfortunately) in a lot of the Battle Packs. Like the first five.
As a cost-cutting measure, one figure was removed from each package
after the first few months, and well, it kinda sucks.
2 Do you have your collection of toy figures insured? -Dare
I don't, but I know people that do or are in the process of doing so.
3 I've heard that Hasbro has thousands of the 2000 figures in its warehouse. Why can't some of those be shipped to the fan club so we can get them? -Meaneys
Even the best-packed cases have pegwarmers in 'em. The last Collection
1 E1 case had two Tatooine Mauls in it (the other 10 were all 2000
figures.) And there were only two new introductions to Collection 3
this year. Collection 2's fared a little better, but unless these
things were to be hacked up and re-assorted odds are it would not be in
the club's best interests to take them.
Also, fans have been pretty quiet about not being able to find a lot of
the stuff recently. Between the Jabba & Eopie beasts and everything
else, well, I haven't heard that many complaints (especially when
compared with R2-D2.) I'm not saying the interest isn't there, but
man, we've been getting on the less-complaining side lately. (Who'd
have thunk it?)
4
Yup, the tank was made, and it's a really great toy. (I still haven't
seen one in stores, but I did get to play with it and it rocks.)
As far as a Hangar battle scene, two playsets were made by Hasbro last
year that might suit your needs, but odds are you know about them and
they don't. A great Action Fleet set was made (highly reccomended),
but no big giant hangar is in production that we're aware of.
5 Have you noticed in "A New Hope"that during a few quick shots of the lightsaber duel between Vader and Obi-Wan,their lightsabers were clear.It looks really bad,and it even gets on my nerves a little.Why weren't they colored before they released the special edition of the movie? -Daniel
Surprisingly, a lot of errors in the films didn't get fixed. I think I
heard somewhere that they wanted to leave a few in there just because,
but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever considering what a
FX-monkey LucasFilm seems to be in terms of wanting to be all over
everything.
While I have no doubt (ok, SOME doubt) that this is one of the things
being fixed for the uber-ultra-mega-special-edition DVD (at least it
better have five adjectives), well, who knows? Some things are just
they way they are. It's kinda neat, and it kinda sucks. Maybe just
squint a little more.
6
Yup. Aside from figures being used for animatics (before they did
digital animatics), some off-the-shelf model kits were used, starting
with ESB (if I remember correctly). I can't point to specifics, but
this was something mentioned in one of the bazillion
books/specials/magazines/trading cards I've read in the past few
years.
7
A micro-saber is a term for an error where a Lightsaber is shorter than
the length of its tray and is NOT the typical long tray/short saber
thing that appeared on the first 5 figures with Lightsabers (Vader, Ben,
Luke, X-Wing Luke, Dagobah Luke). It could be a few millimeters, it
could be more. It's just another error, I wouldn't call it a variation
since it really wasn't a conscious change or anything, just a goof-up at
the plant like a mispackaged figure or whatever.
As far as why people pay it, well, I dunno. I'd rather put $100 toward
a nice ESB carded figure than a POTF2 error, but hey, everybody's got
their various interests.
8
Well, while ordinarily I'd give you loads of crap for asking a "value"
question, this is a good topic.
Custom figures are essentially art and a sub-division of normal figure
collecting. Because of this, there is no real value in the item unless
there's a definite high level of interest in it. For example, if it's
a well known customizer or a particularly cool figure, it might go for a
whole bunch regardless of if it ever was made by a toy company. (Seen
Gary's new Mara Jade figure? Man, I want one of those. But I
digress.)
Your figure is worth... whatever it goes for. There's an estimate of
"probably what you paid for it and a little bit more", but you never
know. Custom figures are a bit of a niche, so I'd be genuinely
surprised if it had any real huge aftermarket value to begin with. If
you really want to know, stick it on eBay. Otherwise, just enjoy it
for what it is-- a nifty little addition to your collection with a nice
anecdote to go along with it.
9
A transition tray-- unless it's some weird regional word-- is the short
period in 1996 when figures with the current length of lightsaber
("short") shipped in trays molded for the original ("long") lightsabers.
They're often abbreviated as SS/LT (Short Saber/Long Tray) and have also
been referred to as "tweeners."
10
With the mark, even though it does look a bit funky. It could've been
intentional, but I really have no idea.
FIN Next update should be on either Friday or Monday morning. Probably Friday.
In the M/M line there was a green A-wing (which I never got the chance to get) now, was there a green A-Wing in the movie at least as a cameo? I got an A-wing from the TRU sale that I want to convert to the green version; But I don't I really want to waste time in something that was not on the movie; I recently fully repainted an F/X X-wing featured in the figures improvements page @ Yakface please let me know if this A-wing version appeared on the movie or if it was only a goof up from Galoob. I have an extensive reference sources from models from S/W and no signs of it.
PS After posting the Images @ Yakface I found an ooops! that one is Red-4
but another extra red stripe was added and presto, now Luke has his Red-5
standing by.
Galoob was given some toyetic license to create "new" toys using the
almighty paint jar. Before Galoob's Action Fleet line, I have never
seen or even heard of green A-Wing fighters. Blue, sure, but not
green. It, the blue Y-Wing (unless I totally missed something), and
the other version of the Snowspeeder were created especially for the
line.
The X-Wing Action Fleet mold saw more modifications than any other
vehicle in the line. In the Yavin IV Playset (now $5 at Toys "R" Us),
a battle damaged version of Wedge's ship was incuded that featured
notable retooling. Also, a repainted Luke Red 5 X-Wing was made as an
exclusive for Toy Fare magazine, and it had some retooled weeds and
vines on it to feature "Dagobah Damage" or something. In the regular
line, there were Red 2 (Wedge), Red 6 (Porkins), Red 5 (Luke), and that
was it. Luke's X-Wing is available in "dirty" and "clean" versions, and was also repackaged in a Flight Controller that was basically the regular ship with a giant novelty electronic missile-firing stand. It's actually quite cool. The last X-Wing on the list is Biggs Darklighters', which was part of the Series Alpha line before they started doing it right with Episode One. So in the end, you could've bought up to 8 versions of basically the same toy, and that's not even including the X-Wing vs. TIE
Fighter two-pack or the Japanese "pewter" two-pack.
So to answer your question... yes, Galoob repainted stuff a lot.
2 I have noticed that there is a post over on yakface.com regarding the appearance of the Tatooine Skiff at retail in Britain...would you recommend waiting for my Target to pull something out of the back...or ordering it from a British friend or store? If it were a store, who would you recommend. Also, o' great swami, what is the current dollar-pound exchange rate? -Eric
I have, on more than one occasion, turned to kind souls in the United
Kingdom to assist me in my various collecting endeavors... when hard to
find Galoob stuff or impossible to find Beast Wars show up, it's nice to
have someone who you can ask favors from once in a while.
If the price is right, I'd always do it, because patience, while a
virtue, sucks. If the Skiff shows up again, it'll be around $20. So
if you can trade for it, and this trade will cost you less than... say,
around $30, I'd jump on it if I still needed a Skiff.
The exchange rate is (as of the time I write this) about $0.66 to one UK
pound. Since the price for the Skiff in the UK is said to be around 50
pounds, this would mean it'd cost you $75. Meaning even UK residents
would be better off being scalped on this one.
3 How did Hasbro come up with the Han Solo/Carbonite figure as number 100? There were only 96 figures in the original line, including the different R2's and C-3PO's. Number 100 should have been during the Droids line. Looking at a web site that listed the 300 figures, it shows the Carbonite figure as part of the Droids line which is incorrect, since it was a POTF release. Is this an error on Hasbro's part or am I missing something? -SWFan1977
Lucky for me, I asked them this when I first saw the packaging.
Since there were only about 100 figures in the original line (92 on a
POTF cardback + 1 Yakface + 3 R2/3POs + Sears Snaggletooth + 3 Rebo
Band) it struck me as odd that Han in Carbonite would be 100 because
everything I heard had me believe that Yakface was, in fact, the final
figure developed for the original line because it was to be a mail-in at
one point.
According to Hasbro Lore (R), the original Power of the Force figures,
Ewoks, and Droids were all developed around the same time with some
overlapping, which means that, conceivably, the development could have
been mixed up to allow Han being the 100th figure. Or it's possible
Hasbro just didn't want to explain who Jann Tosh was.
4
This Japanese item (unless I've misheard) is the only way to get this
version of the Queen and the taller Qui-Gon figure for now. Hasbro is
pretty random on when it repackages toys from two-packs, but they're
almost always changed and not always for the better.
As far as the price goes, for an import/exclusive/12" thing, this is
about par for the line, which is generally overpriced as it is. If FAO
can sell two rebel pilots for $60, this isn't that much of a stretch
beyond that.
As far as my take on it, the plethora of exclusives combined with the
lack of variety in the line for the most part has killed my interest in
the 12" line as a whole long ago. Some items coming out are pretty
slick, though: the new 12" Bounty Hunters, the Speederbike, and the
Dewback are all high on my want list. But as far as Episode One goes,
I have yet to buy one of the 12" figures from it and Valorum is just too
dull to grab my interest in a 12" size. I'll get anything in the 4"
scale... but 12" requires a commitment to space and money I'm not
willing to make.
5 With the recent clearance of items in TRU and kaybee I have recently began to collect the action fleet line. Unfortunately not all of the later releases have been on the shelves. I still need some of the items like the Rancor, Virago and Imperial landing craft. Any ideas on where I might pick these up on the secondary market? -JoeKersav
Not beyond the typical "try ebay" stuff. The Rancor was always kinda
tough to find... which is too bad, because he's got the coolest
mechanism to ever appear on a Star Wars toy.
6
Actually, we've gotten a few reports of this happening, same spot as
well. The display models at the local toy stores have been taken down,
maybe this is why. All I can say is return/exchange the toy, write a
polite letter to the toymakers to let them know the problem, and if it
happens again, keep complaining. This is no time for junk toys when
there's so many good toys out there.
7
The Electronic C-3PO carry case was one of my favorite targets when it
first came out because it, as the kids say, embodies "suck."
It had one sticker sheet which didn't cover most of the figures
available at its release, and was full of typographical errors. I
believe "Admiral Akbar" was on there, but Jeff was mysteriously absent.
The AT-ST driver written as an AT-AT driver was another one of these
errors, and it did cause some confusion when we used it as a
confirmation of an upcoming AT-AT Driver, much to Hasbro's surprise.
This item is, without a doubt, one of the worst toys in the past ten
years. And I'm including those car seats that can kill people. It
retains the 1983 copyright of the toy from which it was originally
culled, most figures can't fit, and man, I feel like I do nothing but
dump on this piece. Better get to the next question.
8
First, when did Hasbro start adding these to the
cards? Is there an actual difference in regards to
rarity between green-carded picture cards and hologram
cards?
Second, I got a .00 orange-carded hologram
stormtrooper from a friend of mine who used to work at
TRU. I know that it's real since he got it off a
shipping box (actually there were two of them), but I
was wondering if this a common mistake (or one that
can be easily faked) or do I have something special?
Hologram stickers began being added to figures almost immediately after
green cards began shipping. They were the-- and don't laugh-- special
feature added to figures for 1997, the "20th Anniversary" year. I
think they started showing up in the Hoth Luke wave first, with older
green carded figures like Greedo getting holostickers added at the same
time. At the end of 1997, figures shipped without the stickers, and
most of the non-Freeze Frame figures you see today on clearance are
these leftover, unsold "no holo" green carded figures.
A few orange carded figures shipped with holostickers, the Stormtrooper
is probably the most common. It's easily faked, and there are a few
out there, but it's not exactly common as most other figures. Still,
it's a nice oddity.
9
No-- and by no, I mean zero-- figures will be rereleased on the new
Power of the Jedi packages according to Hasbro. (And by Hasbro, I mean
about four people on the team told me this.)
Get off your duff and head to Kay-Bee and Toys "R" Us while you can, as
both stores carry these older figures for two or three bucks a pop.
You can't beat that.
10
I never saw one of these until the show at Plano the other week. She's
a little hard to come by, but can be had relatively cheaply (like $30 or
less) without too much of a struggle. I never saw her in stores, but
lots of people have seen her available online. So yeah, go forth and
pick one up next time you get the chance, it's not a bad little doll.
FIN
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