As part of Hasbro's bi-weekly Q&A session, Rebelscum passed on 3 of your burning questions and now we've got the answers for you.
Rebelscum: Where's Lumat? On the sticker sheet in the Action Figure Base Packs, Lumat appears on the list. While the "Graak" figure from 2007 appears to be based on the same Ewok photo that the vintage Lumat figure was based on, they apparently are different characters. Speculation was that we'd see Lumat in the ROTJ wave (what's now been revealed as The Legacy Collection wave 1), but that turned out to be another Ewok named "Leektar". So back to our original question....where's Lumat? Has he been bumped in favor of lesser-known Ewoks, or are there plans for this long-lost figure to come out? Longtime fans want to know if we can look forward to checking off another vintage upgraded figure!Hasbro: Yes, indeed. Lumat was originally meant to be the figure we were doing in the two-pack with Romba. Lucasfilm asked us to change him to Graak, but the sticker sheet was already out to be printed. Someday soon we hope to get to Lumat.
Rebelscum: Another question on a mystery figure....in the latest issue of Star Wars Insider, there is a photo of a blue-striped Stormtrooper figure from The Force Unleashed. Wizards of the Coast's miniature game identifies this character as a "Felucian Stormtrooper Officer" and the Unleashed Battle Packs identify him as a "Stormtrooper Commander." While loose and carded photos have leaked (on a TAC cardback, no less), we've not heard anything official on this character. We understand the frequent delays of TFU has changed the release of some tie-ins, but it seems the bulk of Hasbro's line is still on target, except for this one. Can you shed any light on this figure, and where and when fans can acquire him? Hasbro: This figure, a Stormtrooper Commander, will indeed be released as part of an upcoming promotion dealing with The Force Unleashed. As the game was delayed, so too was the promotion. Details have still yet to be announced or finalized, but the figure should be out around the time the game is released.
Rebelscum: In a recent Q&A session with our friends over at Jedi Defender, it was revealed that there will be another wave of Saga Legends repacks in the fall, featuring kid-targeted characters from the Clone Wars era. Without giving away the figures in this line, I'm wondering which characters you have listed as "kid-oriented", meaning are there in fact specific characters that are primarily targeted towards kids? If so, who are they? Also, which characters do you consider targeted towards collectors?
On a similar note, are there any characters that are "must haves" when you are setting up a line for the year? Presumably the ones listed above would fall into this category, but are there any others that are shoo-ins? Hasbro: Kid-targeted figures include heroes and key villains (characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, R2-D2, General Grievous, etc) as well as core troopers and key droid opponents. In general these are figures that kids want in order to play out the major battles, which are also figures that we have a strong history with as "outperformers" because kids select these before anything else.
Since these are re-releases, with no changes, we consider these releases to be kid-targeted, even though collectors may be interested in the troops, or to some extent, the change to a new line. We don't have room in the Fall assortment to offer any collector-targeted Saga Legends as we did for the 30th line (based on voting). It's possible we could add that later for 2009, but for Fall '08 it will be all hands on deck to get the hero potential on shelf as quickly as possible for the movie and TV series.
Rebelscum: Finally, this is not really a question, but I'd like to show our support for Jedi Defender's recent request for fans to follow the development on the Willrow Hood figure. We'd love to watch the step-by-step development on this fan-supported figure!Got any burning
Star Wars questions you need answered straight from the source? If so, post your questions in
this thread in our forums, and with any luck, you'll get your answers next time!
