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Action Figure Insider:1) Just curious as to why the Build-a-Droid pieces weren’t made compatible with the C-3PO/Battle Droid set from 2002 considering those two figures have been in circulation almost continuously since that time. Also why was C-3PX designed with a ball-socket neck connection and not the peg-into-torso connection the others have (and why the difference in peg sizes with his limbs, as well)?
2) What is the status on the unbearded 2nd hoth trooper- we were told that it would be showing up in a later assortment on the new card. But none of the scheduled releases have it listed– is it still coming??
3) Can we look forward to any Build-a-Droids that aren’t "protocol" or "astromech" in the basic line?? I’m meaning that in the sense that you identify the 4-piece droids as astromechs and the 6 piece as protocols, not so much in the literal meaning of those terms…
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From CollectionStation.com: 1) In Episode I, the Escape from Naboo sequence was a very memorable scene in the movie. Over the last 10 years, you've managed to release all the brave astromechs involved in the scene except for R5-A7 (aka G8-R3). What are the chances that we'll see this figure done in the near future? What format would it likely be done as, perhaps a basic figure, a pack-in from a set, a build-a-droid, or something else?
2) We know you designed the first Evolutions Clone Pilot figure's deco around the Battle of Hypori Rancor-tooth Republic Gunship (TRU-exclusive, 2006) originally seen in Clone Wars micro series chapter 21, but the actual pilot in the episode has significant deco differences, as well as a rangefinder on the helmet, because he's an ARC Pilot. It seems like the wind has gone out of the realistic-line's sails in terms of Clone Trooper variants lately, and while we dig that you're looking to do a Fordo figure, not to mention the Heavy Gunner figure you already made was from that same CW chapter, it seems like a good addition to the line to also do an ARC pilot. You don't have to say "Clone Wars" anywhere on the packaging to avoid confusion with The Clone Wars line. So what are the chances of seeing an ARC Pilot figure? If poor, what specific factors are the holdup for something like this? If it's just Clone Wars cross-pollination concerns, why isn't just releasing the figures without mention of their origin enough of a solution?
3) There have been a lot of Jedi figures lately, even main characters, who don't come with their robes. Ep 2 Obi-Wan, Ep 2 and Ep 3 Anakin, even the new Plo Koon, they are pretty major players and yet... robeless. A Jedi's robe is part of what defines him as a wizard, as well as disguising him as a warrior, it's a signature part of the costume, and right now there are too few Jedi figures released with theirs. While we understand these cloth robes aren't cheap to produce, they're still necessary. Anakin's robes are different from the standard robes but no less important to those prequel iterations of the character. So any chance that when these figures get re-released in some format, be it Saga Legends or Battle Packs or even Greatest Hits-style re-releases a few waves down the line, might they get their Jedi robes included?
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Dewback Patrol: 1) Is the single carded Imperial Tie Fighter pilot slated for release? If not, please consider reissuing this fine figure.
2) Given the new Dewback and a possible new Jabba in 2010 has any consideration been given to a new Bantha? While I still enjoy the POTF2 version I've always felt it was lacking some detail due to the "real" fur. For the record, if you produced a new detailed version (like the awesome Dewback), count me in for 4!
3) I just bought a house with a room for my toys. I have spent hours putting Star Wars figures on shelves - lots of hours! My wife came into watch and I was showing her how I was putting the figures on these clear stands and on Stand Tall Displays. They look great! Well, my wife wanted to know how the stands worked and I was showing her the hole in the foot of the figure. As I was showing her I realized what an incredible design it is. Can you tell us a little about how the peg and hole system came about? I had to buy the stands in 2 different sizes - one for vintage and one for modern. Why did the diameter of the hole change when POTF2 came about? Thanks.
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From Galactic Hunter: 1) We know that you probably can't comment on it too much, but will there be any Ultimate Battle Packs and big warehouse club sets for the holiday season?
2) We also know that you don't reveal "numbers", but which figure did you produce fewer of — Malikili (Rancor Keeper) 3.0 or Willrow Hood (Ice Cream Maker Guy)? It was said (no name mentioned) at Toy Fair that we wouldn't be overburdened with Willrow Hood, but who could have predicted Malikili (Rancor Keeper) 3.0?
3) Since it has been confirmed that Wooof will be out in 2010, is there anything you'd care to share, like one of those cool figure sketches or a photo of the sculpt?
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From Han's Hideout: 1) The VOTC Han Solo is a pretty great figure, but one thing still sort of bugs me - his magical floating holster (same goes for the "vintage" Endor Han figure). Any chance we'll see Han updated so his holster is tethered to his thigh like VTSC Bespin Luke and a few other figures have? It would be a cool update to the existing Hans as well as a feature we'd love to see on that 2010 SA Bespin Han you've got cooking!
2) A quick question on the 2009 line-up from one of our readers - "At SDCC, you guys said we'd be getting a repack General Grievous in the line (BD24, I believe). Well, the e-tailers have posted case assortments through the 2010 EU wave and there doesn't seem to be a Grievous anywhere to be found. Was he dropped? Bumped? Renumbered?"
3) A few of us are still a little fuzzy on the new Imperial Scanning Trooper. Just to confirm, there will be two releases - Head #1 with Scanner Accessory #1 and Head #2 with Scanner Accessory #2, right? Any chance we could get pics of the two different head sculpts with their respective accessory?
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From Imperial Shipyards: 1) Can we expect more ESB figures, vehicles, etc. to commemorate the upcoming anniversary Of Empire? Some more Hothy rebel troopers, officers, and a re release of the Target UBP turret would be great.
2) Is there a reason designers of the SW figures don't follow the example of the Joe designers and use a standard-sized neck-ball? Also, with SW arms being *almost* the same as Joe arms, why not make that little design change and give us more compatibility? Having Joe and SW figures closer in compatibility would let us customizers have a much wider field to play in. Are there manufacturing drawbacks to this approach that we don't know about?
3) I am wanting to know why the new Fi Skirata (Republic Commando) in the new Clone Commando Evolutions packs was not given the full superarticulated treatment?
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From Jedi Defender: 1) Harkening back to the old days (2002), what led to the decision to make the Attack of the Clones figures so stylized, preposed and action laden? At the time, there was much nashing of teeth and complaining from collectors about the direction the line was heading and I think most people agree that you've listened and went with a super articulated line of figures. All that being said, there are several figures of the Saga era that could use some updating...most notably and often requested are the Kaminoans, young Boba, Zam Wessel, Barriss Ofee and Outlander Anakin. Any chance of getting updates any time soon?
2) Speaking of Zam Wessel, if you were going to resculpt/update her, how would you perhaps tackle her "shape shifting" feature this time around? Would you do two completely separate headsculpts (Alien and Human) and a removable helmet/hat or would you try giving her a pack-in mask again?
3) While many collectors would like to see that often hinted at Super-Articulated Rebel Fleet Trooper upgrade, there are a few folks out there that would like to see the Fleet Officers get an update too. Any chance of seeing the Saga'04 Captain Antilles figure with some added articulation and perhaps a little more mature looking headsculpt somewhere down the line? He's one of the only Fan's Choice figures that didn't seem to linger on the pegs very long!
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From Jedi Temple Archives: 1) You have made it evident that sales of the main Legacy figures just aren’t at the same levels from years ago. And while you have assured us that the line is still healthy, it makes us wonder a few things. The Legacy figures are still nearly impossible to find. How can you meet and exceed numbers if they aren’t in stores to sell? And when we ask retail why the figures aren’t in the stores, they blame you. In turn, we go back to you and you say stores are ordering less. There is this incessant circular blame that is leaving the kids and collectors out in the cold. We want the opportunity to purchase them, please give it to us! Along the same lines, we were curious to know if perhaps you have considered the packaging as a direct cause for lack of sales. While this may initially seem silly to you, we hope that you can carefully ponder and admit that the blue TLC line look was anything but exciting. We are sure that Gargan would have sold a whole lot better were she on an OTC/VOTC type card (being that she was one of the original vintage candidates). Figures just look so much more awesome on the silver and black line look. Can you please defend your position with Lucasfilm that a vintage feel is the only way to go with our beloved Star Wars action figures (or an extrapolation of it at least). The 30th Anniversary Collection, Original Trilogy Collection (which you had confirmed exceeded expectations and they were all old POTF2 figures for the most part!) and The Saga Collection had the best packaging yet! We miss that look terribly!
2) Since the introduction of the larger X-Wing that was based on the POTF2 Power FX X-Wing, we've gotten exclusive versions of Red Leader's X-Wing, Luke's ship and most recently Wedge's Red 2.
But what about some of the notable pilots who don't have their own ships are Biggs Darklighter (Red 3), Jek Porkins (Red 6), Theron Nett (Red 10), Dutch Vander (Gold Leader) or Davish "Pops" Krail (Gold 5)? All of these pilots have significant dialogue and something of a following in the collecting community. Is it possible that we might see some of these pilots presented in exclusive form with their ships? And if so, are there any hints? Are we "stay(ing) on target"?
3) Captain Needa is an excellently designed action figure, save for one SNAFU. We understand your logic to have removable rank badges become universal. But is their any way you can revisit this and make it so that it isn’t so “plug like” and bulky? Perhaps you can just create a bevel on the chest of the figure where another think piece of plastic (the badge) can be laid and glued in place. The new convention just doesn’t work and while we are thankful you have given thought to the different ranks, we hope you can find a better way of doing so. Thank you for your ingenuity and care to improve the figures. It is so much appreciated, but we feel that this can be much improved.
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From Raving Toy Maniac: 1) A follow-up question to the protective cases answer on http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/11504.shtml - if you do not plan to have bulk packs made for the new card size perhaps you could share where they got the protective cases for the Forces Unleashed Storm trooper commander and the Luke Skywalker Comic Con exclusive. They both have the correct size protective case that we're all now searching for.
2) You now have an original sculpt of a railgun for The Clone Wars. Any chance of seeing that gun modified to remove the launching missile and given to a Clone Trooper in regular Legacy line? (This would replace the heavy gunner Clone from the Hunt for General Grievous battle pack that came with an old, GI Joe railgun.)
3) The Lumiya and Sigel Dare comic packs have been very difficult to find, and even on ebay have been showing up infrequently. Will these hard-to-find packs be shipping in larger quantities in the near term, perhaps in newer case assortments? I have noticed even Hasbro Toy Shop has yet to stock these particular comic packs.
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From Sandtroopers.com: 1) Now that you have "tested the waters" with larger scale vehicles like the Falcon, AT-TE and the Turbo Tank... can we expect more larger sized, retooled vehicles? Were these pieces good sellers, enough to continue making one or two every year? They seemed to move pretty well in my area. If so... what's at the top of your wish list? And when can we expect to see a new larger AT-AT Walker?
2) Word is that the new Republic Gunship is going to sell for $70. I was hoping you could shed some light on this price hike since the last last gunship was $50, the one before that $45 and the two before that $30. I see that there are new doors added to close the gunship up completely but how in the world does a new set of doors and a new paint job on the nose justify what is essentially a price doubling. Also, what happens if this ship doesnt sell well because of a huge price jump in a bad economy? Will you then say that this ship is unsuccessful and get rid of it because the price was way to high?
3) Why the price increase on Battlepacks? You said to keep costs down, you would have 1 less figure per pack, which you did, and even more in some packs (Geonosis with gunship turret), but yet the price on these have increased $5 up to $25 at most places. Since you are charging more, will we get that extra figure back in the pack?
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From Sir Steve's Guide: 1) In light of several answers by Hasbro stating that sales for the collector-focused Legacy Collection line have fallen off sharply in the last year, causing sales bottlenecks at retail, there have been several theories about why this is happening. Some theories include the simple "the price went up too high for the market to bear in an economic downturn" theory; there's the one saying the casual collecting market (kids, parents, casual collectors) have abandoned the movie lines for The Clone Wars line; there's a theory arguing the Build-A-Droid concept has taken the wind out of sails of every type of collector who isn't a completist and knows they will have a hard time completing their droids; and there's another argument saying that the line over the last year has focused on so many redos that don't quite hit the mark, as well as new figures coming in exclusive packs that require buying old figures as well, that it's choked off interest from the main collector fanbase. Does Hasbro subscribe at all to any of these theories as to why the TLC line has run into so much trouble, or if not, why does the SW team think this problem has come up for the line?
2) The new packaging so far has been shelved pretty inconsistently by store clerks, with the coloring differences completely overlooked. This makes for a mishmash of Clone Wars and Saga Legends (with Legacy Collection still not hitting at full strength yet) which collectors have to dig through, and therein lies the focus of this question. The new packaging's J-hook is easily the wimpiest one yet, the hook is so shallow that figures are constantly flying off the pegs as consumers look for their figure of choice, leaving the section a total mess and further mixing up the various lines. Why are the J-hooks on the new cards designed like that, and might you be willing to do something to address this problem?
3) In the Sept 10th Q&A, you were asked about a hypothetical lineup for the SW team's own choices for the Fan's Choice poll. Some (possibly insane) fans couldn't help but notice Jaxxon and the Nelvaan Warrior popping up on this list, two figures which a lot of collectors would really love to own, but have thought were at best extreme longshots. Although those 2 figures might not be the biggest sellers, they would really make a lot of people happy, and it appears that includes some of the designers at Hasbro. Realistically, given that you've spilled the beans on your own love for these two, what are the chances we'll see these two figures prior to the end of Hasbro's current SW license?
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NEW: From SWCollector.com: 1) Can we ever expect the unidentified sith from the deceived cinematic trailer of SW:TOR? And what about the sith warrior in the same trailer? Would be good for sith army building. Like we don't see there faces.
2) I am curious as to why you have said that any figures to be made from the Droids animated series would have to be made in animated style. BL-17 and Boba Fett were made in realistic style, and I have never heard one complaint from a Droids fan about it (yes, many Droids fans really do exist!). Several of the Droids figures in the vintage line, including C-3PO and R2-D2, were made in realistic style. Many characters from the original Clone Wars cartoon were also made in realistic style. Due to the way that many of the main characters like Thall Joben, Jann Tosh, Mungo Baobab and Admiral Screed were drawn, they would pretty much have to be made in realistic style anyway. They were no less cartooney than the Marvel comic characters.
With a number of droids like Proto-One, BUN-Dingo and the unique astromechs from the Great Heep TV special who could also work as possible build a droid options, it would really be a shame if you never pursued any more Droids figures. I'm wondering, is there anything that could change your stance on these?
3) In anticipation of future rebel pilot & astromech sets, I did a little research into the first Death Star assault. What I found is that all of the remaining undone astromechs have domes that match those on droids that appeared earlier in the movie. For example, Porkins droid has the same dome as R5-D4, Biggs has the same one as R2-Q2 from the Tantive IV, and John D.'s astromech has one that matches R4-M9. When you do these figures, would you just reissue the previously made astromechs with new names? Collectors would prefer you get together with Lucasfilm to come up with new body deco and names, while keeping the dome itself as screen-accurate as possible.
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From TheJawa.com:1) Now that Hasbro has a more accurately-sized Grievous mold, is there any chance we can get an updated "Demise of Grievous"? The previous version used the smaller Sneak Preview Grievous, was a pricey Target-exclusive that those of us outside the US couldn't even buy... A new "dying grievous" with snap-on flames would be a great way to make a more widely available figure to those who missed out on the exclusive and reuse your existing tooling. Maybe you could even put a new interior into his chest so that when the ribcage is opened up there's now a translucent orangey "on fire" effect?
2) I wanted to point out an odd aspect to your recent Captain Piett figure. I noticed that the sculpt for his chest is a bit asymmetrical: his left shoulder is lower than his right shoulder, and from the backside it looks as if he's shrugging his right shoulder upward a bit. If you put his arms at his sides, you can see that his left hand is lower down than his right. While it's not a big deal for a single character, I was a bit concerned that since Hasbro would obviously want to reuse this excellent torso for a ton of future Imperial officers that we might end up with a slew of officers with this same quirk (which, while not that noticeable on just Piett, would become quite irritating when every officer has it too). Any chance of just tweaking this to make both sides symmetrical again?
3) There are some early reports about the new Geonosis 2 packs that the otherwise excellent new red battledroids are still being issued with soft plastic, making them hard to pose and stand. Why is this still case? Hasbro already knows from many older Q&As that we'd like to have a harder plastic for the legs (and even arms) to avoid the sagging effect that eventually claims all current battledroid figures (except the thicker eps1 BDs). You mentioned that aside from harder plastic, one solution you'd considered is a 2-peg stand so both feet can be stabilized (a transparent plastic stand would be fine by me). However, the droids in the 2 packs don't seem to come with this either. Now I'm sure a few of us are still wondering, how does Hasbro plan to address this continuing issue? I still am waiting to army build a few dozen CIS droids but only once I know Hasbro has put out the "ultimate" battledroid, which it is close to doing, but not when the legs and body will droop over time in my displays.
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From Yakface.com: 1) In light of the recent purge of peg warming Legacy figures by Hasbro reps, do you have similar plans for the comic pack line? In my area, many of the stores I frequent (Target, Wal-mart, Toys"R"Us) are sitting on several of each of the following sets - Darth Talon/Cade Skywalker, Antares Draco/Ganner Krieg, Fenn Shysa/Dengar, Princess Leia/Tobbi Dala just to name a few. I'm afraid that these sets are choking up the pegs and preventing the newest releases from appearing or being ordered by the retailers. Any plans for recalling these to allow for some fresh product grace our aisles before the holiday rush?
2) It is quite obvious that Season 2 of The Clone Wars is going to be chock full of potential character and vehicle merchandise for months to come. Also obvious is the prominence the various bounty hunters in Cad Bane's posse (Bossk, Aurra Sing, Cato Parasitti etc.) will play initially in the series. My questions are will we see an all-bounty hunter themed wave in 2010 or will you be spreading out the various hired guns over the course of the year in different waves? Will we see Cad Bane's Xanadu Blood (a repaint of the Magnaguard Fighter) in the starfighter assortment in early 2010?
3) After recently acquiring the Legacy Collection's ROTJ wave, I must say that this is a great overall assortment as most of the figures are spot on in terms of being true to their on-screen appearances. That brings us to the DSII Luke Skywalker. Although this version is far and away the best attempt thus far, he seems to be missing the belt that was present on the TLC BD2 "Sandstorm" Luke. He was clearly seen wearing it during the epic duel so was this a factory oversight and is there any plan to correct/improve this figure further either through a running change or a separate release? Finally, there is one more major version of Luke to be released wearing this particular outfit - are there plans offer one with snap-on Sith Lightning depicting one of the most pivotal scenes in the entire Star Wars saga?
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From Yoda's News: 1) I've noticed over the years that the screw heads on vehicles (such as the recently released shadow colored ARC 170 starfighter) are invariably on the right (or starboard, if you will) side of the vehicle, so you can't see them when the ship is facing towards the left . I'm curious...is there a reason why the screws are always on that side of the toy? Is it for aesthetic reasons (more people are right handed and would hold the ship in that hand so they wouldn't see those screw holes in play) or is just plain coincidence?
2) Will we see a Dwarf Spider Droid in the Clone Wars Animated series anytime in 2010?
3) When we visited the Hasbro Showroom this past February we had mentioned that it would be very cool if you released "Sticker Packs" or "Add On Stickers" for the The Clone Wars Clone Trooper Voice Changer Helmet so that kids and collectors could customize it to be other troopers. Has Hasbro put anymore thought into that? It would be great to see sets of Blue, Red and Green to start! Possibly even some "battle damage" stickers as well to add to it. Ideally they would be priced under $10 and maybe even a 3 pack of all the colors? It would also increase sales of the Voice Changer at retail and at HasbroToyShop! Maybe even as a SWS or HTS exclusive?
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