So many questions, so little space... Many other
Star Wars collecting sites also submitted questions you need answered, so if you want to know the latest answers from Hasbro's
Star Wars Q&A Session, here's a handy guide to help you get all the info.
Don't forget to check
Rebelscum's Q&A Session as well!
From Imperial Shipyards: 1) Will "minor" supporting characters who were released as POTF2/POTJ sculpts be revisited with the vastly improved Legends/Vintage line articulation? Primary candidates for this treatment would be Lobot (ESB), Sio Bibble (TPM), Garindan (ANH), Naboo Security (guards and officer; TPM), Ayy Vida (AotC), and numerous others.
2) Since now there is a correct paint app version of commander colt, are you planning on re-releasing the arc troopers battle pack with this more correct version or is a 4 figure battle pack too much to ask for in a future release?
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From Jedi Defender: 1) The Deluxe Figure w/Vehicle assortment has taken an interesting turn, and we're curious if this means that this line will now focus on these unique original designs, or are you still going to use the Deluxe line as a vessel to get small Cartoon and Movie vehicles out to retail just as much as you did before? The original designs are awesome though, and it'd be great to see what new Original Trilogy designs your team could come up with (Nudge Nudge)!
2) What are the chances that the new Fleet Trooper, Echo Base Trooper, or Endor Rebel Trooper will turn up in future multi-packs or other sets, with possible head variations? People are always anxious for diversity in their Rebel army biulders, and that Endor Rebel has lots of uniform variations to try too (no facial hair, please). Can you tell we really appreciated your efforts to get the Hoth Rebel head/hat variant out to retail? Well we did, thanks!
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From JediNews.co.uk: 1) he San Diego Comic Con Preview is now on and there's lots of new products on show - can you tell us which of these 2011 products we'll see in the UK?
2) The San Diego Comic Con Panel revealed a new wave of Episode I figures that will be exclusive to Walmart. There seems to be some confusion as to how these figures will be packaged (The Vintage Collection or on Darth Maul like cards) and also if these will be available in the UK - please could you clarify?
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From Jedi Temple Archives: 1) The Vintage Collection Episode II Clone Trooper (VC45) is a great action figure that was initially criticized by many, but now it is really growing on even more collectors. It’s actually an excellent sculpt with just a few minor issues (barely worth commenting on honestly). What we would like to know is how far off are we from seeing the captain, commander, lieutenant and sergeant getting updates with this sculpt? And if/when you did update the clone officers, would you be able to squeeze them into The Vintage Collection or would they be relegated to Saga Legends like they were for the 30 (77-07)line?
2) Kit Fisto from the Attack Of The Clones wave in The Vintage Collection is one of the greatest action figures you have ever made for the basic figure line. Despite its flawless execution, you somehow erroneously put him on an Attack Of The Clone card back. The figure you created was based on his likeness in Revenge Of The Sith and NOT Attack Of The Clones, an error that many other licensees have a difficult time getting right too. Will Kit Fisto ever see correction like you have already done with some of the figure like the Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker (Endor Capture) figure?
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NEW: From Lichtgeschwindigkeit.de: 1) You mentioned in an earlier Q&A that you were working on bringing certain TVC figures (Gammorean Guard, Wedge) to Europe. Will we see these figures mixed in with upcoming waves or will the ROTJ wave receive a regular release in Europe? Also, some of the case assortment lists that have been released seem rather underwhelming for the collector market in Germany. It would be nice to see figures like the Rebel Fleet Trooper, Bespin Han Solo, and Bom Vimdin packed 2x per case. Is it possible to see a better mix for the German market?
2) The cancelled comic packs line is dearly missed by many collectors, since it was such a perfect niche to give us some great EU Characters – the good ones, not just some EU clone repaints (although some of them are nice too). And many fans also wish for something like “environmental” / diorama pieces. I know playsets are something you would rather not touch (sadly), but how about combining those two fan demands by creating a sub-line of figure two-packs with some cardboard diorama pieces like the cards from the POTF2 EU-Wave or maybe even better like the Mos Eisley cantina and Jabba’s palace cardboard dioramas of the POTF2 line? At least the cardboard dioramas shouldn't be too cost-intesive. Please Hasbro give us EU-collectors some hope to get figures like a Noghri, a Guri, updated Dash Rendar, Leebo, a Verpine, a Togorian or even long-time classics like Blue-Max & Bollux. There is still so much left to be done.
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From MouseDroid.com: 1) With the imminent release of 'The Old Republic', will there be any more 'Knights of the Old Republic' figures? Specifically, how about releasing HK-47 (and HK-50) figures as a single-pack instead of the Build-A-Droid system? What are the chances of seeing other KotOR figures such as Jolee Bindo etc?
2) Although I'm mainly a movie / comic based collector, I've been really enjoying some of 'The Clone Wars' figures you've been releasing to date - & the line itself is great. However, there seems to be a lack of variety in the astromech area in terms of different models / shapes etc. My question is, will you be releasing any R5 type droids in this line in future?
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NEW: From Raving Toy Maniac: 1) New figures have been nearly impossible to find this entire year. Most stores that I visit have the same vintage card figures that have been lingering since at least Christmas. Internet postings suggest that it's pretty much the same across the country. Now even Legends figures are missing from the pegs at Walmart. Where are the figures this year?
2) 2011 has been an extremely difficult year for Clone Wars collectors. Virtually every new figure released in late 2010 and the first third of 2011 has been impossible to find at retail, whereas every store has entire shelves of Anakin, Captain Rex, Clone Troopers, and Commander Cody. The casepacks solicited for early summer and fall show even more of these over-abundant characters coming in nearly every case. Are there plans for quantities of characters that there are an overabundance of to be reduced in future casepacks, and perhaps reintegrate in-demand figures that were very sparsely produced like Commander Bly, Aayla Secura, Undead Geonosians, Clone Trooper Draa, older Ahsoka and Darth Sidious into the mix?
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From Sir Steve's Guide: 1) Vader's TIE Advanced X1 has been using the same POTF2 mold for over 13 years now, and the design is showing its age. The cockpit hatch is all wrong, the window is too small, the implementation of action gimmicks hurts the movie-accuracy and just aren't that fun, the cockpit isn't terribly accurate or sized that well to modern Vader figures, and the color is the blue-gray color of ESB and ROTJ rather than the proper gray color of ANH - the only film it was in. This is Vader's signature vehicle, it should at least live up to the quality of the other vehicles in the line, much less represent one of the brand's top characters - especially since the Hasbro SW team's vehicle designs have been so good lately too. What are the chances of seeing something done to address those issues on Vader's TIE Advanced X1 in the foreseeable future?
2) You have this nice new Qui-Gon Jinn figure that came out in the Jedi Evolution set, and has been re-released in the nifty Eopie mail-away set, yet both times the figure has been marred by including the blobby 1999 lightsaber accessory. Luke Jedi keeps coming out with either repaints of the ROTS Obi-Wan's lightsabers (which has different details), or worse, the blobby Obi-Wan POTJ saber from 2000. Both the '99 Qui-Gon and '00 Obi-Wan as Luke Jedi sabers also have the old smooth blade design without the flare on top of their soft hilt sculpting, and both Qui-Gon and Luke Jedi actually had better saber accessories designed during the Saga line, yet we never get them. And what about one of the most iconic lightsabers in recent SW memory, Darth Maul? There is no modern-quality version at all, the closest is the '02 Saga metal hilt with removable blades, but the blades break easily, so we haven't seen it in a while, and it's a bit long. We don't have a deactivated one to hang on a belt, don't have a 1-blade-activated version, don't have a "cut in half" version, Maul is pretty lacking for his weapon. Why are we getting old junky saber accessories with the modern versions of these guys? Why aren't we seeing better, more accurate lightsaber accessories for some of these fairly major, recognizable Jedi characters? And will these issues be addressed soon?
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NEW: From Snowtroopers.ca: 1) As someone who collects many, MANY Hasbro figures (spanning from SW to GI Joe to MarvelU) I give you guys a lot of my money. An embarassing amount I'm afraid to say, but well worth it. Hasbro comes up with a lot of great, desirable heroes and army builders every year. The real problem as I'm sure many collectors will attest to, is actually being able to buy the figures we want, because availability and distribution has been a nightmare for the past few years. I've never been an ebay buyer of your toys until these last 6 months when I just had to admit that I was spending too much time doing toyruns with few satisfactory results. Yet I'd still rather buy my toys from retailers where I can inspect the quality first hand and just have that nice surprise of coming into a store and seeing a sought-after figure hanging on the pegs. Even though we are living in an age where toy manufacturers can talk directly to their most passionate customers and gauge just how much in-demand a given figure will be (so that it won't come as a surprise when we want to army build Rebel Fleet Troopers or Gammorean Guards by the dozen, and totally skip clonetroopers with fat yellow helmets and the millionth release of the Sandtrooper) it feels as though the figure selection for cases and toy distribution are still in the stone ages. When we can't find what we want at retail, we often order a case online for a given wave but wind up stuck with Vader or some other carryforward figure we already own multiples of.What many of us want to know is whether someone high up at Hasbro is working on a solution to this ongoing frustration, being able to predict in advance what will be pegwarmers (by polling us in some sophisticated way), perhaps finding a new distribution model that is somewhere between ebay and retail where we can directly get multiples of army builders (I'd rather give you my money than scalpers), or at least offering cases without figures that might be popular at retail (Vader) but not with online retailers from who collectors often purchase from. It's genuinely depressing when I go to the forums and see how many fans are genuinely afraid that the TVC line might be cancelled due to an inability to get product to shelves. What we need to know is if Hasbro is doing concrete things that will evolve the toy distribution model - the complaint I noticed on the forums only a few nights ago was that simply hearing "We're working on it" only garners a cynical skeptical response. I hope Hasbro understands that we want to help in whatever way possible to improve your various toy lines to reduce pegwarming and scalping, and in turn, make our own collecting lives easier and more affordable.
2) Do you consider the TRU "Battle over Endor" pilot/army builder packs to be successful enough to warrant more such packs in the future? This has been a great way to both army build and give us minor minor characters that otherwise would not see single-carded release, and obviously uses existing tooling. I'm thinking in particular that now you have super-articulated tooling for the Rebel Fleet Trooper, Yavin Ceremony Guard, Mon Calamari/Ackbar, Hoth rebel, Rebel Yavin Ground Crew, and Endor Rebel, that Hasbro could easily make a killing by annually releasing new troop builder packs for the rebels, with new versions created simply by offering new headsculpts, different ethnicities, paint deco, etc. You could even mix in some ewoks next to Endor rebels to satisfy the Ewok army builders. Oh, and please give the Rebel Fleet Trooper a HOLSTER in future releases
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NEW: From Star Wars Action News: 1) We see the Battle Packs are being reduced to 3 figures, but what seems up in the air is if there is a price reduction to the packs to accompany this change. Can you tell us your MSRP for the new battle packs and if that's lower than the 4-figure packs to which we have become accustomed?
2) As a Snooty fan from way back, I was sad to read your answer to a question about the character’s plastic prospects from Action Figs: “We just don't feel that Sy Snootles is a compelling enough character to slot into lineup right now.” While your reasoning is certainly understandable, after her recent star turn in the Clone Wars episode Hunt for Ziro I hope you'd agree that Snooty’s stocks just rose. On a similar note, Ziro’s continual bumping in search of an appropriate release opportunity is disappointing for fans of the galaxy’s most flamboyant Hutt, though we appreciate you continuing to try to find a way to get him out. Is there any hope on the horizon for either character in light of the latest appearance together? Might these two be united in plastic immortality some day? A love that strong can’t be held back and I just know Hasbro wouldn’t want to be party to disappointing Snooty. That girl doesn’t handle rejection too well.
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From SWCollector.com: 1) Articulation in THE CLONE WARS line seems sort of scattershot these days. Some figures get ball-jointed everything, right down to wrists and ankles. Others are lucky to even get knee joints. How is articulation decided between X number of new figures in a wave?
2) One of the few action-oriented Prequel females is Geonosis Arena Padme. Any chance of revisiting her for AOTC's 3D release?
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From Yakface.com: 1) I, and many collectors, have noticed a curious change to the Vintage Collection, Saga Legends and Clone Wars packaging – all of the UK safety icons and international language has been dropped. What does this mean for collectors in those markets? Will they get unique packaging to their country or worse, does this mean they will no longer be getting Star Wars merchandise?
2) Although it may smell bad, are there plans for a split open belly version of the new Tauntaun? You don’t want Luke to freeze to death do you?
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