Hasbro Q&A

• New figures and prequel characters will have all new cards in the vintage style.
• Updates of vintage figures will use the vintage cardbacks.
• Pack-ins are being replaced with premium articulation across the board as this is a collector-focused line.
• Saga Legends repacks will have the same Shadows of the Dark Side packaging as the Clone Wars line. Both of these lines are kid-oriented.







Above is the (Big Ass)-AT-AT. I could not help but giggle at the scale (2' tall) and the price point ($99).

It's too bad they're not doing Bespin Han. Those Luke and Leia prototypes look good. If the vintage line is handled well (see: not like Legacy), I might give it a shot for a few figures of that quality. I haven't bought Star Wars toys since the Millennium Falcon, which now collects dust atop my fridge, AKA the "landing platform". The Legacy/Saga Legends figures are stinking up local stores, especially Wal-Mart and Toys R Us. They have endcaps FILLED with these guys. They're packing them two for the price of one now. They didn't even move over the holidays.

Legacy had some good figures. A lot of aliens and a lot of blink-or-miss-them characters.

The biggest problem I had with Legacy was actually finding the stuff. Hasbro explains over and over in their Q&As that collector spending has slowed. I'm sure that's true across all toy lines, but if I had been able to actually purchase as much as I wanted, Hasbro would have hundreds more of my dollars. It's frustrating to read about new product and never see it (not counting the overpriced secondary market). I swing through my Targets and Wal*Marts every week and I see the same Clone Wars and Legends collecting dust.

One issue with the Hasbro Q&As is that collectors demand to know about future product, only to see that product be cancelled months later. The comic pack line, for instance, will be sketchy in its final release and subsequent waves that have been shown or told about are canned. In my area I have not seen any red-packaged comic packs, only the blue ones from 2008.

Due to lack of space and money, I stick to basic figures. I did get the Episode I-modeled Dewback for christmas and it's sweet! Depending on what Vintage 2010 brings I may get some bigger items like the AT-AT. We do have seven months to save up for new stuff.

I hope the packaging difference in Vintage and Legends/Clone Wars will help prevent the lines from being mixed on the shelves. Cutting back on new product would be nice. Smaller waves that move through to make room for new figures would do this hobby a huge favor.

Collecting is going in two different directions: Vintage (1970, 1980s) and High End (SideShow, Master Replicas, Attakus, Gentle Giant).

The 2007 to now figures, vehicles, and high end product is the best stuff ever making the previous generations look like junk in my opinion. The older junk prompted me to either sell or throw out the vast majority of my Vintage through ROTS stuff (which resulted a tremendous amount of room). I am now focusing on 2007 to now figgas and vehicles with the occasional High End product. (Ultimate Quarter Scale!)

When it comes to recent figures there is a tremendous scarcity of product. While I did see the two-for-one price packages those were quickly snapped up leaving only Legends and Clone Wars. My local Walmarts usually stock their new Star Wars on Wednesday and I was lucky enough to get most of the Empire wave: Snow Speeder Luke Skywalker, Willrow "Ice Cream" Hood, Johnston Trooper, Snow Trooper, and AT-AT Driver and left the easy to find Bespin Nigga Guard

Big AT-AT still looks too small. I know it's still huge and making it to scale would be impractical, but I still have to say it. It's weird. The Big Falcon is under-scaled, but unless you're a details nerd, you don't really give a shit. You don't look at the cockpit and think, "too small." With the AT-AT, though, it seems too small. The head is still not proportioned right.

The proportions were fine for the vintage toys (since all vintage is ballin' and superior to modern stuff by default), but in this day and age where they're trying to improve the detailing, accuracy, articulation and all that on figures, the AT-AT is a bit of a letdown. It's like a larger version of the vintage toy. Luke went WAY up that thing to bomb it and he can still knock out the toy version by chucking a grenade from the ground.

I'm not going to get it anyway. I'd rather have seen something they've never done before, like the Rebel blockade runner or the barge.

Below is Jodo Kast Redux - an upcoming Legends 2010 KMart-exclusive (which means hard-to-get). This time the awesomely painted figga is based on 2008's Evolutions Boba Fett.

gorkoracing@sandtroopers.com



[spoil]
[flash width=640 height=385]http://www.youtube.com/v/VOpgpxqsKko&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&hd=1[/flash][/spoil]



www.sandtroopers.com



Above is a video review of the upcoming Vintage-era Jabba Set with Twilek Slave pack-in figga.

For the past couple months Legacy figures were price dropped to $4.99 at WalMart and ToysRUs. While the low price may have cleared the shelves of Legacy for the upcoming Vintage line - a Clone Wars glut was left in it's place. With the upcoming August launch of Vintage 2010 - I hope to find the last ToysRUs-Exclusive Legacy Expanded Universe wave before the reset.

That Jabba set is awesome. Holy shit. I wish Hasbro consistently made toys of that quality.

SDCC COMICCON 2010 GALLERIES

• SandTroopers.com Gallery
• YakFace.com Gallery

• Star Wars.com Hasbro Presentation SlideShow
• Star Wars.com Hasbro Preview Night SnapShots


Hasbro COMICCON 2010 PRESENTATION: (PDF, JPG)


ROTS Wave



ROTJ Wave



Legacy Two-Packs f ROTJ EVO Fett


Comic Packs



Hoth Battle Packs



Vintage AT-AT @ ToysRUs & Vintage AirSpeeder @ Target

As you may have seen by now the Vintage Collection is out at most ToysRUs and Targets (Walmart is behind here). If you are buying then get them at Target which has Vintage for $8.99 and Saga Vintage for $7.99 (vs ToysRUs $9.99).

Target has the Vintage Snowspeeder for $19.99!
ToysRUs has the BAT-AT on sale for $89.99.
(If any of you have received it yet please bump up the BAT-AT thread).


Below is a picture of my first Vintage score courtesy of my ghetto-ass droidphone (of which I am posting with now):


(yes that is a waterbed)

Han Solo: Hoth Welder, Luke Skywalker: Bespin Fatigues, Dengar & 4-Lom.
Jodo Kast Twins, Snow Trooper, Bossk: Vintage 2006, IG-88: Vintage 2006.

Also featured is my 18" Ultimate Quarter Scale Han Solo and Legacy Millennium Falcon 2008. Not sure if you can tell from the image but I made a few modifications myself That is I took hacksaw blade and made two cuts and got rid of the wall. The other side of the wall near the MF's mandibles isn't connnected - it pulls right out. You will need to get CANNED AIR to clear away plastic debris.

I got a fresh case of Vintage 2010 from the overnight stocker at Wal*Mart (I put 2 Vaders and Threepio on the pegs, of course). Today I picked up a select few to open along with the bounty hunters from Legends. At $4.50 they're hard to pass by. Got the Cloud Car but passed on the AT-AT and Snowspeeder for now. I'd like to get that retro box from Toys'R'Us.

I think Bespin Luke v2 is the best of this bunch. I love the head sculpt even though it's not quite on par with the recent Snowspeeder Luke. Here he is alongside his Original counterpart.


Also on display is Sith Lord/Stripper Darth Talon.


Temple of Doom Indy has been pre-ordered!

DP, great summation of the figures to come. Unforunately, aside from teh comic packs, i don't see a figure i want in the next year.

Yeah, the comic packs do look sweet. I'm diggin the evo sets as well, since I missed out on the pre-cyborg Grevious figure whenever that came out (didn't we see that before somewhere?). And yes, Darth Floozie looks mighty nice. I wonder if they make a full-sized one of those with orifices yet.

All in all, looks like some neat shit. I wonder if I can use the rest of my student loan money to buy Star Wars toys.

I want to say that the pre cyborg grevious was a convention exclusive, but I can't remember much past last night stupid old age

No, he was a regular issue.

So far, I've skipped on the VC figures. I did buy Pre Vizsla, which is near perfect.



Hopefully, Hasbro will release Clone Wars style OT characters at some point.

Looks like the new Bespin Luke doesn't have a neck.

Oh yeah, wasn't he in the Revan/malak wave?

Yes and apparently they were all rare because when I stopped collecting and sold all my stuff, I made a ton of money from those particular figures. TAC Expanded Universe wave.

Wave III

On Monday and Wednesday I scored some more Vintage and Saga this time at Walmart for $7.00 an $4.00 respectively. For most of the spring and summer Walmart has had shelf-clearing pricing of $7/$4 for Star Wars and Clone Wars which meant bare shelfs for most of the year so it's nice to see new stuff finally. It's also obvious that Walmart forgot to update the pricing for the new stuff.



Vintage: Evo Fett, Hoth Leia, Bespin Pilot (w/ molester mustache).

Saga: [s]Klan Trooper[/s] Snow Trooper, and Luke Speeder Pilot.

Vehicle: Snow Speeder @ Target on sale $19.99. My review: GET THIS. It's slightly smaller with a larger cockpit than the original mold with way more detail + it's heavier. The heavy cannons and harpoon are on since this will be a Hoth Speeer piloted by Hoth Han Solo. The next one I get will have the collector-oriented guns piloted by Bespin Pilot since the ship at one time was a Air Speeder.


Also pictured: Lady Death I got for Christmas and again Millennium Falcon 2008: If you notice Han Solo with Welder Fatigues is located by where I removed the wall. Welder Solo works for me after removing his gunbelt which I relocated on Hoth Solo after I removed his "jacket skirt".

Saw wave 1 clogging up Target. What a pain in the ass it is to take the vintage cardbacks off the pegs. I almost bought Luke and Vader but I think I'm pretty much out of the hobby.

October Score 2010

LEFT TO RIGHT

• Pimp Sidious w/ Pimp Furcoat
• Magna Guard w/ Chase Foil Packaging
• Alien Vader w/ Chase Foil Packaging
• Pimp Vader

ALSO PICTURED

AT-TE Pimped Out (w/ AT-AT Troopa)
Y-Wing (w/ Luke Hoth Pilot)

The BMF Millennium Falcon is rereleased to online retailers for $20 cheaper than 2008. ToysRus has free shipping and free Nikto Guard figga!

AT-AT 2010 is only $50 at KMart (sure to be at Walmart soon). Wave5 (A New Hope Wave) promo images below along with Wave4 (Attack Of The Clones Wave). Though Wave5 has only six slots - it's going to be released pretty much alongside Wave4.


Wave IV










Wave V

It's sad that after all these years Hasbro still screws-up Mark Hamill's head. They also seem to have touble with Hayden Christensen. The new Sam Jackson is spot on, however.

The black guys always have the best likenesses.

The vintage POTF general Lando looks exactly like Lando. It's the best overall figure from that toy line I think.

That Samuel L. Jackson is clearly one of the greatest sculpted likenesses ever for a little action figure. Too bad such effort goes to a lame character while Luke always gets the shaft, pun intended. Even that Han Solo up there is really terrible. I don't know if he's supposed to be some kind of throwback to the vintage large head Han Solo figure (or why they would ever want to do THAT), but it looks terrible. He looks like some bowling alley bum.

So it looks like these Vintage Collection figures have rekindled my collecting habit, albeit this time around I'm being much more picky about which figs I pick up.

I definitely agree that that most of the human characters still have terrible face sculpts but the detail on the Darth Sidious figure is incredible and I love the retro card backs. I really hope they continue this line well into 2011.

EDIT: On second thought, Obi-Wan McGregor doesn't look too bad.

Wave 3: Return of the Jedi is out now and may be the greatest wave ever made. After four years of Jedi Luke remakes, there is finally a great one. Ackbar, Gamorrean Guard and Wicket the Ewok blow my socks off with their articulation and likeness. Ackbar even comes with a 'Calamari pleasure device.'

Now is the time to start collecting especially since Walmart and Target are randomly selling figures for $6.00.

Below is the Big-1: Rise Of Boba Fett - BattlePack, which was on sale for $79.00 (and the Vintage Packaged BAT-AT for $89.00). Big-1 is not only fucking huge it is fucking cool. Pictured alongside the Slave-1 Battle Pack is the Vintage ROTJ variant Boba Fett with slightly different color scheme, Slave Leia 2009, and what I like to call R2-420.




Shown above are opened Vintage ROTJ with the [s]Anakin Skywalker[/s] Darth Vader variant. I can confirm that Jedi Luke and R2D2 are very

I really need to come up on some spare scratch. Those ESB and ROTJ figures look great. I gave up collecting shortly into the release of AOTC because the sculpts sucked and the articulation that Hasbro was pushing out was horrid. I had to create my own custom Anakin from three different figures because the out the box versions were a joke.

I'm thinking that new Jedi Luke, Jango and Vaderkin are going to be nice stocking stuffers to myself this xmas.

Figures like those ROTJ ones are few and far between. In general, I don't like Hasbro's modern work. Many of their figures look like shit, for lack of a better term.

Take a look at the last version of Death Star II Luke they did and compare it with these figures. It's hard to believe the same company put out both figures, but then that's Hasbro.

I've just got my fingers crossed that this year, instead of buying me Star Wars related Christmas presents (most of which are impractical and not cool enough looking to keep out despite the impractcal part) maybe folks will just buy me actual action figures or vehicles. Something practical, or just cool looking, perhaps not even Star Warsy will do. But I guess I could just use some more 'm&m's holiday keepsake ornament' sets, again. Something about beggars and choosers probably goes here btw.

The good thing is if you are interested in Hasbro's modern offerings the prices are very inexpensive. There is the same old problem of finding what you want. By Christmas Eve, BAT-ATs and Snow Speeders where no where to be found at Walmarts and Targets. ToysRUs was a different story. BAT-AT Vintage Pack and Big-1 (Slave 1) were piling up - no doubt due to their $109.99 price!





As previously mentioned Saga (re-releases) and New Clone Wars figures are only $6 at Walmart. I managed to pick up an extra Boba Fett and Quinlan Vos for that price + some Snow Troopers and Bounty Hunters along with a $20 Swamp Speeder.

AOTC wave seen in Australia: http://www.mousedroid.com

Wave 5 has been spotted in the US:



Here are some upcoming figures:

UK ToyFair (which now is trumping New York ToyFair )
Wave 6 is lookin good.




www.jedinews.co.uk

Below are some recent and previous Vintage & Clone Scores plus ubiquitous pot shot. The figgas are disheveled because of the waterbed they are standing on.

While Slave I and Swamp Speeder aren't new acquisitions, the Clone and Vintage are. Empire Trooper is worth the $8.99 price along with Gree. Unfortunately Luke is not - with legs that are way too short.

At $6-7.95 - Clone Wars figures (that come with 200 Station Cash for when Sony's Online Game is actually online) are a great value. Clone are actually high-quality and make for a good substitute while looking for hard to find Vintage.

Currently on the shelves are re-packs of Embo, Pre-Vizla, and Fire Clone. Hevy - which is new - eventually became the suicide bomber in Rookies. The third incarnation of Cad Bane is put over the top with the inclusion of bomb droid "Todo". The Scout Clone "Boil" with AT-RT mini-rig is bad ass alone just for having a helmet tattoo of Ryloth Duology's Twilek Kid.







Above is Cad Bane's Xanadu Blood and and a on-sale Transformer Two-Pack Deluxe. Below that are Commander Wolffe and another Embo.

I sold off everything - over 700 individual figures plus vehicles and packs, BMF, Darth Talon sideshow, vintage figures, even all the Indiana Jones.

$10 for a toy is where I draw the line. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted.

I'm sitting on mine. I might, big might, pick up special figures here and there, but I've stopped mass collecting of star wars. I can't afford it any more.

For those still paying attention, the Vintage Collection was expected to go away at the end of 2012. Instead, Hasbro has canceled it's planned 2013 Droid Factory line and will be stocking stores with Vintage Collection retreads from the previous year for the the time being. In other words, Hasbro has managed to screw-up a supposedly "evergreen" product line by overproducing shoddy repackaged figures, underproducing new quality figures, and seemingly overcharging consumers. At least, they can look forward to episode 7.

It really stopped being fun. The figure choices didn't make sense. Can't find the stuff, and when you can it's just too damn expensive for what you're getting. I have exactly ONE Star Wars collectible in my home now, the McQuarrie Kotobukiya statue.

You know, the only good news to come out of that announcement by Hasbro is that they're going to repackage and re-wave figures that were virtually obscure. Bastila Shan, Nom Anor, Darth Malgus. I saw 1 Nom Anor in the wild.....everything else I had to get through Amazon. Maybe I can pick up a few more, if the numbers don't change. If they do, guess that makes the ones I have more valuable to someone.