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April 2010

Question 1
I'm loving the look of that vintage line! There is just so much to like ranging from the cards to the Boba Fett mail-in to the 4-LOM and Zuckuss in vintage colors. All great ideas, and I hope that this line continues for a long time. What I'm wondering is that now the line is going the retro route, if there will finally be a good update made to the Sebastien Shaw Anakin Skywalker figure. That gray robed figure that I got in the mail back in 1985 was always one of my favorites out of the whole line. Even though the figure didn't have the transparent ghost look, the gray robes and the pale skin still gave the figure a ghostly feel, and the ash color scheme was really effective in giving the impression that this was a Jedi who lived a long time on the dark side. While we still do need a new transparent Shaw Anakin, what are your thoughts about making a non-transparent variant figure in the vintage color scheme?

We actually don't have a new version of this figure on the drawing boards yet, but if the line did continue we would be likely to do a new transparent one rather than an opaque one. We think the last spirit we did turned out great and would like to continue that effect for future spirit figures (Obi-Wan, Yoda, etc).

Question 2
Since we all know how much you love to re-use molds again and again (and again... and again... and again)... when can we expect the Build A Droid parts to pop back up? It would be really neat to do a Jawa deluxe figure where you can put in one of the recent Jawa figures and say... enough parts to build two or three different droids. Or even do a small playset along the lines of the Lars homestead where we can get a small Jawa home, several Jawa figures (the last few were really well done), and enough parts to build several droids. OR if you want to really get classic and do a nice homage to the vintage line, why not re-issue the original Droid Factory playset with all new Build A Droid figure parts included? Do it up in a nice vintage style box like the AT-AT Walker is getting this year, and you'll have a winner.

We don't have plans for a return to the Droid Factory concept yet, but are looking at various options. We have looked at a return of the playset-type approach, but the tooling bill is just enormous for what would be a small run compared to, say, the interest we get from most vehicles. Still, it's something we'd like to keep looking at, and thanks for keeping the heat of those fans flamed.

March 2010

Question 1
You mentioned in a previous answer that some customers might be getting frustrated with having to buy an entire wave of figures to complete a single BaD. Now that the BaD program is over but since you still have the tooling for these pieces, what about selling a 2-pack of BaDs? You've done 2-packs of CIS battledroids, jawas, ewoks, etc. before and these appeal to many folks because of the perceived value (2 figures for the price of 1, even if they are small). In this case, a customer would get two astromechs or two protocol droids complete in one purchase AND there'd be huge play value because you can start interchanging pieces right away to customize a new droid! An R2D2 with R5D4 pack or a C3PO with K3PO pack would certainly be a kick to see!

We are still evaluating ways to re-use the great tooling library we have built up with the Droid Factory parts. We won't be doing anything like you suggest for the Vintage line (there will be no multi-figure packs in Vintage) but it's possible that we will re-use the parts elsewhere, whether it's in 2-packs, Battle Packs, or somewhere else.

Question 2
Is there any chance Hasbro will ever re-do the Death Star Trooper sculpt? When first rumored, this became one of my most anticipated army builders of all time. However you probably heard of the complaints on the forums after it debuted: the shoulders, elbows, and especially the knees were just way too bulky. Moreover he seemed too tall and bulky overall (standing next to Vader, the DST steals attention away from him just due to his large size and his wide-legged stance). The sculpting of his uniform also seemed very crude and undetailed compared to other figures you've done with similar outfits (like the RotS Tarkin or the recent Capt Needa). I'd really like to see these issues addressed if not in a new DST, then perhaps a future Imperial Navy Trooper figure. Even though he wasn't SA, the RotS Tarkin was closer to how I'd hoped Hasbro would sculpt the DST in terms of stance, body size, and detailing.

He did come out on the tall side compared to other troops, but we think his overall proportions work very well. That said, if we do release him then we will certainly take your comments into consideration. A re-release is not currently planned so it will be a ways off if we do ever re-release.

February 2010

Question 1
I'm wondering what your thoughts are on doing a small subset series in the Clone Wars line, similar to what was done with the concept art figures in the Legacy line. Since there have been lots of renderings of Star Wars characters in animated form over the years, an idea could be to include four figures in the line over the course of a year of characters that have appeared in animated form, but not in The Clone Wars TV series itself. With resources to draw on like the Boba Fett cartoon from the Holiday Special, the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, the original Clone Wars and the Acme animated character keys, there would be no shortage of figure possibilities. By the way, I can't resist putting in a plug for the animated Stormtrooper with force pike from Droids. He looks like he belongs in the Clone Wars line!

The Clone Wars line is a kid-targeted line so we will be focusing on the Clone Wars animated figures there. While there is collecting interest in these cross-over type figures, there are many more collectors who follow the Legacy line than Clone Wars, so we will continue to focus our collector-targeted efforts in the realistic style.

Question 2
The new "Resurgence of the Jedi" battlepack has the best Tatooine Luke Skywalker done to date! This figure begs to be carded individually! The same thing goes for the R2D2 from this pack. Any plans to do so?

We're glad you like them. Right now, there are no plans for a single carded figure release. Even if they did become carded basic figures, it would not be for several years. We recommend that any folks who are waiting for a carded release instead pick up this pack. True to the nature of Battle Packs where it's either an "all or none" approach, we have made each of the figures updated and fresh to make significant additions to everyone's figure collections.

December 2009

Question 1
Do you think we can expect many more figures from the Marvel comic series? Luke and Lumiya were by far the best two figures to come from that series to date, so I'm holding out hope for more like them! Five future figure hopefuls at the top of my list are Z-X3 from issue 47, Flint (Dark Lord of Belderone) and Luke Skywalker wearing his white and black outfit from issue 92 (first Star Wars comic with art by Jan Duursema by the way!), and Vlix and Tig Fromm from Marvel's Droids issue 2. I don't know if any of these characters have a real shot at being made in plastic someday, but whether they do or not, please keep looking for ways to slot in a few figures from the old days of the EU!

With the Comic Packs being shut down after Spring, it's going to be a while before we have a vehicle to really bring out some more of the Marvel characters. The Marvel comics are certainly fun. There are some interesting characters on your list, and we would have some different ones we'd want to get to first (Valence and Dani would be our top choices). We are hopeful that we will be able to get to some of these someday, but for the near-term the focus will be on more of the movie figures with less overall focus on the EU.

Question 2
Many of us assume that one of these days, Hasbro will finally get around to releasing a Sim Aloo figure. Would Aloo be designed/produced in a way that he will blend in with the existing Janus and Kren Blista-Vanee figures? I'm a fan of SA and softgoods, but here my concern is that Hasbro will actually do something similar to the recent Ghost Anakin and put too much softgoods in order to ensure he is SA. While I didn't like how Janus and Kren were basically statues, and would like Aloo to be able to do a bit more posing than his predecessors, perhaps Hasbro could stick to plastic and give Aloo arm articulation similar to your Po Nudo? Maybe a removable hat or some accessories, but let's keep softgoods out of it so that all the Imperial Dignitaries look alike on my shelf :-)

Thanks for the comment. You may have a point in that sometimes, too much articulation may not be warranted depending on the figure, and soft goods may or may not be merited for Sim. We don't have him in the lineup for the next couple of years but it's a good bet he'll make the lineup shortly after that; a new Imperial Dignitary, especially with the strong nod to the vintage Kenner line, is long overdue.

Question 3
With news of a forthcoming Force Unleashed battlepack, will we get a newly sculpted head for Galen Marek? I recall reading that the actor who plays Galen (Sam Witwer) wasn't cast until late in the game development which presumably is why the earlier Starkiller figures don't really resemble him at all - now that the game has been out for a while and Hasbro has a good idea of what Galen looks like, can we please get a better likeness for the next Galen figure?

There will be a couple new takes on Galen Marek in the two TFU multi-figure packs lined up as Toys 'R Us exclusives next Spring. They each have the same sculpt, which is all new and based on new reference supplied by Lucasfilm that looks like the character in the games.

November 2009

Question 1
As someone who only collects the realistic line and not CW (though I enjoy the cartoon series) I did recently find myself purchasing an Admiral Yularen figure during a TRU sale. Why? Because he was packed with an awesome holo-command table accessory. Being "playset starved" for environmental pieces to put next to my figures, this was a strong draw for me since the piece went well with my TLC figure display (sadly the Yularen is in a junk figure drawer... his strangely tight pants/feminine legs looked odd standing next to my realistic Needa). While I know Hasbro has rejected the notion of a "build a playset" idea, what about other pieces from the Republic Cruiser bridge/interior coming as accessories in the future? It certainly got a die-hard realistic collector like myself to actually buy a CW figure.

There will be fewer of the larger accessory pieces in the Legacy line going forward, simply because we don't have the costing to spare; we're keeping as much as we can in new figure tooling for next year which means there is fewer left over for extra accessories. We hope to be able to add some flavor in other ways, though, aside from basic figures.

Question 2
Is there any chance Hasbro will ever re-visit Taun We and redo her to the proper scale? I own the original Saga release and would still like to get a new version which is the correct height (the older one is just too short, although it is nicely sculpted). A new SA young Boba Fett to complement Taun would also be fantastic!

It's unlikely we'll get back to Taun We in the next few years; her previous figure is still great in our book and the demand for a new one just isn't there yet. Farther down the road she's always a possibility, but we'd rate her chances pretty low.

Question 3
Has any progress been made in creating a Droideka for the realistic line that can roll up into its ball configuration? This question has been asked before and the last time you said you'd ask your designers to look into it, just curious as this seems like an obvious evolution for this particular character/figure. And if it's not feasible, couldn't Hasbro just include an already rolled-up Droideka as an accessory to go with the unrolled figure?

Good question. We never got around to slotting a new Droidekka into the lineup so work on this idea never got very far. We will take a look at this for farther down the road - thanks for the reminder.

October 2009

Question 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?

Thanks for the suggestion. We hadn't planned on revisting this figure again but ironically we were just admiring how cool the Demise figure was the other day. We will consider it for down the road when we are looking for a new take on Grievious.

Question 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?

We think you are referring to Captain Needa. We see somewhat what you are referring to, but if anything it's very slight and we don't think it will be an issue for future officers.

Question 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.

We can't make figures from "hard" plastic due to breakage. However, we can confirm that 2-peg stands fix the problem nicely and the ones available from Hasbro Toyshop work wonders on figures with thinner limbs like all past Battle Droid, Super BDs, and Geonisian Warriors. If you haven't looked into these, we really recommend it.

September 2009

Question 1
I like the 'cameo' figures of cast and crew who played a big part inthe making of the saga, and apparently so do the people who put together the Star Wars line. It's been nice to see the Lucas family, Joe Johnston (Spacetrooper), Ralph McQuarrie (Pharl McQuarrie), Anthony Daniels (Dannl Faytonni), Ahmed Best (Achk Med-Beq), and now, if the rumors are true, Jeremy Bulloch being honored with action figures based on their appearances in the movies. Is there a desire at Hasbro to at some point make figures of Rick McCallum (Naboo noble), Nick Gillard (Cin Drallig), Richard Marquand (AT-ST Driver), Warwick Davis (Weazel) and one of my favorites, Ben Burtt as Ebenn Q3 Baobab?

This is not a stated objective, but by a happy coincidence we slot a new character into the line and it works out that we can use legendary reference for a head-sculpt, as was the case with Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie. For future figures, we will base them on their importance to the line rather than who was playing that character. As such, Cin Drallig is high on our list of figures we'd like to do within the next few years, and Richard Marquand stands a good chance as well. The others you mentioned are very low on our radar screen.

Question 2
Even though I normally only collect the realistic line, I did recently buy the CW "Goldie" figure during a sale and was blown away at how many little features the CW astromech mold has compared to the R4-G9 sculpt used for the realistic astromechs. That immediately begged the question: hey, when do we get a realistic R2 that has the same level of features? I'd love to get a manually adjustable scope, tow rope (with a C3PO head accessory to tow along), drill, and computer link plug... the most we've ever gotten was the attachable drill and plug and that only appeared once with the VotC R2 and never used again. Can Hasbro not also pimp up the realistic R2D2 at some point too?

That's a good comment about wanting to see more with R2. We've often mused about producing a "Swiss army knife" R2 in the realistic line but have instead chosen to go with various scene-specific versions. Someday it would make a good figure and we'll certainly discuss it. In the meantime, you should also check out the Clone Wars R2, since he has the same features as Goldie and is a great figure.

Question 3
Is the going back to the glued on bubble an attempt to stop the slash and returns that have hampered the lines since the ROTS series? If so, why did it take so long to go back to the glued on bubble?

Returns have not been a big problem for the lines that have had the taped blisters, at least any more than heat-sealed blisters have been. Where there is a will, unfortunately, there is always a way with unscrupulous collectors to try and juke the system. Instead, it's a cost-savings measure compared to the taped blisters. The taped blisters, while great for giving the figures a lot of room to be posed out with their accessories in-pack, cost more and was a needed concession as we drew up the new line. It's possible that we'll return to the taped in a future line.