By Dave
Force Friday II – the big launch for not just Hasbro’s,
but everyone’s products for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi –
happened while I was at Dragon Con. To be honest, I didn’t care.
I won’t belabor the point because I’ve discussed it many
times before, but Hasbro isn’t focusing on what I collect right now – 3.75”
figures with more than 5 points of articulation. That scale is now aimed at
kids and their parents, which I understand. I’m not interested in the 6” Black
Series because to me Star Wars figures need vehicles and two a year isn’t going
to cut it.
Of course, I made that decision before Hasbro cheapened
their 3.75” vehicle production to the point where I would end up buying zero
per year.
In my mind Force Friday II wouldn’t have anything for me
and my son wouldn’t mind waiting a few extra days to go and check everything
out. So on Monday afternoon when I returned from Dragon Con we hit Toys R Us
and Target just to browse and see what was there. Little did we know we’d both
get caught up in what I think was the most successful Star Wars launch since
2008.
Looking at what was offered, it seems to me that Hasbro
learned a lot of lessons from the Force
Awakens and Rogue One toy lines.
As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a company turn around in quite
this way. From the variety of the offerings to the actual quality of the
products Hasbro’s toys have shown massive improvement.
Of course, JAKKS Pacific and other license holders had
plenty of products available, but they’ve actually been doing a better job of
what they do than Hasbro has for the past few years. JAKKS in particular has
been getting better with each movie.
But Hasbro will always be the king of Star Wars, so let’s
take a look at the stuff that we simply couldn’t pass up.
6”
Black Series Grand Admiral Thrawn
Technically the first Force Friday II product I picked up
was the Black Series Grand Admiral Thrawn, which I found at Walmart the
Wednesday prior to the September 1st launch.
WARNING: The following is my personal opinion and should not in any
way impact your own enjoyment of any toy line.
In general I find the Black Series to be terribly boring.
Most of what comes out is stuff we’ve seen before and there are so many humans. Rarely do we see
anything exciting like wild new aliens or droids and, as I mentioned above,
vehicle releases are rare. And you’ll never see a 6” scale Slave I or
Millennium Falcon. But I do pick up the odd figure here and there when it’s a
Mandalorian or a specific character that I have strong feelings about. So when
I saw Thrawn at Walmart I threw him in my basket, assuming that I would not be
walking out of the store with him.
Then the figure scanned just fine and I completed my
purchase and walked – somewhat more swiftly than usual – out of the store.
I haven’t opened Thrawn yet, but like most Black Series
figures he looks exactly like he should look.
3.75”
The Last Jedi from Hasbro
Last Monday my son and I set out for Best Buy to pick up
the new horror and sci-fi-themed Best Buy exclusive Madballs. If you follow me on Instagram you
saw them. They’re wonderful, but more on them later.
While we were out we figured we should go ahead and check
out the new Star Wars stuff. He had already perused it with Mrs. Troublemaker
while I was at Con, but had been waiting for me to really check it out. Our
first stop was Toys R Us because they almost always have the best and biggest
presentation.
I was a little surprised that it wasn’t up front. Last
Monday the main feature was some other Hasbro product, though it’s changed to
the LEGO Ninjago Movie since. But once we got to the Star Wars section it was
impressive. Lots of gleaming white packaging with shapes and graphics very
different from the Force Awakens and Rogue One stuff we’ve been looking at
for so long. Plus, everything was actually well stocked. Now, I don’t know if
this was due to more foresight on the parts of Toys R Us and Hasbro or if
everyone was as disinterested in the launch as I was, but it was great to feel
like there were actually interesting items left to look at and not just five
hundred Constable Zuvio or Imperial Air Traffic Controller figures.
The
Figures
Okay, so there were basically just a bunch of humans.
But as limited as the articulation is on this newer generation
of 3.75” action figures, the detail and (usually) paint has been excellent. In
some cases the basic figures even look better than the Walmart exclusive Black
Series that I’ve been buying. I’ll show you an example of this later.
There were new versions of Finn, Poe Dameron, and General
Hux that looked better than previous releases and were different enough to seem
fresh. I bought Hux because I don’t have one (they didn’t make him in the WE
Black Series) and he comes with a Mouse Droid, which I also don’t have.
This is important.
The new basic figures don’t come with crappy
build-a-weapon parts or massive non-movie weapons that they can’t hold. They
come with accessories that make sense and Force Link capability – more on that
later. As a carded presentation I suppose they’re less impressive than what we’ve
gotten for the past two years, but also less insulting, which I appreciate.
Throwing a Mouse Droid in with Hux and a Porg in with Chewbacca is infinitely
preferable to a big, stupid rocket launcher that doesn’t exist in the movies.
There were also new characters, and this is where Hasbro
got me. I love pilots and flight crews. I think the excellent Rogue Squadron
books caused this. But I’ve always bought Rebel pilots whenever I could. So
when I saw Rose and Paige I was excited.
Yeah, most of these characters are ones we’ve seen
before, but everything about the figures felt fresh enough to me to leave an
overall good impression of the launch. Just to be thorough, here’s the list of
what was available:
Chewbacca w/Porg, Resistance Tech Rose, Resistance Gunner
Paige, General Hux w/MSE droid, Rey (Jedi Training), Kylo Ren, First Order
Stormtrooper, C-3P0, Finn (Resistance Fighter), Poe Dameron (Resistance Pilot),
and two 2-packs with Rey and a Praetorian Guard and Han Solo and Boba Fett from
Episode V.
The Rey in the 2-pack seems to be identical to the single
release, but Hasbro is wary of social media hashtags now, so I understand.
Additionally, three single-carded
female figures is nothing to sneeze at. I’m sure certain outspoken individuals
are working on blog posts full of praise as we speak.
Between us, we went home with Chewie, Rose, Paige, Hux,
and the Rey/Praetorian 2-pack. I was tempted by the Poe figure because it
really does look much cooler than the last ones and I almost grabbed the Han/Boba 2-pack. But I wasn;t trying to break
the bank.
Much to my surprise, I found one additional figure at
Walmart days after this visit – Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master). He looks great. I grabbed the only one they had
for my son. He was thrilled to see it. Luke has always been his favorite.
The
Other Stuff
Most exciting, however, was the presence of creatures and
new, cool-looking vehicles, none of which were repackaged toys from prior
movies (though some were new versions of old favorites, which I love and will
get into in a bit). Hasbro really shit the bed with those Force Awakens repacks in the Rogue
One line and I hope they never do that again.
Instead we got an all-new Imperial Probe Droid (with a
new Darth Vader) and a Rathtar (with the strangely absent until now Bala-Tik), the
latter of which had been sorely missed from the original Force Awakens line. I’m glad to see Hasbro putting some variety
into the assortments and giving us familiar things to spice up the selection of
a bunch of stuff we know very little about. The Probe Droid is nice to see
because I think it’s been close to a decade since we got one.
There were four larger vehicles available – Kylo Ren’s
TIE Silencer, a Resistance Ski Speeder (the things from the trailer that were
racing across the desert), a Police Speeder that I thought looked stupid, and a
new model Resistance A-Wing.
The A-Wing is one of my favorite Star Wars vehicles, so I
bought it. It doesn’t have a giant handle under it or Nerf darts and it looks
great. I know this line is for kids and that Hasbro probably felt like those
kinds of features were good ideas, but when I was a kid anything that altered
the aesthetics of vehicles bothered me and my son is the same way. We want the
toys to look like the movies. And I think the majority of kids feel like that.
If we want Nerf guns, we’ll go and buy Nerf guns.
And by the way, I think Nerf-firing Star Wars blasters
are fantastic. Especially the ones with the glow-in-the-dark darts.
We brought an A-Wing home, but that was it. I’m going to
wait for sale prices on the Ski Speeder and the TIE Silencer.
Finally, right before we left Toys R Us we found the big,
ultimate, wowsa-wowsa bad boy of the new line – the BB-8 2-in-1 Mega Playset
that transforms from Poe Dameron’s lovable little ball droid into what is
presumably Snoke’s flagship, the Mega-class Star Destroyer, The Supremacy.
Me and my son were both very impressed by this. It’s
$200, which is steep, but it looks like a lot of fun and IT’S A PLAYSET.
Sure, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman and Justice
League and a few other brands have managed to release much larger playsets for
roughly half that price. But this is STAR
WARS. And to be honest, this thing looks much, much nicer than those, even
if it is smaller.
Also, it comes with what is, so far, the only Snoke
action figure.
Also also, it comes with a Force Link thing. Which I will
address now.
The
Force Link Thing
So this is the new gimmick that unifies the new toy line.
Each of the figures, vehicles, and creatures has a chip embedded that activates
sounds from the Force Link “wearable technology”.
One of these is included with the Mega Playset, but you
can also get one for free when you buy the new $29.99 Kylo Ren action figure
that it comes packaged with.
I’m sure that’s how Hasbro wants us to look at it.
Thirty bucks is steep for this thing. But it’s fun and it
works… okay. The sound isn’t great and there are no means to update it, which is
weird in this day and age, but it’s rewarding to move the figures around and
get voices out of them. I like the gimmick even if I do think it needed a
little more time in development. Almost twenty years ago JAKKs Pacific released
a talking Stone Cold Steve Austin that could be updated to say new things via
the internet, so it seems a little ridiculous that this modern Hasbro toy can’t
do the same.
What this means is that every sound this device will ever
make is already pre-loaded and that some dedicated gizmo hacker has already
cracked it and heard all of them.
Functionally the Force Link leaves a bit to be desired,
but idea-wise I’m going to chalk it up to a win. It’s a much better unifying
gimmick than the build-a-craps and it does add some play value to the figures
and vehicles without screwing up their aesthetics. I highly recommend you buy
one and play around with it once they’re piled up in clearance bins for five
bucks. Plus, you’ll get a new Kylo Ren!
One
Last Thing
When I work night shifts I tend to stop at Walmart on the
way home in the mornings. I hate Walmart and try to not shop there, but
sometimes they either have exclusives or they’re the only place open when I
need something. But for the most part I’d rather pay a few dollars more to buy
stuff anywhere else.
Anyway, I stopped at Walmart the other morning to get
some necessities and of course had to look in the toy aisle. It’s what we do.
That’s where I found the basic Luke Skywalker I mentioned
above, but also four huge surprises that I wasn’t expecting:
I didn’t think we’d see any new figures in this style
until next year’s Vintage Collection relaunch. I don’t know if there are more
than these because these were literally the only ones out. No duplicates or
other characters and believe me, I looked.
In this instance I didn’t expect to have any trouble
buying them, but when I got up to the counter they didn’t show up in the
system. Normally that would be the end of the story, but the wonderful lady running
the checkout manually entered them for me.
And yes – I was honest about the price. To the best of my
knowledge, anyway. If they’ve increased from $11.97 I don’t know about it. Of
course, they could be less, but
probably not.
If you can’t quite tell, those are Jedi Master Luke,
Resistance Tech Rose, Stormtrooper Executioner, and Elite Praetorian Guard.
There are slight spoilers on the packaging and of course, the very character selection
could be considered a spoiler (Rose?
Really?), so I won’t go into further detail.
Traditionally the Walmart Black Series waves have
consisted of four figures, so this might be it for now. I don’t know.
I do know, however, that I prefer my son’s basic Luke to
my Black Series version:
Oh, well.
P.S. - I also bought the Leia and Phasma books! Hopefully I'll have time to read 'em!
P.S. - I also bought the Leia and Phasma books! Hopefully I'll have time to read 'em!
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