I missed May the Fourth Be With You by a few days, but I
want to write about Star Wars toys.
I posted the above photo on Facebook on the Fourth and
our pal, Head of Research Ryan, left the following comment:
“I see you creeping more and more into collecting the 6”
line.”
He’s right, and I’m going to tell you why.
When Hasbro first revealed the 6” Black Series on January 29th, 2013 on USAToday, I had a lot of feelings about it.
I felt a little betrayed – I had been collecting 3.75”
Star Wars figures for essentially the last thirty-four years and I knew there
was a chance this new collector-demanded style would damage my preferred scale.
The smaller figures had already seen a downturn in production, and while that
historically had happened every once in a while, the introduction of a new
collector-oriented line not in that
scale didn’t bode well.
I was also intrigued. Once the figures hit retail in
August, I bought a few – R2-D2, pilot Luke, a Stormtrooper, and Han (I think).
My intent had been to review them, but the aforementioned Ryan – credited as “Evil”
– stepped up to take on Artoo
and Luke.
I liked them but didn’t love them and sold whichever ones I had bought on eBay.
This new scale was not for me.
I also felt doubtful. In all honesty, up until The Force Awakens, I still didn’t believe
that Hasbro intended to support this new Black Series fully. Distribution never
seemed great and there were always one or two figures that nobody seemed to be
able to find. Like, to an even greater degree than regular toy lines.
You guys know how much I’m still out there looking for toys all the time and I could count on
one hand the number of times I’ve seen Boba Fett and Jango Fett at regular
retail. Boba Fett – one of the franchise’s
most popular character designs.
But with The Force
Awakens’ Force Friday launch it became clear that the 6” scale was not only
here to stay, but was the only source for collector-quality figures.
This was when I sort of gave up on collecting Star Wars
toys (but not really).
Two of the most important things to me about Star Wars
toys are the vehicles and the deep cut characters. Some may complain, but I
have always loved that I can get
weirdos who had half a second of screen time like Bom Vimdin, Hermi Olde, and
Willrow Hood. With the higher price points and the staggered releases of the
Black Series, we will never see the
depth offered by the 3.75” line.
I also assumed there would never be creatures and
vehicles; at least, not for a reasonable price. I was wrong about that, but not
in a way that is good news for Hasbro (or collectors). So far all of the 6” Black Series vehicles have
appeared to me to be massive failures. I could be wrong – I don’t know what
constitutes success in Hasbro’s eyes, but when their $175 TIE Fighter was
readily available for a s little as fifteen
dollars and I was able to buy both Rey’s speeder and Luke’s Landspeeder for
ten bucks each without even hunting, I think Hasbro has a problem.
The creatures seem to do better, but I say that only
because they seemed to hit in smaller numbers and never made it to clearance
that I saw. Now we’ve got the Dewback, which seems to be sitting on shelves at
sixty bucks and also seems to me to be hilariously tiny.
As you can probably tell, I have a bit of a bias against
the 6” Black Series.
I have been, however, picking up figures here and there.
Like I said above – I couldn’t pass up those vehicles for ten bucks each. I
also grabbed the 40th Anniversary Vader set for five bucks. I’ll
even buy certain characters here and there for full price – Thrawn, any Mandos,
Jaina Solo just because she looked so good. I grabbed a Leia at GameStop for
six bucks.
Where I really faltered was with the Last Jedi exclusives.
Luke was the one that got me. A lot of factors went into
the purchase – love of the character, desire for new Star Wars toys, the
seeming value of the set. He just looked good in the box. And I liked the
landscape piece. It was all downhill from there.
GameStop put Snoke and his throne on sale. Call me weird,
but I liked Snoke’s characterization a lot and that throne looks awesome.
Next up was Rey. That Crait
base is striking and the figure looks much better than the regular release.
Finally, Kylo Ren and the floor of Snoke’s throne room (which
connects to the throne and looks great) arrived at Walmart (blech) just a few
weeks ago. I paid full price for that one just because I had been waiting so
long and because Walmart is such a shit show you never know which exclusives
are going to stick around or even show up at every store. The one I pass on my
way home from work had six and for all I knew those might be the only six I’d
ever see (this proved not to be the case).
Now I’ve got my little display of Last Jedi exclusives and I like it. I don’t feel any desire to pick
up the other characters, not even the Praetorian Guards and not even on
clearance.
Let’s get back to that Jaina figure, though.
The face on this one is tremendous, one of the best I’ve
seen at this scale. Not only is the sculpt on point, the new face deco process
Hasbro is using on the Black Series and on Marvel Legends is yielding some
great results. The rest of the figure is really slick, too, and despite the
all-black color scheme it’s pretty satisfying to look at. I didn’t particularly
need a Jaina Solo in this uniform in this scale, but she is one of my favorite Star
Wars characters and Hasbro did a great job.
Which brings me to some other Solos, specifically the Solo: A Star Wars Story wave of Black
Series figures.
Lando got me first. Donald Glover as Calrissian looks like
the coolest thing in a movie chock full of cool things and I wanted a figure as
soon as I could get one. He’s got the new face deco technique and looks
amazing.
That Chewbacca is a Target exclusive that was released on
May the Fourth. As soon as I saw Chewie in his goggles in the Solo trailer I knew I’d want a figure of
him. I also dig the new (old) bandolier. When I saw this release, it went on my
list of Black Series toys to buy. I stopped at Target on the way home from
work, they had plenty, and I grabbed a new (old) Han Solo to go with him because
I’m actually pretty excited for the movie and this Han looks great, even if
Arben Erbenbern doesn’t look or sound much like Harrison Ford. If the movie’s
good enough and if he’s charming enough it might not matter.
Buying these two was breaking the seal in a way that my
previous Black Series purchases were not. Up until now they’d been specific
characters or clearance finds, but these two were straight-up MSRP purchases
that I just bought because they looked great. I’m not necessarily excited that
my first Black Series Han is Allen Emmerich, but it’s not like the others that
have come out have resembled Harrison Ford any more than this kid does.
I’m not going all-in on the Black Series and it’s not
supplanting my 3.75” collection – Lord knows I’ve got a five hundred freaking dollar Sail Barge in my future, so now is not
the time to switch scales – but I’m a little more open to the line now that the
quality has improved and it has become apparent that the new films are not
going to see as much support from the 3.75” toys. I could see myself buying a
couple of figures per wave, and maybe even getting really invested if Hasbro
decides to go back and redo some of the older releases with this new deco
process.
Heck, you know I’ll buy a box set of bounty hunters if
they release it.
I’ve also pretty much accepted that my vehicle rule no
longer applies. Aside from the incredible Khetanna vehicle/playset, Hasbro has
lost interest in offering 3.75” scale vehicles that appeal to collectors. I’ve
actually liked a few of the things that have come out over the past couple of
years – Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer and the new A-Wing are solid and Han’s speeder
from Solo looks good – but they’re all expensive toys that feel cheap. It would
take a whole post to explain the situation, but believe me when I say these
recent vehicles are a sad descendent of
what we had just a few years ago.
Hasbro is trying. I’m not trying to knock them,
necessarily. For years now the word around the plastic campfire has been “toy
production costs are skyrocketing”. That’s why we’re getting smaller, poorer
quality stuff at twice the price. But Hasbro has been experimenting with
different features and levels of quality to try and find a solution.
Their new Millennium Flacon for Solo looks pretty
terrible to me, but it represents Hasbro attempting to find a new middle ground
of play value, movie accuracy, and consumer-friendly price point. Remember –
the last time the legendary Big Millennium Falcon was at retail it was $250 and
that was six (I think) years ago. After that they tried the one that didn’t
even hold figures, then the playset version for The Force Awakens that was
mostly lame and cost almost as much as the BMF did the first time around in
2008. My point is that times are tough and the folks up in Pawtucket do keep
trying.
But try as they might, Hasbro just can’t supply my Star
Wars fix like they used to. The glory years of the 2007-2012 3.75” toy line are
long gone and they’re never coming back. The new Vintage Collection was dead
(to me) before it even hit retail, with the first wave offering a combination
of Black Series figures that can still be found at certain Walmarts for four
bucks or less and… well, Snoke.
Side Note: The only good news about the
2018 Vintage Collection is that they seem to be showing up everywhere and they
also, for some reason, seem to be selling. I’ve only seen full sets a few times
and most places just have one or two figures left. I don’t know why people are
buying them, but they are.
I suppose I just assumed that Hasbro would continue
supporting movies with +5 POA 3.75” figures until the day I dies, but between
the Black Series and their admittedly good 5 POA line, that doesn’t seem to be
the case. Unless the Vintage Collection gets a whole lot more compelling with
future waves, Star Wars simply isn’t a brand I’m going to be as consistently excited
about as I used to be. But that’s okay. There are plenty of other toys out
there.
Have you seen
that new Jurassic Park line?!?
You can follow Dave as Phantom Troublemaker on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for all the latest on
pop culture!
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