I prefer 1. It's more classic and stylish that doesn't go out of style. Never cared for the blue in his colouring.
Sick! What lights did you use? Just ordered 2 sets of Dioders and about to apply them later today.
I find that hard to believe. Baby Yoda merch will release in May and they'll make six billion dollars.Its looking more and more like Hasbro is losing the Star Wars license.
I find that hard to believe. Baby Yoda merch will release in May and they'll make six billion dollars.
There are a lot of issues currently going on,I find that hard to believe. Baby Yoda merch will release in May and they'll make six billion dollars.
i think my only hope would be the Mattel Jurassic World team getting the 3.75 stuff but deciding they need to match the quality of the Vintage Collection and Black Series designs.Hasbro losing Star Wars would be a disaster for collectors. They're just starting to get deep into the OT in 6" and have a good foundation in the PT.
Also, other companies can't compete with their combination of likeness, articulation and durability at around the $20 price point.
Didn't they also have issues where entire paint apps just flaked off?Does anyone actually like the carbonized version or is it some completionist thing?
They made the fabric look metallic on that one. Like wtf.
Didn't they also have issues where entire paint apps just flaked off?
Who else is there for them to give the Star Wars license to? Mattel?
My Walmart had the 3.75 Black Series Jyn and Cassians till early in this year,It still annoying that stores near my house still got the Rogue One pegwarmers still there, with those stores never ordering any new waves since.
The hope would be that with Mattel going all in on their pitch as sources have said, they will try to specifically make better figures than what currently is out there.I just know if they lose the license, the figures are going to be bad for a good while if the early Hasbro Marvel Legends are a indicator.
Cross-posting from the pick-ups thread, I got Pop Culture Shock's 1/4 scale statues of M. Bison for $265 and Shadaloo Cammy for $200. A local comic shop was running a 50% sale and I couldn't pass them up. I'm very impressed with the Bison; it's such a large and commanding statue. Cammy's more of a companion piece and works well when paired with Bison. I'm just wondering what other statues I missed out on since they had started their 50% off sale a few weeks ago.
Its looking more and more like Hasbro is losing the Star Wars license.
Hasbro has started shipping 5 year old factory reject packs to discount retailers,
thats after the stupid gold repaint figures released instead of a main Star Wars line,
which were after stores got clogged with many of the same figures in Galaxy of Adventures art.
They were thousands that quality control rejected and took off the line, but for some reason Hasbro starts shipping them 5 years after that line was run, crazy.
I haven't bought a DC figure since Mattel shuddered their old line with a thud as online exclusives, and the product I've seen in stores hasn't really tempted me at all. So if they get the license, RIP Star Wars, at least for a few years.
I never seen any of the good DC Multiverse figures. Anytime I went to a store it was always Supergirl, Dark Knight Returns Robin, and Superman Doomsday.
I can see Hasbro pushing out as much Star Wars product as they can before the licensing agreement ends. Hasbro still has the Marvel license and I believe that's their most profitable partner brand within the past few years.
Cross-posting from the pick-ups thread, I got Pop Culture Shock's 1/4 scale statues of M. Bison for $265 and Shadaloo Cammy for $200. A local comic shop was running a 50% sale and I couldn't pass them up. I'm very impressed with the Bison; it's such a large and commanding statue. Cammy's more of a companion piece and works well when paired with Bison. I'm just wondering what other statues I missed out on since they had started their 50% off sale a few weeks ago.
Mattel lost DC because they been resting on the same lower tier line since it was "DC SuperHeroes" way back in 2005I haven't bought a DC figure since Mattel shuddered their old line with a thud as online exclusives, and the product I've seen in stores hasn't really tempted me at all. So if they get the license, RIP Star Wars, at least for a few years.
My Walmart had the 3.75 Black Series Jyn and Cassians till early in this year,
When they were finale hitting $3 and $1.50 I cleard them out of about 11+ Jyn snd 4 Cassians.
I have to say that Jyn headsculpt is one of the best female headsculpts in that scale for customs, even works for GI JOE.
But for Christmas literally all my walmart had was hundreds of the gold figures and about 15 Vintage collection Yavin Ceremony Luke.
The hope would be that with Mattel going all in on their pitch as sources have said, they will try to specifically make better figures than what currently is out there.
They did that with the Jurassic World pitch for example and won.
They will have a hard time matching Vintage and Black Series but Mattel can destroy Hasbro on recent mainline and vehicles.
Feel like Mattel for example wouldn't be too scared to do stuff like the Mandalorian's ship, The Ghost or a proper scaled U-Wing in the first few years.
This year is the last year of the contract, If they don't renew then they can't ship any mainline product after December 31st.I just stumbled onto this thread and read through some of the Star Wars discussion. When does the current license expire? That's new to me. I know Kenner kept their line going for a couple years after the original trilogy ended, but Hasbro maintained the license nearly a decade after the prequels had ended and kept it running to this day, which if my math is correct puts the longstanding deal at 24 years.
I've been out of toy collecting since the early 2000's, and I will say that their rollout for the latest line of films have been underwhelming compared to the previous lines. I really think that Hasbro's most consistant output was during their Power of the Force 2 era in the sense that it was inextricably tied into the old line, which gave current collectors the idea they could assemble a more up to date version of the original line. I also felt there was a more earnest and weightier quality to their action figures than what was to come in later series. They did bring some great sculpts later into the series, but I felt they were offset by the many retreads on already released characters or characters with action gimmicks. This current run of the Star Wars line almost feels comparible to what happened to the most recent run of G.I.Joe before it was phased out. That's insane for a film that is still out in the theaters. And despite what many feel about Rise of Skywalker, it'll probably make close to a billion dollars worldwide before it finally hits home video.
Anyone in the know, please lay out a forensic timeline as to how this even happened, and if necessary, go into the all the boneheaded decisions that Hasbro has made over the past many years.
I know one of the most common complaints has been that peg warmers clogging up the toy shelves. But that will always be a problem in any toy line. And it will only get worse with no dedicated toy chain in North America now. Action figures now have to compete with Walmart, Target, and now Gamestop to a certain extent. Not to mention the many online retailers in operation today.
So is it true that Mattel may be gunning for the license? If so, and Hasbro doesn't care, what product line, current and emerging are they hedging their bets on to soften the blow? I assume their boardgame division is doing quite well, and that there are numerous movie licenses they can plumb from, but wouldn't losing the Star Wars license be a serious blow to them nonetheless?
And on Mattel's end, what opportunities do you feel they could capitalize on? Do they become an extention of Hasbro's run, continuing their formula ongoing formula and rectifying their misteps along the way, or do they start from scratch?
Let's assume they go with the latter, and begin with a clean slate? Almost akin to Kenner's orignal run with the series in 1977. Could that even work for Mattel? And would Mattel even limit themselves to that, given that they have options on the 12 inch, and 6 inch front? Is there the distinct possibility that 3 inch is dead and they might model their standard line after Hasbro's 6 inch black line?
This is my opinion, but packaging aside, I feel that Hasbro's current 3 inch vintage line, while being a throwback to the classic vintage figures from the earlier era, has been a step down from what Kenner/Hasbro had produced during their POTF2 run. If I were still into collecting today, I would have long ago migrated to the Black series, and even with those, I hear that line is beset with availability issues, which as I mentioned above probably has a lot to do with the fact that there's no longer toy chains like Toys R Us, Kay-Bee, or Kiddie City.
It's sad. On the Lego end of things, there seems to be an endless supply of inspired kits to acquire. At this point, I feel that Lego has a much larger embarrassment of riches to current and back catalog product than what Hasbro has had throughout this past decade.
This year is the last year of the contract, If they don't renew then they can't ship any mainline product after December 31st.
If we don't hear about an extension then on January 1st 2021 some other company will have a massive blowout of their Star Wars line for later in the year.
The problem with Hasbro started in about 2012-2013 when oil prices were going up they decided to start doing a 6" line because they could charge significantly more for the same amount of work with relatively small increase of materials
They then let everything else basically go to shit including the main mass release lines without any effort.
Ships:
Left is 2013 right is 2005
Left is old, right is 2016
Mainline figure 15-10 years ago($5.99-8.99):
Today($8.99):
The shitty mainline stuff hardly sold
Retailers were getting fed up with Hasbro's assortment BS as well
Hasbro isn't happy having to pay a massive guarantee even if they don't sell $1 worth of Star Wars stuff.
Yes insiders have said Mattel is absolutely going all in on trying to get it as management basically said "whatever it takes" after they lost DC.
Mattel would have a tough job as they have to try to match Hasbro when they put the effort in.
Its almost guaranteed though they wouldn't want a full Star Wars line reboot and would make 6" and 3.75" as close to Hasbro's as possible.
They would likely be only main characters for a few waves though just to get new people into their line.
Though they would probably avoid something like a big expensive Falcon as the market is just to saturated and the rumor of Hasbro bringing the BMF.
Edit: had a huge message typed out but it cut off.
Honestly, I could never understand the mindset of having to pack in main characters into each shipment of action figures. If Mattel were to acquire the license, couldn't they just strategically space out the main characters while padding out their tertiary characters?
Whenever I've checked out the Star Wars aisle at Target or Walmart, there's always an over abundance of the main characters. In fact, I don't think there's been any significant diversity to the action figure line akin to what was available for the POTF2 line, and even then, you still had the issue of pegwarmers occupying the shelves. It's a part of the hobby.
I've been out of toy collecting since the early 2000's, but if I had the time and space, I really would be hesistant to engage in the hobby today because of how cheap and garish most of their output has been throughout the past decade. Lego sets by comparison are more vibrant and welcoming in my opinion, albeit the price.
The only aspect of Hasbro's current line that seems welcoming would be their 6 inch line, and as some here have stated, it has seemingly supplanted Hasbro's other action figure sets. IMO, the vintage figures look like action figures from the early 1990's that came before the POTF2 line. I know it's common that people tend to bag on the inaugeral set of figures from the POTF2 line, but at this point, I would take the ridiculous steroid buff renderings of Luke and Han over what I've seen from the current Vintage line.
Do you think that Lego's edge over Hasbro has a lot to do with the fact that they do vehicles and playsets, or is it just me as an adult with differing interests these days? Of course the tradeoff is that their minifigs can never match the fidelity of what proper action figures can offer, even when they're done crappily, such as the case with the Hasbro/Kenner toyline. But really, a side by side comparison between recent Lego Star Wars vs. Hasbro Star Wars of the Disney era demonstrates a discrepancy in the quality of said licensed products. The lego stuff looks more fun to play with and display, would you not agree?
EDIT: On a somewhat tangential note, I am eagerly looking forward to Traveler's Tale's upcoming Lego Star Wars game and will continue to buy their future Lego games until the end of time.
Overall its bad that they would do main characters again but whoever gets it will be concerned about missing new fans and just welcoming them to go aftermarket for Hasbro.
Lego has the edge because its Lego but specifically Star Wars its definitely the variety,
ships, characters and settings from all 3 time periods
especially doing stuff Hasbro never even attempts despite featuring heavily
I"d think a key niche whoever takes over Star Wars should target is diorama like "Playsets".
Hasbro let them die and only recently started trying more many of which were just cardboard.
Cantina, Hoth or Yavin playsets would probably do extremely well and fill a huge void.
Only thing giving me hope for Mattel if they get it was how well they revived Jurassic Park, they really understood what to do with it for its first year.
Constable Zuvio and Moloch continue to haunt my Walmart and Target's clearance aisles.That's weird, because besides the Star Wars lines where they only have main characters (like the cartoony line), I usually overwhelmingly see shelfs filled with pegwarmers like Rose and her sister, or whatever random alien they felt they needed to include.
The popular Hasbro stuff Mattel would need to continue as is mostly,How would Mattel produce and market their Star Wars line that stood apart from Hasbro? For them, would it be more important to feel like a natural transition from Hasbro, or would they want to immediately shake things up to set them apart from their predecessors?
I'll give you the Obi-wan figure is a decent 5POA Star Wars figure butThat Jurassic Park figure sucks though. Like if you gave it to a kid sans packaging would they be able to tell who it is?
Good lord those are terrible.
On another subject I've been wondering about lately I recently went to a Toys R Us (they never shut down up here) and while there I checked out what they had. We've seen G.I.Joe all but vanish in the last decade more or less aside from the movie and some celebrations, yet at Toys R Us they have shelves filled with similar sized army figures and various vehicles or playsets that took up a lot of shelf space. I couldn't help but look at that and wonder okay, what the hell happened to G.I.Joe. I know the screw up with the second movie didn't help them but if this other stuff is still around and selling otherwise it wouldn't be around then how did G.I.Joe get so bungled it became all but dead.
I do like them (although im keeping mine mint in box). The Sith trooper looks beautiful in the metallic candy red. I just wish Hasbro would make it standard in the main Black Series line as a metallic finish for any decal or part that suits it, such as guns or droids etc.Does anyone actually like the carbonized version or is it some completionist thing?
They made the fabric look metallic on that one. Like wtf.
I do like them (although im keeping mine mint in box). The Sith trooper looks beautiful in the metallic candy red. I just wish Hasbro would make it standard in the main Black Series line as a metallic finish for any decal or part that suits it, such as guns or droids etc.
I think Hasbro HAS improved in some areas, though it mostly seems to apply to their Black Series. The face-printing tech is a godsend.I'll give you the Obi-wan figure is a decent 5POA Star Wars figure but
I think a kid would prefer something that looks decent, can do more than stand in a single pose and come with a dinosaur.