SSG's Bi-Weekly Hasbro Q&A - June 20th

[JediTricks]

The last Q&A before the Summer solstice arrives, it's Hasbro's answers to SSG questions for June 20th, 2008! Thanks again to Hasbro for the answers, to all the folks who sent in questions and especially those who voted on them.

Hasbro Q&A for the week of June 20th

SSG: For years, fans have wanted a resizing/upgrading of the Millennium Falcon and, HOORAY!, now Hasbro has delivered one. Hypothetically, under ideal circumstances, what other vehicles would Hasbro consider resizing/upgrading? What would it take, under this train of thought, for Hasbro to resize the AT-AT, for example?
Hasbro: The AT-AT would be a cool one to do, and we have thought about it, but nothing really beyond that until we have results from this Fall. But it sure is nice to dream about a new one. Beyond that, there are a couple others we'd like to take a crack at, but aren't near the huge size of the Millenium Falcon.

SSG: The recent Clone Trooper and Rebel Trooper role-play blasters are pretty cool. With that in mind, will Hasbro be offering more role-play weapons such as all-new sculpts of Han's blaster, the Stormtrooper blaster (with more accurate size and folded stock under the barrel), Biker Scout pistol, and perhaps even larger ones like the Hoth Rebel rifle and Clone Trooper long rifle? (Please discuss the specific possibilities of each of the examples in this question.)
Hasbro: Sorry for the blanket answer, but since none of these blasters are present in the Clone Wars animation, we do not have plans to pursue them. Our role play efforts are really focused on trying to match what on-screen opportunities the entertainment brings (last year's Rebel Trooper blaster notwithstanding).

SSG: With 2 of the finalists in the most recent Saga Legends fans choice poll being from the Battle of Geonosis - Pablo-Jill and Coleman Trebor - might Hasbro consider releasing a second Battlepack focused on the Geonosis Arena battle containing those 2 figures? Pablo-Jill could use some actual leg articulation and this would be a good time to add it to the figure, you could also include a retooled Nikto Jedi (his actual name is Fi-ek Sirch) since he was in the scene but the figure was nearly unarticulated, and of course the prerequisite core characters that each Battlepack needs. This would make a nice counterpart to the first Geonosis Battlepack, plus it'd get some popular figures re-released.
Hasbro: That is a pretty good idea for a Battle Pack, but we won't be doing it for reasons that will be seen next year. At least one of those characters will be updated in 2009, and we would like to do more if possible as the Arena is one of our favorite scenes. Stay tuned for more details next year.

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And the questions at ActionFigs.com:

• What are the chances of getting stands or bases for the Indiana Jones figures, maybe as HasbroToyShop exclusives? Some of the figures (seems most notably the ones from KOTCS) have a hard time standing on their own without a lot of futzing.
• Regarding the Indy line, photos have surfaced from Entertainment Earth of the Deluxe Mutt Williams w/ Motorcycle. The figure appears to come with sculpted-on sunglasses (which he never wore) yet without the hat that Mutt wore in the film. Will the actual production Deluxe set come with the hat? Was the figure based on film-inaccurate production stills or something similar?
• Now that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull has opened, some fans would like a full compliment of 13 Crystal Skeletons w/ thrones. Will we ever see the Skeleton w/ throne offered at mass retail, once the mail-in offer ends? Perhaps in a Deluxe 2-Pack, maybe with another army builder such as the Russian Soldier also from KotCS?

[JediTricks]

This Q&A round really didn't work for me. I wanted more than just the AT-AT, although that is a great answer of course; I wanted new role-play weapons after all this time; and I wanted a more thorough explanation of what was up with Dlx Mutt's glasses.

That said, we did get confirmation on Indy stands and a new Pablo-Jill or Nikto Jedi which is pretty cool.

Still, I feel like I should have gone with my gut and put the kibosh on the skeletons question which I knew was gonna bomb, and I knew what the answer was gonna be on Mutt, I feel a little like those were wasted questions.

Having just looked over a few other sites' Q&As, I'd say our results were pretty much par for the course this round, not a lot of home-run questions and not all that much insight given in the answers. I also noticed several sites got blank answers, a couple were about the Dagger Squadron B-wing.

Dice Ibegon has been "confirmed" (Hasbro said Lak Sivrak's lover as the hint) on Jedi Defender, that's probably the biggest one I've seen so far.

[Cane_Adiss]

Wow. Pretty pleased with the answer to my question about the Geonosis Jedi. My guess is Coleman Trebor will be updated, as he has the most screen time and "action" and his previous figure was a little pre-posed. Here's hoping they get to updating Fi-ek Sirch someday, and I hope at least a re-release of Pablo (I am actually pretty happy w/ his figure as is).

Read the answer over at Jedi defender regarding the cantina "monsters". Wow. Awesome. Can't wait! Dice Ibegon is definitely coming, and she's been one of my top wanted figures since the POTF2 days! And I'm assuming the rest of Rebelscum's list is accurate (as they seem to be pretty accurate usually) so we're probably getting Trinto Duaba (thought he would be one of the last done so, cool!) Brainiac (sortof expected) Wioslea who was seen in both the cantina (really fuzzy in the background) and the streets of Mos Eisley. Expected this one too. Awesome choices all around.

[obi-dad]

Some pretty good answers so far, around the boards, but did you guys read this one?

YN: Will the packaged "Build A Droid" droid parts be completely random, or will each figure come with a specific part?

H: Each figure will come with a Droid Factory part that is specifically assigned and there will not be random packout. As figures carry-forward from wave to wave - for instance the Vader figure with the 3-part helmet from Wave 1, which will be in multiple future waves - the droid part will change to the new wave's droid part (on the surface, this could look random with Vader eventually available with several different parts over time, but it is all scripted out). This means that the droids will only "exist" in the wave they ship in (i.e. R4-D6 and R7-Z0 are only available in Wave 1, etc). "

Am I reading that correctly? We have to buy multiple Vaders to complete the droids from the various waves? Haven't they already pumped out enough Vaders that we've bought already? I know this is the best one they've done so far, but this is ridiculous! So, for those who look to build all droids, (which based on the droids themselves and the figures that come with the parts, I will not be completing the set), you may have to buy 3 or 4 Vaders to build each droid... wonder how many figures other than Vader Hasbro will do this with?

[Kidhuman]

Some pretty good answers so far, around the boards, but did you guys read this one?



Am I reading that correctly? We have to buy multiple Vaders to complete the droids from the various waves? Haven't they already pumped out enough Vaders that we've bought already? I know this is the best one they've done so far, but this is ridiculous! So, for those who look to build all droids, (which based on the droids themselves and the figures that come with the parts, I will not be completing the set), you may have to buy 3 or 4 Vaders to build each droid... wonder how many figures other than Vader Hasbro will do this with?

You are reading it right. Screw that crap. This is a reason I cant get excited about this stuff.

[Cane_Adiss]

No I don't think that's what it means. I think what they mean is there will be the normal amount of droid parts for all the figures for that wave, plus extra pieces included in the carry over figures. So if you wanted to complete all the droids, you'd only have to buy one of every figure. Say for instance, you don't want the Quarren Soldier from wave two, but want the droid part that comes with it. You could buy the "carry over" Vader from wave one to get that part (assuming you passed on it in wave one). The idea is that collectors would buy the complete collection to get every figure & droid. The carry over idea is just to keep popular figures on the pegs, and be consistent with what droid parts were being featured for that wave. No big deal.

[LTBasker]

Good to know that they didn't even read all of the role-play question, or didn't care enough to pay complete attention, as it mentions the Clone Trooper rifle, which is strongly present in the CW trailers. It's very messed up too that a Stormtrooper is current enough to use the helmet design for a cardback this year, but a Stormtrooper's blaster (which completes the Stormtrooper appearance) isn't.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

You are indeed misinterpreting the Build-a-Droid strategy, which they further explained in the paragraph you apparently missed:

Also, to remind fans once again on the strategy, if you just wanted to get one of each of all the droid parts to build all the different droids available, you can just pick up each of the new-release figures in the original wave they ship (the "BD" series figures, BD-1, BD-2, and so on) and skip the Greatest Hits ("GH" figures). If you just bought every BD figure, you would get every new-release figure and every droid part to build each droid. The GH series will have redundant parts to the BD series figures and completists can skip the GH series if they choose.

So I wonder if the re-releases of Vader (for instance) will say "GH" instead of "BD"? At any rate, I was originally opposed to having them re-ship the figures with newer droid parts, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

[JediTricks]

You are reading it right. Screw that crap. This is a reason I cant get excited about this stuff.

No, you both read that wrong, the carry-forward figures will have supplementary parts in later waves, they will have parts supplementary to that wave instead of the originals in the wave they came in. The Saga Legends will also have supplementary parts.

Good to know that they didn't even read all of the role-play question, or didn't care enough to pay complete attention, as it mentions the Clone Trooper rifle, which is strongly present in the CW trailers. It's very messed up too that a Stormtrooper is current enough to use the helmet design for a cardback this year, but a Stormtrooper's blaster (which completes the Stormtrooper appearance) isn't.

I'm not surprised they said no to a clone trooper rifle, it's much bigger than their standard role play items, it'd probably be $30. That said, I probably will nag them on the issue just to get a more complete answer.

You are indeed misinterpreting the Build-a-Droid strategy, which they further explained in the paragraph you apparently missed:


So I wonder if the re-releases of Vader (for instance) will say "GH" instead of "BD"? At any rate, I was originally opposed to having them re-ship the figures with newer droid parts, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Now you misinterpreted. The "GH" figures are like Saga Legends, the "BD" figures are Legacy Collection. The Vader figure is like BD4 or something, and will remain that way throughout the line, he'll just get different droid parts when he hits wave 3 and 5 and 7.

This means if there are any uber-completists left in the house (and I'm hoping for their sake, they are no longer into such things) that they will have to buy each wave's Vader for each pack-in on the card. Remember the blue/red holograms of the TSC line? It's going to be that again.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

No, in fact, you are also wrong. The Saga Legends figures come with those clone weapons "lockers." They are Anakin, Obi-Wan, and other Clone Wars-related realistic style figures. The Greatest Hits figures have the additional supplementary droid parts and are figures such as Commander Gree, the Kashyyyk Clone, and TFU Vader. Though I suppose the "BD" figures would keep their numbers when they change droid parts. I think it would be best to ask them to explain this further . . .