My talk with Derryl at Celebration VI

[Tycho]

Great write-up JabbaJohnL!

I think the most possible and toyetic large TPM ship left is the Radiant VII (Republic Cruiser that Qui-Gon arrives in the Trade Federation Ship on).

This ship (Blockade Runner reminiscient) is also seen a lot in Clowe Wars (with added cannons to defend it - as TPM version in the film was likely unarmed).

Made with removeable weapon installations that can make the ship film accurate or CW / Kid friendly, the out-of-scale version could be fun as a large (Class 3 BMF) vehicle - provided it's not TOO small - at least Royal Starship sized.

The return of the Royal Starship seems like a cheaper, more likely way to go. They can retool it a little and make their cost cheaper by removing some of the extras and cool electronics.

The ship hasn't seen a release in a decade and was TPM's first large vehicle:

Large Vehicles:

ANH: Falcon, BMF, X-Wing, TIE Fighter
ESB: AT-AT, BAT-AT, Slave-One, AT-ST
ROTJ: Imperial Shuttle
TPM: Royal Starship, BN-1, MTT
AOTC: Republic Gunship, AT-TE
ROTS: ARC-170, TurboTank

Of course, I'd prefere the Radiant VII Republic Cruiser with removeable CW weapons. I bought 2 Royal Starships ten years ago and am not in the market for any. But for kids and nOOb's, the Royal Starship interacts with more of the main characters.

To market the Radiant VII, the box must feature Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, the larger Class-2 Droid Fighters, Battle Droids, Destroyer Droids, and Daultay Dofine, Nute Gunray, and Ruune Haako - and maybe include an exclusive Tey How, or better, the Radiant VII captain and pilot (Silas Carson).

[Darth Duranium]

Many thanks to Mr. JabbaJohnL for getting the Titanium Series questions fleshed out for us. It's greatly appreciated.

I thought that the exchange re: the cancelled Shadow Squad set was er, curious:

Hasbro (DD): [to Brian] Did you do that set?

Hasbro (BM): I only wish that I did! (laughs)

Hasbro (DD): [to us] No, that's not... I don't know what that is. But there's no new Titanium packs planned for next year.

Actually, that set was slated for release this autumn, according to Walmart's site (now "canceled"). I can't see Walmart creating such a totally detailed listing out of thin air, it was definitely Hasbro copy. Weird reaction, maybe a specific mention of the TIE Crawler might have twigged a more coherent response, but it's hard to say. In any case, we now know it never got produced, cheers for that.

And thanks to JT and Steve for your support for Titanium through the years.

[JediTricks]

I want to thank you for asking the KotOR repack question, and I'm very happy with the response. I've never got my hands on Revan, Malik or Bastilla, so a pack like this would thrill me. I had to resort to eBay to get HK-47 pieces I didn't get with figures, but I certainly wouldn't be bitter about a repack.

Right on! I have Malak and Bastila, but I think I'm still 1 piece away on HK-47 and never found Revan. I think it's certainly been long enough that those who might be bitter about having to collect to get HK-47 would be over it, they have cool figures to go with it at least.

Great write-up! Thanks for all your hard work on this. And thanks in particular for pushing them on the Utai question... I was a bit miffed at first that they seemed to just ignore the Utai part and ran with the Scanning Crew, so I really appreciated that you didn't let it drop. Their eventual answer sounded quite promising to me, and it's good to know others have been asking them for it, so they know the interest is there.

I think they were excited to hint at the fact that they're doing the 2nd Scanning Trooper, while the Utai remains unused, that's all.

I haven't seen too many of Dofine. Certainly not as many as the previous few Neimoidians. I did see a couple today at a Target in a different town. It certainly hasn't been the big peg warmer of the year like the others.

I thought the Swimming Jar Jar and the long tongue Jar Jar were pretty rare ones. I had to order the swimming one a couple years later from Brian's Toys, and the other one I found at K-Mart, which is a place I usually don't go to as often unless I am not finding anything in the usual spots. The regular Jar Jar might have been hanging around quite a bit, though.

Dofine isn't rare here, although it's not as common as Qui-Gon and the other saber-weilders and army-builders in the wave who are all clogged up.

Swimming Jar Jar was super rare, I had to get a Japanese package version for mine. POTJ Jar Jar wasn't as hard to find, but POTJ was suffering from retailer shock after Ep 1 tanked so hard.

Great write-up JabbaJohnL!

I think the most possible and toyetic large TPM ship left is the Radiant VII (Republic Cruiser that Qui-Gon arrives in the Trade Federation Ship on).

This ship (Blockade Runner reminiscient) is also seen a lot in Clowe Wars (with added cannons to defend it - as TPM version in the film was likely unarmed).

Radiant VII is a diplomatic vessel and would not be armed, that's the intention of its red color. The one with the guns is the Charger-class. I really don't think it's interesting enough to warrant a vehicle, and is way too narrow to be toyetic, it's basically just engines and a very narrow midsection.

The return of the Royal Starship seems like a cheaper, more likely way to go. They can retool it a little and make their cost cheaper by removing some of the extras and cool electronics.

The ship hasn't seen a release in a decade and was TPM's first large vehicle

But virtually nobody cares, the prequels don't endure the way the OT has, the flop of the 2012 TPM products should prove that.

Many thanks to Mr. JabbaJohnL for getting the Titanium Series questions fleshed out for us. It's greatly appreciated.

I thought that the exchange re: the cancelled Shadow Squad set was er, curious:

Hasbro (DD): [to Brian] Did you do that set?

Hasbro (BM): I only wish that I did! (laughs)

Hasbro (DD): [to us] No, that's not... I don't know what that is. But there's no new Titanium packs planned for next year.

Actually, that set was slated for release this autumn, according to Walmart's site (now "canceled"). I can't see Walmart creating such a totally detailed listing out of thin air, it was definitely Hasbro copy. Weird reaction, maybe a specific mention of the TIE Crawler might have twigged a more coherent response, but it's hard to say. In any case, we now know it never got produced, cheers for that.

And thanks to JT and Steve for your support for Titanium through the years.

I heard the audio to this, I know both Derryl and Brian pretty well, Derryl is the global brand manager while Brian is the head of exclusives for Hasbro, not just SW, all of Hasbro, and is hands-on with every SW exclusive. The way they said those quotes above was very genuine and surprised, if Derryl didn't know about the piece and Brian didn't know about the piece, it never existed. Brian especially because he'd have to create it from the brand exclusive budget, he'd have to get approval on the concept from Lucasfilm, then he'd have to magically figure out a way to drum up those funds to even start design much less tooling up dies for the new vehicles. WM has been known to list stuff that never comes out, they're notorious for it going back at least to the early '90s with the Star Trek the Next Generation line from Playmates, listing figures that never were planned or tooled up on shelf tags in the stores. Maybe a WM retailer had a conversation with Jeff or someone else at Hasbro who mentioned something in passing and it got confused, or maybe it never left the planning phase, whatever it might have been, I am going to take Hasbro's word on this over WMs who has a pretty shaky track record in the matter.

[bigbarada]

But virtually nobody cares, the prequels don't endure the way the OT has, the flop of the 2012 TPM products should prove that.

Isn't the retail failure of the Queen's Royal Starship partially to blame for us not getting another all-new large vehicle release until 2008?

I remember buying the ship on clearance for $25 in 2001 and still being a bit disappointed by how cheap the silver-colored plastic finish looked.

I would be willing to bet that we will never see a large-sized Naboo starship in the Star Wars line ever again.

[SirSteve]

I just wanted to publicly thank JT and John as they did a great job with the questions!

[Darth Duranium]

I heard the audio to this, I know both Derryl and Brian pretty well, Derryl is the global brand manager while Brian is the head of exclusives for Hasbro, not just SW, all of Hasbro, and is hands-on with every SW exclusive. The way they said those quotes above was very genuine and surprised, if Derryl didn't know about the piece and Brian didn't know about the piece, it never existed. Brian especially because he'd have to create it from the brand exclusive budget, he'd have to get approval on the concept from Lucasfilm, then he'd have to magically figure out a way to drum up those funds to even start design much less tooling up dies for the new vehicles. WM has been known to list stuff that never comes out, they're notorious for it going back at least to the early '90s with the Star Trek the Next Generation line from Playmates, listing figures that never were planned or tooled up on shelf tags in the stores. Maybe a WM retailer had a conversation with Jeff or someone else at Hasbro who mentioned something in passing and it got confused, or maybe it never left the planning phase, whatever it might have been, I am going to take Hasbro's word on this over WMs who has a pretty shaky track record in the matter.

Well JT, here's the (now cancelled) Walmart catalogue listing: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Star-Wars-...Squad/19529505 Seems quite detailed and legit to me, but I'll take your word about Walmart's earlier track record in these matters. That's dirty pool.
The other thing is that Hasbro promised a "new tooling for the Fall" in a "special 3-pack" in the SSG Q&A's last winter. I have a hunch that a mention of a TIE Crawler might have gotten us a less bewildered answer, and it's possible the marketing guys didn't tell Derryl et al about the "Shadow Squad" moniker. Is there any chance that you can follow up with this at some point?

[Tycho]

I wonder what "they're sick of hearing about the sailbarge (question) means?"

Literally, it means just what they said.

Taking that deeper? It could mean:

a) they're never going to do it

b) they've tooled it up and are hiding it for another convention's reveal (NYCC? ToyFair? SDCC 2013)?

c) they're making it but it's still at some stage that hasn't yet gotten Lucasfilm approval (in which case they'd conceal it)?

d) they have NOT ruled it out, but the current market won't support it, so it's not happening yet.

I think that fortunately the answer is NOT "a." If they were never going to make it, I think they'd say so.


Do I think we should stop asking for it? No. But we should temper our being annoying to them about it. You don't want them to perceive any withering levels of fan support - like it wouldn't sell if they got it out in the next few years. But you don't want to make them angry with us.

Regarding the latter, IF they got angry with us, it doesn't mean they won't make it to spite us. If it will sell, they'll make it. But that means if the sailbarge comes out, we all have to buy it!

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

Tycho, Derryl didn't say that specifically - but he hung his head whenever it got mentioned, and on the Curto Burns Collector Cast he mentioned that he was sure it would be the number one question at CVI because of the Tatooine diorama that included a figure-scale Sail Barge. The answer is D, as it has been for a few years now.

[JediTricks]

Isn't the retail failure of the Queen's Royal Starship partially to blame for us not getting another all-new large vehicle release until 2008?

I remember buying the ship on clearance for $25 in 2001 and still being a bit disappointed by how cheap the silver-colored plastic finish looked.

I would be willing to bet that we will never see a large-sized Naboo starship in the Star Wars line ever again.

I bought it full price of its original $100 pricetag, gave it a thorough review. The $50 price drop versions had problems that the $100 didn't. The plastic color was pretty mediocre, it was "gray", and I do wonder if vac-metalizing that would have helped sales, but I suspect it wasn't exciting enough of a ship to begin with.

I would think that indirectly the Royal Starship did hamper new molds, but partly the brand just took a long time to recover from the disastrous sales on TPM in general, and the market at that time as well wasn't doing big things.

I just wanted to publicly thank JT and John as they did a great job with the questions!

Thank you, and I also want to thank JabbaJohn for stepping up and doing such a great job helping out with our interview!

Well JT, here's the (now cancelled) Walmart catalogue listing: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Star-Wars-...Squad/19529505 Seems quite detailed and legit to me, but I'll take your word about Walmart's earlier track record in these matters. That's dirty pool.
The other thing is that Hasbro promised a "new tooling for the Fall" in a "special 3-pack" in the SSG Q&A's last winter. I have a hunch that a mention of a TIE Crawler might have gotten us a less bewildered answer, and it's possible the marketing guys didn't tell Derryl et al about the "Shadow Squad" moniker. Is there any chance that you can follow up with this at some point?

Brian and Derryl are marketing people in charge of those sorts of things, but those are very specific names. I find it difficult to believe that Hasbro would actually pursue 2 new toolings for 1 set, but it's possible I guess. WM does run for goals even when they don't have the football and aren't even on the right field, but that is a pretty specific listing, I'd guess that maybe they had a conversation with someone at Lucaslicensing or maybe a lower-down at Hasbro SW that didn't get turned into anything but they didn't remove the listing. Very strange. I will certainly try to get the lowdown on it.

I wonder what "they're sick of hearing about the sailbarge (question) means?"

Literally, it means just what they said.

Taking that deeper? It could mean:

a) they're never going to do it

b) they've tooled it up and are hiding it for another convention's reveal (NYCC? ToyFair? SDCC 2013)?

c) they're making it but it's still at some stage that hasn't yet gotten Lucasfilm approval (in which case they'd conceal it)?

d) they have NOT ruled it out, but the current market won't support it, so it's not happening yet.

How about Derryl knows we want the piece and is now tired of hearing about it over and over? That's my guess. The answer closest to right in your list is D until we hear otherwise. I don't know why anybody would want to get so excited over rampant speculation and then disappointed when their speculation doesn't come to fruition.

[Darth Duranium]

Brian and Derryl are marketing people in charge of those sorts of things, but those are very specific names. I find it difficult to believe that Hasbro would actually pursue 2 new toolings for 1 set, but it's possible I guess. WM does run for goals even when they don't have the football and aren't even on the right field, but that is a pretty specific listing, I'd guess that maybe they had a conversation with someone at Lucaslicensing or maybe a lower-down at Hasbro SW that didn't get turned into anything but they didn't remove the listing. Very strange. I will certainly try to get the lowdown on it.

Yep, 'tis strange indeed. Actually, only the TIE Crawler is a new Titanium tooling; the other 2 (TIE and TIE Defender) are repacks or possibly "Shadow Squad" repaints, whatever the hell that is. I'd agree that it's unlikely that Hasbro would offer 2 new toolings when they can trot out a repack instead.

I'd love to find out if the set was produced, and if there's any chance we'll see it wash ashore at HTS or dollar stores. And thanks for following up for us, Titanium Guy.

Hehe, your Walmart's-got-the-football analogy made me think of the Gotham Rogues being swallowed up by the imploding field in TDKR.