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This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection
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9,262 posts in this topic

On 12/7/2021 at 8:24 AM, F For Fake said:

That's all very interesting. I don't collect SW, so I wasn't aware of all of that drama. I do agree 100% that dumping all of these haslabs in December, AND at the same time, was a mistake. Perhaps a calculated one? 15 hours to go on the Sky Striker, and it's still a couple thousand short, plus change. If they really let the Rancor die and it was that close, the Sky Striker may be in danger after all. Won't hurt my feelings if it doesn't get funded, I only backed it due to FOMO.

Hasbro owns GI Joe, so there's no possibility there of losing the license being a problem.  The teams are mostly separate as well so most politics with Star Wars wouldn't bleed over into GI Joe.  So if GI Joe doesn't fund and gets extended then we know for sure something bad is brewing with the Star Wars team.

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On 12/7/2021 at 8:35 AM, fantastic_four said:

Hasbro owns GI Joe, so there's no possibility there of losing the license being a problem.  The teams are mostly separate as well so most politics with Star Wars wouldn't bleed over into GI Joe.  So if GI Joe doesn't fund and gets extended then we know for sure something bad is brewing with the Star Wars team.

It would be wild to see SW leave Hasbro, but I guess we live in wild times. What other toy company would be able to shoulder the big of a license, do you think? Are there any rumored contenders?

I'm still bitter about McFarlane getting DC. Really hate his ugly figures and character selection. Saves me a lot of money, but I wish someone was still making DC figures I'd actually buy. We had a golden age with DC Direct and Mattel, we'll never see those days again. I don't collect SW, so it doesn't really matter to me, but that would still be a huge changing of the guard, whoever gets the license.

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On 12/7/2021 at 9:22 AM, F For Fake said:

It would be wild to see SW leave Hasbro, but I guess we live in wild times. What other toy company would be able to shoulder the big of a license, do you think? Are there any rumored contenders?

Guess one is McFarlane.  He seems to be killing it with decent-quality figures at good prices.  I prefer Hasbro's engineering and 6-inch scale, so I hope it's not him.

Guess two is Mattel, but I mostly doubt it.  I'd be surprised if they got it, but not shocked.

A dark horse possibility is Disney makes their own toys.  They have a mini toy line with their Toy Box figures.  I've been wondering for a while if they want to expand further out into the toy business.  If their licensing fee for Star Wars is as high as it has long been said to be then them starting there makes the most sense since other companies have a harder time than them profiting.  This is the one I REALLY hope doesn't happen.  I've bought my kid a lot of their Toy Box figures, and they're the worst around.  The styling is fun and I love that about them, but their engineering is terrible.  My kid has broken the legs off of five Toy Box figures, and every time it's the same way--if they take ONE fall from 2 to 4 feet or more they're toast, some piece just breaks right off.  Hasbro's figures don't do that because they use softer plastic that's less brittle and survives falls and plenty of rough play.

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On 12/7/2021 at 9:22 AM, F For Fake said:

Are there any rumored contenders?

By the way--ALL of this is my conjecture.  I haven't read any rumors anywhere else about Hasbro losing Star Wars.  I fully expected them to extend the Rancor project last night, but immediately after it ended they yanked it off of the Hasbro Pulse home page and started cancelling all orders.  I was absolutely stunned and utterly shocked, and really I still am because it makes so little sense for them to do this.   I've been mulling over what the heck they're thinking and losing the license occurred to me early this morning.  Then I started putting the other pieces of the puzzle into that frame and they ALL fit.

But it could easily just be politics within Hasbro.  That explains some, but not all of the problems with the line over the last year.

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Looks like the Sky Striker is going to squeak in, with nearly 10 hours left and only 76 backers needed. If it's going to fund I really wish a sudden avalanche of backers would emerge so we could get those tiers unlocked, but I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the five it's going to come with.

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On 12/7/2021 at 11:28 AM, F For Fake said:

Looks like the Sky Striker is going to squeak in, with nearly 10 hours left and only 76 backers needed. If it's going to fund I really wish a sudden avalanche of backers would emerge so we could get those tiers unlocked, but I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the five it's going to come with.

I am still on the fence ..... I really like it but to be honest I really like the stretch goal stuff more (Scarlet in Flight suit & Ripcord). 

Looks like it has officially broke the 10k that is needed and at this pace maybe the 13k is reachable?
 

Screen Shot 2021-12-07 at 12.38.33 PM.png

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On 12/7/2021 at 3:39 PM, 707comics said:

I am still on the fence ..... I really like it but to be honest I really like the stretch goal stuff more (Scarlet in Flight suit & Ripcord). 

Looks like it has officially broke the 10k that is needed and at this pace maybe the 13k is reachable?
 

Screen Shot 2021-12-07 at 12.38.33 PM.png

Yes, just checked the page and saw that. They've piled on the orders since this morning. We've gone from "will it fund" to "are tiers possible"? 13k still seems pretty far away, but I'd love to see it. If I'm buying this thing, I want as many extras as I can get!

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I was definitely expecting to see this campaign extended just a bit, seeing as it was so close already. Maybe just squeaking by would have been a bigger hell for Hasbro than it just outright failing? Why else let it fail? The SW team has been making awful decisions this past year or two, mostly, and could really need a refresh, with someone heading the brand whose actually enthusiastic about it and the characters within. 

People want OT, then PT, and so onwards, with shows like Mandalorian and Book Of Fett fitting in when they're topical. It's not that hard. I'd say at the moment they're probably going too deep into the Mandalorian's casting chambers, and that half the line didn't need to be made into figures, not yet, not at this time. 

Give us some classic stuff - pilots for different ships, like a B-Wing, for instance, a Nien Nunb, STILL waiting on the Teebo that got announced over 2 years ago (I've still got him preordered at BBTS, it's ridiculous). Give us some of Jabba's goons, to expand our Jabba displays. Simple stuff. 

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On 12/7/2021 at 8:08 AM, fantastic_four said:

It was at 8,535 out of 9,000 minimum at the end.

I think they let it die on purpose.  There is NO doubt they could have easily funded it had they extended the funding period like they did with the Transformers Unicron.  That one ended its initial 45 days at about 5,500 of 8,000 backers, and after the extension of a month or so it ended at 10K+ backers.  So to not extend a project that was 95% funded means they had reasons to not want to do it in the first place.

There's politics afoot in the design team.  The ex-project lead for that team at Hasbro did a better job of promoting the project than the actual team did themselves.  This is him:

https://www.instagram.com/mrstevie18/?hl=en

He left the Star Wars team a few years ago.  He had told multiple people on Instagram that the project wouldn't get extended--which is an odd thing to proclaim given the success Unicron had with an extension--and he was hustling hard on his Instagram to promote a project he wasn't even involved in.  Whatever politics are afoot in Hasbro he probably knew about, but he likely hoped the project would hit the backer minimum anyway so Hasbro would be obliged to fund it.  He's a big toy fan himself and posts videos to his Instagram talking about toys and showing off his collection.

I have two guesses at the politics.  The first is that management or significant portions of the Star Wars team are on the way out the door, probably involuntarily.  The offerings and communication with both fans and retailers has been increasingly poor over the last year or so, quality has in general been going down with notable exceptions (particularly the EXCELLENT Bad Batch figures), pricing is ALL over the place and in general rising following little to no pattern, and delays and understocking have been rampant.  Even this Haslab had a dozen or more mis-steps that I could outline, particularly the timing of it BEFORE the Rancor likely appears in Book of Boba Fett next month which would have significantly increased demand for the project, coupled with running three consecutive Haslabs all in the worst month where everyone has to buy Christmas gifts.

My second guess at the politics behind letting the project die unfortunately is my best one--Hasbro knows they're not continuing the Star Wars license much longer.  Supposedly Disney significantly upped their price last year, and that's in the face of the brand as a whole on the decline aside from Mandalorian coupled with the licensing fee already being the highest in the business before the price hike.  Hasbro considered dumping the license last year, and this year it's possible they're planning to do it.  They may even already know they're losing it if there's another significant bidder out there.  The reason this is my guess is because if the reason is personnel being replaced that doesn't explain why they've consistently done more poorly in 2021 than 2019 and 2020.  Losing the license hanging over the team all year is a better explanation for their poor performance than some people needing firing, because that could have been done 6+ months ago.

I hope the outcome of this is just re-structuring the team, but I fear the end result will be losing the license.  :cry:  I'd rather Hasbro keeps it and just fixes the problems since they've done such a superb job with Marvel Legends, GI Joe, and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, but the high licensing fees for Star Wars have already caused quality to slip, so the risk of them dumping or losing the license is palpable.  :sorry:

Well said and I believe a lot of this.  The only question I am left with is then why allow for an add on at the base level to begin with?

Rancor got Malakili before the Skystriker got the Cobra Hack.

I think thought that the thing that pushed the Skystriker over the edge was the fact that it was not just a Cobra Commander O-Ring figure offered in the initial base offering but a re-release of the coveted Mickey Mouse Cobra Commander design.   Perhaps there was the thought that we would get Malakili eventually anyway...

I really don't know what to say here.  I am shocked that they did not extend the time with less than 500 units needed to fund.  Perhaps the Star Wars team wanted to call the bluff of the market to show that they would be serious about this as a warning for future Haslab offerings.  

 

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On 12/7/2021 at 5:09 PM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

I was definitely expecting to see this campaign extended just a bit, seeing as it was so close already. Maybe just squeaking by would have been a bigger hell for Hasbro than it just outright failing? Why else let it fail? The SW team has been making awful decisions this past year or two, mostly, and could really need a refresh, with someone heading the brand whose actually enthusiastic about it and the characters within. 

People want OT, then PT, and so onwards, with shows like Mandalorian and Book Of Fett fitting in when they're topical. It's not that hard. I'd say at the moment they're probably going too deep into the Mandalorian's casting chambers, and that half the line didn't need to be made into figures, not yet, not at this time. 

Give us some classic stuff - pilots for different ships, like a B-Wing, for instance, a Nien Nunb, STILL waiting on the Teebo that got announced over 2 years ago (I've still got him preordered at BBTS, it's ridiculous). Give us some of Jabba's goons, to expand our Jabba displays. Simple stuff. 

Or maybe... just maybe the line needs to be shelved and like @fantastic_four said, Hasbro lets the line slide to someone else for a bit.  There is that saying sometimes that a product cannot be "missed" unless it goes away for awhile. 

In all seriousness... what can Hasbro do at this point with the Star Wars collection that we have not already seen?   Kenner had the license and produced toys from 1978-1985.  (I am not counting the 77" Early Bird offering).   Then Hasbro took the license and produced toys from 1995 through 2021.  It's been 26 years.  They have announced figures to be released in 2022 so... 27 years.  That's a long time to produce a property that you do not own the rights to. 

At this point when it comes to "Boys Toys", it seems that Transformers is the biggest money maker for Hasbro.  While Hasbro does not solely own the Transformers, their shared ownership with Takara Tomy is pretty lucrative for them to be pumping toys and exclusives out the way they do and still pleasing fans.   If I felt so inclined I could drive to my nearest Target and Walmart and take pictures of the Toy Aisles.  The aisles will have Transformers but not a sign of Star Wars.  The Star Wars team has never been able to get it together since around 2012. 

Maybe it needs to go away so we miss it again. 

 

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I've been watching the Skystriker project. Some points:

 

1. It should be sold in stores. No reason for this not to be on store shelves.


2. It's too much. At most it should be $100 or so. One of you guys mentioned the price of the original back in the day. The video below even points out that with the Skystriker and other projects, they include free figures at the end to help push it over the backer number. So they are making a vast profit and can't even include those extra items like Scarlett from the beginning.


3. It sets a bad precedent for future vehicles.

 

I wish it didn't succeed. It seems like a few thousand people were waiting till the last day.


I'm not fond of Kickstarters. I only did a few and stopped as most of those projects were eventually released to stores. But I don't know about these Hasbro projects. And I really dislike it when big successful companies do a Kickstarter type project. But now Hasbro sees how much they can over charge and collect interest on money from a select group of people.

 

I would be shocked if they made The Flagg. It would be like $1500+ through their Kickstarter / Haslab. I remember one of you guys getting me with an April Fool's joke for The Flagg some years ago. I wanted a Resolute line with the Flagg. But the people running Hasbro are only interested in making a large profit off a small amount of collectors it seems and going on youtube to pander to those people.

 

It really sucks. I would have purchased a few of these if they were around $100 with all the figures in stores. I'm not giving a big company $230 and waiting till mid 2023.

 

This is the video that makes some good points about Hasbro and their projects.

Edited by GeneticNinja
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On 12/7/2021 at 7:49 PM, GeneticNinja said:

I would be shocked if they made The Flagg. It would be like $1500+ through their Kickstarter / Haslab. I remember one of you guys getting me with an April Fool's joke for The Flagg some years ago. I wanted a Resolute line with the Flagg. But the people running Hasbro are only interested in making a large profit off a small amount of collectors it seems and going on youtube to pander to those people.

:shy:

 

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On 12/7/2021 at 10:00 PM, Buzzetta said:

I feel as if I ever had a drinking problem you would all put one hand on my shoulder and offer me a bottle with the other.

Terrible influence...

 

All of you 

lol 

 

Screen Shot 2021-12-07 at 11.58.12 PM.png

I would literally pour it in your mouth.  

Patrick

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We'll see what kind of company Hasbro is now. They added three Cobra figures and stickers to the Skystriker campaign at the end for free. Let's see if they can add the two crew members to finish off the package. That would be a nice Christmas present for all the backers. 

 

Like I said, if this Skystriker was in stores I would have picked up 2 or 3. But it makes me sad because it shouldn't be like this.

 

This did get me though. I mentioned the first wave. I don't think anyone posted about the second wave unless I missed it. I'll get them when they are released. I can't resist this lineup. Still no Scarlett but I bet she's going to be in the third wave.

197695405_super7gijoe2ndwave.jpg.e3bb178ced5a69322e746696713d791a.jpg

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