Star Wars Q & A

Star Wars Q&A

11/22/2010

Question:: DewbackPatrol.com
Lucasfilm recently announced that all six star wars movies will be re-released in 3D. Was this news to you or something that you had to keep under wraps? How does this affect your planning for the upcoming years?
Answer:: We had to keep the news under wraps, but that's not unusual as Lucasfilm is the only source for any news reagrding upcoming Star Wars entertainment. They share information with us as early as possible so we can get started on planning, and we keep everything in confidence until it's public. The news, of course, was tremendously exciting. It means that in addition to continuing Clone Wars animation excitement, there is another great reason to celebrate Star Wars. What makes the 3-D news interesting is that it will have been almost 10 years since Episodie I debuted in theaters, and a new generation of kids has not experienced the magic of Star Wars in theaters. It's a perfect chance to engage yet another generation in Star Wars magic, and as always Hasbro will be there with new, exciting play experiences for kids and collectors alike.

Question:: DewbackPatrol.com
Why a protocol droid pack-in in the new Hoth Battle Pack at Target. This seems a missed opportunity to have 3 fighting figures to match the 3 fighting Imperials in the opposite set. There never was a protocol droid in the film out in the Rebel trenches. How was this decided upon?"
Answer:: We thought that the figure choices we went with made the best combination of new and refreshed characters. The droid talkes the spot of what might have been otherwise a troop building character, and this was a matter of some debate before we finalized the set. It may not surprise folks that these sets were originally designed a bigger, and more expensive, but we decided to get them down to the current price point ($39.99) to ensure they had the best chance of selling through. So we drew these sets from an originally more expansive roster of figures, but decided a great K-3PO was the best choice of the figures we had available given the choices.

Question:: Sandtroopers.com
If Clone Wars is such a smash hit, is there a chance we'll see a better development of new figures next year? It seems like much of what we are seeing this year is existing sculpts with minor tweaks. IE Senate Guards, various Clone Troopers. Will Hasbro put more behind completely new figures for not only Clone Wars but Vintage?? In a nutshell, does ratings effect the resources Hasbro puts into a particular brand?
Answer:: Ratings don't effect what we put into the figures, but sales does; more importantly, understand who the aucience actually taking away the figures is also a key determiner of what we do. Clone Wars is a very successful line for us, and the vast majority of people buying it are kids. This, combined with the fact that there are fewer collectors engaged in Clone Wars than in Legacy (Vintage) means that we are focusing on major characters for Clone Wars and trimming back on the more obscure characters, since kids don't value these and they have a high risk of bottling up the line when they don't sell. Also, kids don't care about whether their figures are made with existing sculpts or not: they concentrate on the biggest characters. This helps us ensure that we put our focus where it makes the niggest different for collector, and that's Vintage. Vintage will have many more new figures than Clone Wars in 2011.

Question:: Sandtroopers.com
Why would they re-release the AT-RT without the walking mechanism? Does this really drive up costs that much?
Answer:: Talking out the mechanisms does help us hit our cost targets; in this case we decided that the mechanism did not add that much value to the play pattern compated to the price point we are trying to hit with an overall value perception.

Question:: ImperialShipyards.net
I was just at Wal-Mart, and there is about 75% Saga Legends, 25% Vintage/Clone wars. I looked through the "legends"....yeah right. The General Grievous is just a repack of the Sneak-Peak Grievous that was so 5 years ago. How many times are the Shocktroopers and 501st troopers going to be legends in a row? Then all the same stuff: Yoda with wookie gun, C3PO w/Ewok throne, and Obi-Wan. If they aren't going to give us something new with Legends, maybe they could stop flooding the shelfs with them?
Answer:: Many people assume that Saga Legends are targeted toward collectors. That is not the case. Saga Legends are targeted toward a kid audience and have been for a number of years. While we have done Saga Legends fans' votes, most notably in the 2007-2008 30th Anniversary line, the large majority of figures are designed to keep the most popular characters out there in circulation. Kids are much less concerned about articulation or how old a figure is; in fact, the more articulation a figure has the harder it is for young kids to manipulate, which is why we select the figures we do. Another falacy we are happy to address: that we keep forcing figures out to retailers instead of figure segments that sell better. Saga Legends has been a hot segment since the release of the new packaging with the Galactic Battlle Game, and we have been trying to keep up with the demand.

Question:: ImperialShipyards.net
Recently you have told another Website that a Republic Commando pack would imdeed be coming out. Then at Celebration V we seen none other than RC-1138 and the boys in several videos. So my question is this; how far in advance does Hasbro get told by the Clone Wars Producers of characters to produce? and is there any sneaky little numbers waiting in the wings?
Answer:: Unfortunately, our schedules are much farther out than that of the Clone Wars productions team. It usually takes 12-18 months to produce figures and vehicles, and while the Clone Wars team usually know the stories it will be telling more than a year in advance, we aren't usually able to get final, locked-down artwork until much later. As a result, we are usually a good six months out from the debut of a show and the time we can get anything out to take advantage of a new character. There are rare exceptions of course, and we can usually get refreshed characters (i.e. Sgt. Bric) out on a shorter time frame. The less complicated a figure is, it improves the chances of getting out quciker, like Galactic Heroes vs. a more complicated 3-3/4" figure.

Question:: Lichtgeschwindigkeit.de
Just in case you decide to use coins as a pack-in again, would it be possible to design them in a way that they can be used as figure stands as well?
Answer:: We are not planning to go back to coins, but it would be an interesting thing to look at someday if/when we look to replace Vintage as our Legacy/Saga figure expression. The only way to do what you suggest and not make the coins funky (and not compatible with the previous generation of coins) would be to make a figure stand that can display the coin and the figure. It's an interesting thought and one we looked at for the 30th, but the coins were costing so much we elected not to include a stand and just focus on coins.

Question:: Lichtgeschwindigkeit.de
You plan to release both Bastila Shan and Nom Anor in The Vintage Collection line. I seriously doubt that this is a good move. In fact, I believe that this is a mistake, and that they should be better placed into the Saga Legends collection. My concern is that The Vintage Collection only uses real photos - although sometimes computer-generated - and that both Bastila Shan and Nom Anor come from video games and comics, respectively. They simply wouldn't fit into the design of The Vintage Collection, since there are no photos or movie stills available for both of them. In my opinion, the quality in terms of graphics just isn't good enough today to make comic/video game figures look as if they had been in a movie. It's as if you would try to put a Clone Wars character on a Vintage Collection card. That's why I believe they just wouldn't fit in there. On the other side, the graphics of the Saga Legends line are nothing but comic type graphics - which would be just ideal for them. Especially since both (Nom Anor, Bastila Shan) come from non-realistic looking sources. I would rather like to see them released in the Legends line instead of the Vintage Cardback collection.
Answer:: Thanks for the thoughts. Saga Legends is focused on figures drawn from the movies or characters that kids will find very cool, and these two characters do not fit the bill. Therefore, the Vintage Collection is the only place that they can debut and we have expended the Vintage Collection to stand for a place where the greatest and most interesting characters from around the Saga can be brought to life with one of the greatest line looks ever. It's a high-bar to create realistic-looking artwork for them, but our team is up for it. They won' be the only characters from non-movie source coming in to the Clone Wars; in 2012 we are planning some additional videogames characters in there as well as a few more suprises.

Question:: Snowtroopers.ca
Would Hasbro consider releasing in the near future the new fully articulated Battle droid sculpt with the Episode 1 color (light beige) rather than the Geonosis reddish color? And if it is going to be in a 2 pack again, please can we have two infantry droids rather than a
commander droid and infantry in order to make it easier to build up
our droid armies? If you can't do the eps1 colors, it would still be
great to have two infantry droids in the Geonosis red colors and no
commander."
Answer:: Yes, eventually this droid will be released in a tan color, but it might not be until Spring '12. We are aware that a lot of folks want to be able to troop bbuild these without getting too many commanders, so if there is a 2-pack we will be sure to include two grunts to help fill this demand in an easier way. Thanks for expressing an interest in this cool droid sculpt - we love it too.

Question:: Snowtroopers.ca
Various excellent army builder figures have been included as vehicle pack-ins or as part of multi-packs. What are the chances of seeing these figures being released on TVC or CW single card:

- AT-ST driver (perhaps with Richard Marquand's face and a helmet with goggles sculpted in)
- pure white-hooded Snowtrooper from the Attack on Hoth BP (perhaps fix his short height issues? he's shrunken in height from the TLC version)
- Hoth Rebel trooper with scarf, no beard, from the Defense of Hoth BP (maybe slightly thicker legs to avoid his current skintight pants
look?)
- Clone Wars LR-57 Combat (Retail) Droid
- Clone Wars Rocket SBD from the Droids and Clones Battle Pack
- Clone Wars Cold Assault Clone from the Freeco Speeder vehicle
- Clone Wars Senate Commando from the Target exclusive 2-pack
Answer:: It's unlikely that many of these figures will ever be released on a basic card. The Clone Wars figures have virtually no chance, since we have moved on from those episodes to those drawn from new seasons and those are unlikely to be revisited. The Saga (movie) figures have a better chance since we have yet to release an AT-ST or Rebel Trooper on an update Vintage card and these are both good choices (although the latter could be any of several figures, including the bearded trooper, or a new quilted vest trooper....a good problem to have!). As for the Snowtrooper, it's unlikely he'll be re-released on Vintage for now. Thanks for the heads-up on the apparent shrinkage issue. We have not heard that one, but will look into it. It may have been re-tooled at our factory which resulted in some changes we had not noticed. It has been a very popular figure between the original release, Saga Legends, and various other multi-figure packs so this looks likely. Thanks for the heads-up.