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Bonus Episode: A Roundtable Discussion with Jing and Chris of the Hasbro Star Wars Team
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May the Force be with you! We're closing out 2023 with one more Hasbro roundtable chat with Jing and Chris of the Star Wars team. Dive in with us and other esteemed members of the toy community as we get answers to some of the community's most asked questions around the popular Vintage Collection, Black Series, and Retro action figures!
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
Star Wars Roundtable with Hasbro
00:00:31
Speaker
Eric here. What you are about to hear and or see, depending on where you are consuming this video and or audio, is a roundtable discussion with myself and a couple other members of the toy community, including PhantheTrax and The Laughing Place, as we sit down with Jing and Chris from the Hasbro Star Wars team to discuss the latest Star Wars releases. So sit back.
00:00:57
Speaker
Uh, get yourself a fresh cup of blue milk and, uh, and enjoy this, uh, this conversation with the Star Wars team. Roll it. We love to talk Star Wars, so it's a great opportunity to sit down and just talk Star Wars. Uh, so we're just going to do a quick round of intros. I'm sure you know, definitely know Chris, but my name is Jane. I work on the marketing side for Star Wars and Chris from design.
00:01:27
Speaker
So we'll dive right in so we can get through as many questions as possible. And again, I appreciate everyone for joining in. So laughing place, Mike. Great. Hi. Hi, guys. Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh, great. So I guess we'll start off. I wonder if you could just go through
00:01:48
Speaker
the most popular items from the Star Wars line for the holiday season, which items had been received the best, which items are selling the best, and which do you personally wish to highlight that are available right now?
00:02:01
Speaker
Wow, Mike, give me just the floor to talk about all the, thank you so much. So yeah, I mean, there's so many great figures that are like hitting shelves right about now. Like the N1, for example, was pre-ordered a while ago, but it's hitting shelves now. It's an amazing vehicle, I think.
00:02:20
Speaker
The fan community knows about that well crystal find it and i love that i love the mini grow go in there with his back. Is shift now i'm happy so cute you know we've also had a soca soca show just just wrapped up as you know on disney plus and we have great figures i'm.
00:02:41
Speaker
to that entertainment. So that's on shelf now. And then for us, another item that like really hit was the Starkiller. That was also amazing figure for black series from gaming as well.
00:02:54
Speaker
So that was a great one to have out there. And of course, I like to highlight it because I think they're so fun, but the holiday figures are just great stocking stuffers for this time of year. They're so fun. They're whimsical. They're a great way to celebrate and get into the season for it. And Eric does such a great job just letting his creativity spew out onto those figures. Yeah, there's one of them right there on my shelf behind me.
00:03:24
Speaker
She's an elf on the shelf, just like my grandma. Yeah, gingerbread trooper, yeah. But yeah, thank you for asking. I think that's a great question. Thank you. Plus all the great gift of galaxy stuff that just announced today. Yeah, for pre-order. There's some that are dropping for pre-order today, pre-order tomorrow revealing today. So definitely check those out as well. Adventures and collecting.
Holiday Season Star Wars Highlights
00:03:51
Speaker
Eric.
00:03:52
Speaker
Hey guys, can you hear me okay? Yeah, awesome. So the release of the Life Day Chewbacca in the vintage collection was something that I think the community never thought would ever be possible. How did the official recognition of that holiday special kind of come to the table? And if you could just kind of tell us how that toy kind of came into existence.
00:04:16
Speaker
I would say the principal driver on that one was the parks. Now that we have Galaxy's Edge and there is a life day celebration that happens in the parks, that was probably the final push. But it's been in books and comics and parks.
00:04:33
Speaker
for a while. So working on that figure with the whole Disney team and folks at Lucasfilm to really support that holiday. And like that was, it was very fun. Like talking about the nuances of what that little ball is that Chewbacca carries around is, that was a fun couple of days. So yeah, I'm glad everybody loves that. We hope we can do more fun things like that for you guys in the future.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully we get a bartender be Arthur next. Would you put be Arthur over lumpy and itchy and or 1000% 1000% 1000% Yeah, that was a fun partnership with Lucas Wow. Alright, Star Wars collector Dan. Um,
00:05:24
Speaker
We're glad to finally see some new black series six inch Phantom Menace figures, but fans had a concern with the prototype photos of Padme Amidala. She looks extremely angry. Is this her final look or did you change anything before she started? No, actually I have one sitting on my desk of her more final look. We were just shooting photos, updated photos of her. That first one was a very early prototype,
00:05:52
Speaker
just to get some early reveal photos for you guys. But I can kind of show you here. She's much better. Yeah, it's just more subtle and really, really nails the likeness, the super happy with how this one's turned out. So we'll have better photos of that for you guys. But that was just a case of trying to get info out as fast as we can for you guys. And sometimes that's with early or in progress things.
00:06:22
Speaker
Appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Just, she's sitting here because I was looking at her earlier. Thank you. Yeah. Chris just like has like a deep bag of things to reference. He's just like, Oh, that one right there, that holiday figure right there. So, um, but thanks for asking that question and hopefully we'll get some of those images out. Excuse me. Uh, fans of tracks, Mark.
00:06:47
Speaker
Hi guys. Hi. Okay.
Future Plans for Star Wars Figures
00:06:49
Speaker
Uh, obviously next year, sorry, obviously next year, it looks like it's going to be fairly quiet comparatively on Disney plus. So as a knock on effects of that, does that give you more open slots to work on classic figures, bringing in figures from shows that have been around for longer? My question is really, is that a good thing for you or is that a bad thing for you? Does it give you the chance to clear the boards on things you might've had hanging around for a while or would you rather be forging ahead with, with brand new content?
00:07:18
Speaker
I mean, both. We want to do both. There's always so much to do. I will say, you know, lucky for us that there's just so much in Star Wars for us to get out and get into and to die. There's just so much. We have a great partnership with Lucasfilm and so much entertainment and some great fan feedback as well on items that they want to see.
00:07:40
Speaker
Um, so it's it's it'll be fun to see what we're spending our time on and reviewing in the next couple months for sure. Um, definitely stay tuned. But yeah, I think, you know, lucky for us, there's been some great entertainment from Lucas from thus far as well. And, uh, we'll continue to, to put out items that fans hopefully would love to see. Yeah. And I, we were talking about this too, where it's like,
00:08:06
Speaker
I mean, think about back in the day when all we had were movies and how much time there was between movies and how that just felt normal. And now everybody starts to worry about three months without new shows. Like that's a magical time to live in when that's the kind of mindset we're in. So I think it will be fun, like Jing said, for you guys to see what we've got cooking.
00:08:31
Speaker
All right. That was round one. So we're going to go back to the front, to the top laughing place, Mike. Okay. So you mentioned gift the galaxy at the end of my last question. And I was wondering how you guys go about coordinating with Lucasfilm and Disney products on this campaign and how it helps you get the word out about the new toys.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, it's great to have Star Wars dot com. Definitely take a lean pulling together all these giftable toys and holiday items for the fans and in your lives and for you guys as well. And so we actually have some reveals this morning from gift the galaxy is just a great time to
00:09:12
Speaker
get that news out in partnership with Lucasfilm and it's relevant and skippable and it's a good conversation to have during this time especially and Hasbro luckily gets to be a part of that. We've had three reveals just this morning just like an hour ago. So we'd love to have fans you know take a look and there's
00:09:33
Speaker
There's just more information to come in general about everything that we're revealing across the board, but it was good to work with Lucasfilm on Gift the Galaxy for this holiday season. Awesome, thanks. Yeah, so definitely check out StarWars.com if you guys haven't seen what we have cooking. It's a lot of prequel stuff in celebration of the anniversary next year that we're celebrating, as everyone knows.
00:10:00
Speaker
Cool, all right. Moving on, adventures in collecting.
00:10:06
Speaker
All right, so a figure that's seen quite a few releases, both across the Vintage Collection and the Black Series being the Mandalorian himself, Din Djarin.
Articulation and Haslab Success
00:10:17
Speaker
The past few releases for the Vintage Collection, he's kind of featured those old style hips. Was just curious that if there's any intention to kind of get him that updated new articulation that we're seeing on a lot of the new Vintage Collection figures.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good idea. We certainly heard the request and it is in our heads for future versions of him. Nothing to talk about right now, but yeah, it's in our heads, so.
00:10:47
Speaker
And if I, if I could just kind of follow up on that, just a second with the, with kind of those articulation changes. Um, when do you guys kind of start to plan that in the pipeline? Cause like, you know, those new hips have now been out for, for quite a bit. And there's been a few Dinda jar releases since then. Like when, like, when do you gauge it's the right time to kind of update that part of the figure?
00:11:14
Speaker
A lot of that would be about what's needed for the figure that's coming. When we did the razor crests, as an example, on the Mandalorian figure that we had done to that point, he had a plastic cape, so it was hard for him to sit down.
00:11:32
Speaker
In that case, it made sense to go with a soft goods cape, and that was an update. Articulation's much the same way if he would need that sort of update for that figure specifically, or if we've done those hips for somebody that works with him, and then we're bringing out a new release of him, those sort of things would come into play. So it varies a little bit, but a lot of it's driven by whether it's needed for the release,
00:12:00
Speaker
Because we don't want to spend that money unnecessarily and and I say unnecessarily casually like it's and It would be great to update every figure with all the articulations that That we've developed over the years, but it's just not practical. So trying to find the right time to bring those in Got it. Thank you. Yeah Star Wars collector Dan
00:12:25
Speaker
The fan channel Black Series Darth Sidious pipeline reveal. Is it going to be a single figure or deluxe set like the Amazon set with the deluxe Emperor Palpatine and throne? And if it is a deluxe set, is it going to include a chair or throne or interchangeable hands? It's just a single figure release for that particular one. Thank you. Yep. Yeah, Phantatrax, Mark.
00:12:51
Speaker
Haslab question, hopefully not too contentious. You've had great success with the vintage Haslab releases. They've gone great guns and continue to do so. Black Series maybe not so much. So internally, as much as you can say, do you want to push on and hopefully make Black Series and Haslab work better together? Or do you think maybe Haslab and Vintage Collection are the perfect partnership for these two things?
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've been so lucky where the community really rallied behind the Vintage Collection has labs that we've done recently and it's great to see and it's great feedback and great info and a great history for us to go into. That being said, like we know there's definitely passionate fans out there in the Black Series community as well. It's just a balance of finding the right product at the right time, the right offering for the fan community. So, you know, nothing is off the table, I would say. We definitely
00:13:49
Speaker
want to cater to both communities as much as possible. So let us know in terms of what makes sense for everyone and we'll definitely keep that in mind. But by no means is Black Series just always off the table. We know that there's lots of fans out there for Black Series and we know there was lots of passions for the Hazlabs that we did do in Black Series, for example. So we just need to make sure that it's right because everybody wants to make sure it's right.
00:14:19
Speaker
Right and finding finding the right dream for black series is as important as finding those dreams for for vintage collection I think it's it's been The vintage collection community has been very vocal for a long time on dream projects of theirs So we've had a couple that have been very naturals So yeah Yeah, let's keep talking and we'll figure something out. Yeah Laughing place Mike
00:14:48
Speaker
Okay, regarding the Clone Trooper announcements from a couple weeks ago, can you, kind of a two-part question here, can you talk about how these would make good kind of troop builder figures, and then on the opposite side, what makes each of these figures unique on their own? Well, yeah, for those, the vintage collection releases, the new pack offers clones that use the latest
00:15:15
Speaker
more articulated clone body that we've done, but they also have a great new updated helmet design. So we saw some comments on a previous helmet of those. We went back and tweaked it. These have that update. They are non-removable helmets on these. So we're able to do a very in-scale approach on the vintage collection ones. So great stuff that way for the
00:15:41
Speaker
the announcements for Black Series. It's very much the same sort of thing. It's the new body of the Clone Trooper. So a way to get those out for people again to get more of those in the collection and really build those troops up. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Adventures in Collecting, Eric.
Expanding the Vintage Collection
00:16:02
Speaker
So in previous conversations with the team, you guys have mentioned that you're committed to world building for the vintage collection with playsets and vehicles, but we haven't had an announcement for any playsets since that end or bunker. Can we expect more playsets in 2024? And if so, tell us a little bit about how you go about selecting which environments to pull these playsets from.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I would say, you know, we can't talk about anything that has to be, as you know, but play sets is absolutely not off the table, especially for the vintage collection where we know that world building is so important to the community. So it's just stay tuned in terms of like what could potentially come down the pipeline and could be announced in the future. In terms of where we pull from, it's a
00:16:55
Speaker
of different things. It's the same thing as what we do for figures in terms of like, what's in demand? What are the community telling us that they want to see? What could show up on screen? Is it relevant? Like, you know, Mandalorian during Mando, you know, season three, things like that. Like just, you know, what makes sense for that moment? What makes sense for the community and balancing that for when we can get it out in time?
00:17:18
Speaker
So all that comes into mind, so for the vintage collection it could be newer older entertainment and nothing's really off the table.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we've seen some stuff that works. It's nice to kind of understand the world a little bit when we do one of those, so that you know how those play sets fit into a larger world and we can build out elements around it to support that. I mean, like we did with the bunker in Return of the Jedi, we had a lot of other world building stuff that kind of supported that and built us kind of a whole scene. I think that's important too, and to kind of understand and have those other elements to help inform that.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, some of the modular nature of, of the play sets you guys have done in the past have been really great. Like, especially like the, you know, the Tanti for hallway. I mean, that thing is just awesome because you can flip it around and turn it into different things. And it kind of just becomes one of those like Star Wars dioramas. You know, it doesn't necessarily need to be that ship. Yep. That particular one is that's, that's our cornerstone of what we compare all of our play sets to is
00:18:25
Speaker
Is can it fulfill the same sort of promise that that one did? Yeah, so yeah, I mean emily did a great job with that And I think it was so fun to be able to build a modularity in for that one specifically so Um, yeah, it it's good to hear feedback and it's good to hear from the community what they want to see But it's definitely not off the table in terms of what we can do more of in the future awesome, would love an imperial version of that just some imperial hallways call it, you know
00:18:53
Speaker
Star Destroyer interior or something. Yeah, it'd be really cool. Thank you. Thanks for the feedback. And now a word from our sponsors.
00:19:07
Speaker
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00:22:08
Speaker
What ever happened to the fan channel exclusive black series kai ID and Monday figure it was announced back in February and Pre-orders never took place or anything and a couple of them already showed up on some auction sites. Are we gonna see them anytime soon? Yeah, that one was a funny one It was announced really early and it's definitely still coming and sorry there was no there was no purder for that but it's actually tracking for later next year I guess because we're at the end of
00:22:38
Speaker
that's insane. But yeah, we're thinking about it's probably coming towards currently tracking towards summer of 24. So at that point, fans will start seeing it. But yeah, it's it's definitely coming. I know fans were really excited about that. And it's one of those things that would be super early. But hopefully everyone will get a chance to get that in hand pretty soon. Cool. Thank you.
00:23:05
Speaker
A bit of a sidestep question, hopefully not unwelcome. Can we expect or anticipate any more Indiana Jones releases in either format? Six inch or three three core? Oh yeah, we don't have anything to announce. We love the lines we did and the success of them will drive future stuff. I think Patrick mentioned previously that for the new stuff we
00:23:32
Speaker
made a conscious decision not to do the three and three quarter inch line because we wanted to lean into Black Series scale and that six inch stuff. So I wouldn't think that if we would go forward with more that we would go back on that and do three and three quarter, I would think it would be more six inch stuff. But again, nothing to announce on that. All right, laughing place, Mike.
Character Selection for Black Series
00:24:02
Speaker
So you guys recently announced the droid R46D0 from the Mandalorian, which is a relatively obscure background character from the show. I love seeing the more background and side characters coming out in the Black series, which tends to favor the central characters. But I'm curious, like, what is the selection process?
00:24:24
Speaker
For those type of more obscure characters like how did you go about picking are for sixty zero and not like another droid or another side or obscure character from that series. Yeah i mean that's that's one that was weird.
00:24:41
Speaker
We kind of had it in our heads that we wanted to do a droid and we have been playing with our new R2 body that the larger one hadn't done in our forehead yet for that at the time. And that showed up in our reference deliveries from Lucasfilm early on as a main character's companion droid. So it made a lot of sense with all that color and stuff on them as a way to do something new. I think that one was also an exclusive
00:25:10
Speaker
I remember, right? I think it's Walmart. Yeah. Yeah. And it answered a request to have kind of new and exclusive stuff for that that exclusive retailer. So it was kind of all these things coming together and really a way to get a new fun droid in there. So I mean, that's that's the story on that one. But it's it's a similar thing every time. Yeah, we're always trying to weave the perfect tapestry of
00:25:36
Speaker
of answering a retailer's request, answering fan requests, working with the reference we have and building things to just make a more complete kind of offering for everybody. Great. Love to see more supporting characters. Yeah, that was a fun one. Adventures in Collecting, Eric.
00:25:57
Speaker
So, you know, with the, I would say that the success of the last two, you know, kind of single pilot vehicles and, you know, ANTOC, Merrick's X-Wing and the N1 Starfighter being, you know, such popular releases, you know, what would you guys say that that means for, you know, vehicles of the same or similar class, you know, going forward? Well, I think it's a safe presumption that we will continue doing vehicles.
00:26:27
Speaker
The specifics of that we'll get into as we have more to reveal. Vehicles are and will continue, I suspect, to be a large part of any Star Wars show. I'm happy to play in that world. I love it. It's one of my own passions. I get to work on those things.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, really delivering that kind of detail and continuing the legacy of former designers from Kenner like Mark and others in those vehicles is really important to us. And without kind of spoiling anything, what's your favorite vehicle? If you could snap your fingers and work on a Star Wars vehicle tomorrow, what would it be?
00:27:12
Speaker
Things that I haven't worked on. Yeah. Yeah, I think I as a as a dream thing for me would be a sand crawler figuring out how to do a sand crawler that is remotely approachable for everybody would be would be fun, but I just I I personally just love the construction of that and kind of the background of it but All the vehicles I've gotten to work on the end one was a blast and Razor Crest the ghost like those things are just
00:27:43
Speaker
Those, any one of those is a once in a career sort of thing. And then it has just been the continual rhythm of those things, thanks to the great shows we're getting. So yeah, I mean, I've already done my dream projects. I get to continue doing more. That's awesome. And I'm sure it's, it's amazing getting to work with like all the reference materials and like, you know, seeing kind of the guts and nuts and bolts and stuff from Lucas foam. It's the vehicle, you know, lore is just so awesome.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Yeah, you guys are playing to Chris's tune, because as the designer for this vehicle, it's good to see the success for the N1, for example, and like, Razorcrest goes all of those, because it's definitely hugely important. There you go. Actually, I've had one, too, sitting back there. And Chris is probably like here. Mine's up top. You've got to go higher to get that one. That's up there. I'm a vehicle nut. Next to my add-at, yeah.
00:28:42
Speaker
Yeah, it gives you all that room to play with like making fun things in the walls and things like that. Anyways, Star Wars collector Dan.
Design Choices for Trooper Figures
00:28:53
Speaker
I think you guys touched on the subject before about the oversized vintage collection helmets on troopers and Mandalorians. Are you guys going to give up on the removable helmets and just have interchangeable heads? No.
00:29:08
Speaker
It's not gonna be a one or the other. I mean both are Viable options for going forward and I know there are it's a passionate discussion and Everybody on both sides of the fence thinks their way is the perfect way. Yeah So we don't want to we don't want to say like one way is right and one way is wrong. I mean we love both and they they just have different play and
00:29:35
Speaker
and posability and all of those sorts of things. So we'll continue to do both, I would say. And sometimes we'll prioritize a removable helmet versus a swappable, but it's not a hard and fast line one way or the other. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Yeah, and it's a really passionate
00:29:57
Speaker
Discussion in the community. So I think definitely like continue to let us know what the fans want to see because we definitely want to hear About it as well from you guys. Yeah, um fan for tracks like Recently excuse me recently you've had some packaging changes so presumably It's a presumption
00:30:19
Speaker
Those figures that were released, let's say, without plastic packaging at all, will get re-released in the future for new collectors to purchase and such. But people who've bought them before, will there be any deco changes? Will there be any accessories added basically to make it, and I'm waggling the air quotes, worth those collectors while to buy it again? Because, of course, collectors want to have every iteration and every version. We know this, but are there any additional little sweeteners in there that makes it really very much worth their while?
00:30:50
Speaker
Well, there's no specific plans to just go back and anything that was released without plastic to re-release. Re-releases are part of what we do, though. Generally speaking, those would just be a straight pack refresh into the new style package without those additions. But I think that's good thinking.
00:31:14
Speaker
we like to find reasons for those things to be a meaningful purchase for people. So like you were saying, accessories, we don't want to just throw in an accessory because that feels like asking somebody to buy a figure to get an accessory. That feels weird too. But finding a way to make new releases of those characters meaningful to people is really the key to that or making something that's hard to get more accessible for people. So those are the kind of concerns.
00:31:44
Speaker
And if, like I was saying, if we would release a figure that came out only in plastic free package, it would now get the update into the current style packaging.
Holocom Collection Insights
00:31:56
Speaker
But there's not a plan to just go back and redo all of those figures. I hope that answers the questions. It does. It's an awkward question, but what about readers?
00:32:14
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's good. Thank you for asking it. All right, laughing place, Mike. Can you guys talk about the Holocom collection? How do you feel that that's been received? And is there anything you'd like to highlight about that series that maybe people don't realize? Yeah, Jing, you were starting to talk. I don't want to jump on.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yes, I mean it's fine. It's like a it's a new execution that we thought would be like super fun to Duke like so Key to Star Wars lore to those Holocaust. So we're always looking for opportunities like that Chris. Have you do you want to add in anything? Yeah, and I think that the
00:33:01
Speaker
It was something we thought would be really fun. And it kind of came out of some other brainstorming and just really made a lot of sense to us. I think the response to those has been pretty good. So I think that for me, it's a really great way to display a figure. And I don't know if you've played with them, but even a figure without it being clear displays great on those little hologram bases. So I think it's fun to see that.
00:33:31
Speaker
We were, we were experimenting and it, it, it kind of made sense to, to answer some of our, our own challenges to ourselves, like, Hey, what can we do? How can we plus this up and make something cool and unique? So yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
The different landing modes, for example, the team talked quite a bit about that. And I think honestly what came about also is just like us as fans on the team was like, it'd be so cool if we could have a hologram figure sitting on the show. Yeah. Well, and I think too, when we were doing that, it was coming out of the show when we were like bounties.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I mean, that's kind of how we meet the Mandalorian is a whole bounty thing. So thinking of those figures as kind of FOMO figures or chase figures and kind of the figures themselves for fans are kind of a bounty and playing into that and throwing a bounty value on them in universe kind of thing. That was it was all a fun way to play. Thanks. Adventures in collecting.
00:34:37
Speaker
So before I get to uh, you know, I had a fun holiday question for you guys, but something just kind of uh popped into my my feed from some of our followers So if you don't mind if if I ask one question that uh, that wasn't on my list um And uh, it involves the two of the new black series releases. So the the shin hati and balen skull figures um, a lot of people are concerned about kind of the height discrepancy with those
00:35:03
Speaker
If you could just you know in the design process how do you guys determine when you're you know designing these figures how they kind of scale to the the talent or the actors height in in real life. Well with that with that sort of thing we usually have scanned data from. The production from our partners at lukas film so we we know exactly how they are relative to each other and.
00:35:32
Speaker
sometimes we'll take that and and if it feels very divergent from what feels right sometimes we'll tweak that a little bit just to compress scale so that like the tallest character and the smallest character can change a little bit to get closer to each other but we try and be very authentic across the the lines um tvc just because of the nature of its its scale in general tends to see a little more compression but even there where i mean we're trying to be
00:36:02
Speaker
Pretty good. It's not like the old days of Kenner where there wasn't scale reference and you saw a picture and kind of guessed at how big something was.
00:36:14
Speaker
I mean, classic is Snaggletooth from the original Kenner line. And thankfully, for so many reasons, we are gone from a day where we get two photos of a character's mask, and that's it. Now we have a wealth of info to work from. And sometimes, we get reference images of characters standing next to a height stick. So we can tell that we get scan data in most cases.
00:36:40
Speaker
of the actors on set in costume. So all that kind of comes together to really develop this scale. Yeah, I guess also, Eric, to answer that question is we have all these references for share like that, you know, sometimes are early, sometimes, you know, whatever it is in the in the process. But if there's feedback on specific items like, you know, we'd love to in general, we hear about them. And we definitely also just pay attention and keep in mind for the future as well.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you guys. Yeah. And I'll preface all of those comments by saying we are human and we will make mistakes. Please call us on it and let us know and we will do what we can to fix things. So yeah, I mean, we, we have more info and more ability to make less mistakes than ever, but like I said, we're human. We make mistakes. So Star Wars collector. Um, the re-release the,
00:37:36
Speaker
Black Series Clone Commander Bligh figure, did you guys fix the paint up on his chin? That figure is just a straight rerelease. So it'll be the same as the previous versions without that detail. That was something that the team just missed years ago and we're aware of it. But that's one that marks earlier question about rereleases and that sort of thing.
00:38:03
Speaker
It didn't feel like a meaningful update, but it was making that figure available again to people who didn't get them the first time. So not wanting to get in making that change and then feeling like people would have to buy a second version of that figure felt a little too close to the edge. So bringing him back out as he was felt like the more right call there. But we'll look at that for future stuff.
00:38:39
Speaker
I've got a retro collection question which is a bit of a vanilla question but as we've been talking and other kind of questions come to mind.
Retro Collection Sculpting Aesthetics
00:38:46
Speaker
Obviously, the original sculpts, the original sculpts, or the modern versions of, if that makes sense, and so you put out a wave of Star Wars Empire or Jedi, whatever it is. But when you do new figures, a Mando wave and a Sokka wave, a Book of Boba wave, whatever, when you look at the original figures from back in the day, there's a distinct difference between, let's say, a Han Solo from Star Wars, a Han Solo from Empire and Jedi. The quality of sculpt seems to progress as it moves on. With the retro collection, new sculpts that you would do,
00:39:15
Speaker
What iteration of those three films would you describe your level of sculpture if that makes any sense because it absolutely does no it's it is a clear like i have a clear answer for you and that is. I when i approach these things the the aesthetic is tail end of empire beginning of jedi that era it's a slightly more evolved.
00:39:42
Speaker
state of sculpting in detail than we saw with those very early New Hope figures. But I feel like at the end of the Power of the Force stuff, it got very far into stuff that it was a more modern figure and I feel like it
00:40:03
Speaker
Not that, I mean, it's still classic Kenner, but it's not as core classic Kenner in my head. So my direction has been as I'm working on those to look at that kind of late empire era stuff. And I think there'll be figure examples that I'll play with from earlier or later to try and push things a little bit and like, Oh, Hey, well, technically we can do this and
00:40:27
Speaker
and we can do that. I think you guys will see on the episode one figures that just came out today, the images of, we did some of that stuff where the battle droid in there has thinner legs and we've done some stuff on him that is more reminiscent of like Eve 99 and some of the later figures. But that's part of that's just because the technology, like we didn't want to get him so stylized. We wanted him to still feel kind of right
00:40:57
Speaker
So it's just kind of having the knowledge of all that stuff and navigating the pathway and picking apples off the right trees as we go. Brilliant. Great. All right. Thank you, everyone. I think those are the questions from everyone. I will say that if you haven't already, go to StarWars.com and check out the new Gift the Galaxy reveals from earlier today. They're so fun and a great celebration to the prequels.
00:41:27
Speaker
But yeah, from there, you know, thank you again for spending time with us. And we'd love to talk Star Wars and having an opportunity to do it with you guys right before the holidays. It's definitely a treat. So for everyone out there, whatever you're doing, happy holidays. And we definitely hope to talk to you soon in the new year. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Always fun. See you guys. Bye. Take care.
00:41:55
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
00:42:11
Speaker
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00:42:35
Speaker
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