Q&A With JTA: Our Sixth Column!

1. Will Hasbro ever do anymore Echo base personnel or Hoth version figures in the near future such as, Snowspeeder Wedge, Toryn Farr, or technicians? (Nicholas)

JTA: Toryn Farr has been on rumor lists for years and we hope she sees plastic before the line calls it quits. Wedge, for some strange reason, is the red-headed stepchild of the line and only finally in 2010 is he seeing his first appearance in the basic figure line, so we don't expect to see him in Snowspeeder gear any time soon unfortunately. But of course anything is possible. The technicians are likely to come in the near future and we hope that Hasbro does their best to get them into The Vintage Collection (where they belong)!

2. I just read the answer Hasbro gave [Sir Steve's Guide] about not being able to put all the figures on the cardback like the vintage backs looked. To be honest, I really like the "first appearance" section. That seems more nostalgic for me. Since we're talking Vintage look, can you suggest to Hasbro maybe offering a mail offer poster that looks like the vintage back once all the vintage figures have been released? Maybe a last nod to the past once the line has run its course (and if anyone has any POP's after mailing in for a ton of Fett's)... (Christopher)

JTA: That is a great idea Christopher and we will certainly pass along your idea. We tend to agree with you that The Vintage Collection figures should have their own unique card back. Leave that classic yellow background with Collect all 92! exclamation on the old figures we say!

3. Does Hasbro have any plans to reissue the BMF, for those children and collectors who havent gotten it yet? (Alan)

JTA: Actually, another run (we're not sure how big) of the Big Millennium Falcon has been made and is available at ToysRUs.com right now. Click the thumbnail below to place your order!

 

4. The background scenes Hasbro is including with Deluxe Figures, Battle Packs, and Vehicles are great. They make on-shelf displays pop and can even be used as small shelves themselves when mounted to the wall directly (I've found resting them on protruding nails and securing the top with Velcro works well). At any rate, I find I'm often looking for background scenes not included with toys to date and I'm having a lot of difficulty find them. Wookieepedia and Google searches have yielded some decent scenes, but what I've found is limited and often has poor resolution. Do you know where on-line I can find hi-res background scenes like those packed by Hasbro? (Mike)

JTA: Yes. Actually one of our fellow colleagues, Niub Niub's Universe, has some great downloadable decals and backgrounds you can print out among great guides on how to build some rather impressive Star Wars dioramas. Click HERE to check out this site's resources. You'll be impressed! Hasbro's scenes won't be available as that stuff is proprietary. But there are some great things at Niub Niub's Universe!

5. I recently heard that Steve Sansweet has a protype Yarna figure from the original Kenner line, I tried finding an image of this figure with no luck, I would love to see an Image of this if you have one. (Eric)

JTA: Here you go Eric. This is from Sansweet's Star Wars: The Action Figure Archives (which is about a decade and a half overdue for an update). There was a much better picture in Tomart's AFN that we know we have but are still trying to locate. Once we find it, we will post an update here. The Tomart's AFN photos also show off the rare and vintage R1-G4 figure which is just too awesome for words! And we may get beheaded over this, but we want to see both Gargan (as she was known in the vintage era) and R1-G4 carded in The Vintage Collection. Yes, we just said that!

6. [Are there] any plans yet for a Tzzivit cantina patron figure. (Alan)

JTA: Tzizvvt (T-z-i-z-v-v-t) has also been on the rumor lists for years. We are confident that we will see this awesome Cantina patron one day soon. It is one of Hasbro's goals to complete all of the Cantina patrons so this one is a good bet! With the recent addition of Pons Limbic and Trinto Duaba & Dice Ibegon, we believe our wait will be brief for Tzizvvt.

7. Can we possibly see a Purge Trooper made as a figure? (shunter909)

JTA: With the Expanded Universe on hold for the next couple of years and with the release of Walmart's exclusive 2009 Legacy Collection Droid Factory sets which gave collector's the opportunity to create a Dark Trooper Phase III figure, we think it is unlikely at this point. The Purge Trooper does has some significant differences from the Dark Trooper Phase III, but it may just be too similar enough for Hasbro to revisit right now.

8. Some love for Leia? I still don't have a definite EPIV Leia after all these years..... do you think Hasbro has one planned for The Vintage Collection? Would make sense..... also who's with me in wanting Yavin Ceremony Leia and Ewok Village Leia updates.......Both would look great with today's standards, and it's been about 12 years since the last ones. (Matt)

JTA: We couldn't agree with you more Matt. Hasbro knows that the VOTC Princess Leia Organa figure no longer meets expectations and we are positive a new one is in the works (although we are still quite fond of her and she truly gets an unnecessarily bad rap). But we actually hope that they update the other two versions of Leia first. God forbid if Hasbro disappeared off of the face of the Earth and could only make two Leia figures before that happened, we would want the two you mentioned second. This doesn't mean that Episode IV Leia, Bespin Gown Leia and even Bespin Escape Leia don't need updates, but the POTF2 version of Leia Ceremonial and Leia Ewok Village are just needing to be updated more.

9. I buy Clone Wars figures for my children, and those figures get some abuse. As expected, things break. What is the best glue to repair the soft plastic limbs of an action figure, a light saber or parts from a starfighter? (Jeff)

JTA: If anyone out there has any tips for Jeff, please pass them along to us and we can post an update for him later. In the past, not even Krazy Glue has held broken pieces together for us, so we will defer to the masses for the best advice here. Thank you!

10. My question is about a cool creature I saw in season 2 of The Clone Wars, it was on the planet Ryloth and it's called a Blurrg. they were in several episodes, and were used by clones and the native Twileks. I've noticed that they appear in season 3, and when researching them online, I found out that they were also in an Ewoks movie! Do you think this is something Hasbro might have planned? We rarely see new beasts for some reason! (Tobias)

JTA: Hasbro has remained gun-shy with beasts after the not-so-great success of the Gelagrub Patrol and Dewback With Imperial Sandtrooper sets. A lot of their failure has more to do with how expensive they were for the amount of product included inside, but it is probably unlikely that unless creatures are the focus of an espidoe of The Clone Wars that we won't be seeing any new ones soon. Personally, we're still wondering where the heck a Ziro The Hutt figure is. : (

BONUS - UPDATE TO ONE OF OUR PREVIOUS QUESTIONS....

Last week, we misunderstood a reader's question and we're here to clarify it. Below you will see the original question, our original answer and our updated answer.

Hey Paul, I have a The Clone Wars questions for you. First, do you know why the upcoming The Clone Wars Shaak Ti has eyebrows? Is this just an oversight on Hasbros part, or do they not pay close attention? Likewise, is this something that will be corrected? (Tobias)

JTA: We are a little bit confused by your question. We didn't see eyebrows on The Clone Wars Shaak Ti (image found HERE) just now showing up and the Geonosis Arena Showdown Shaak Ti/Geonosian Warrior version didn't have them either. Do you perhaps mean eyelashes? Although The Clone Wars version of Shaak Ti is faithful to her appearance in the television show, Shaak Ti doesn't have "white" inher eyes and this is something we are just going to have to accept for her in Filoni's interpretation.

UPDATE: We didn't see the production samples when you did and we didn't realize that Tobias is indeed correct, the new Shaak Ti comes with eyebrows. While The Clone Wars version of Shaak Ti has some hit of a brow line, she definitely doesn't have any eyebrows like the figure has. We are not confident with Hasbro's ability to fix things all of the time. But if they;re able to fix Clone Commander Cody's belt as well as the new Clone Trooper's belt, then Shaak Ti is certainly capable of being revised too. We will bring this to Hasbro's attention for you.