A Not So Random Vintage Collection Thought For Friday

It is nearly nine o'clock as I start to write this, so I needed a proverbial "quick hitter" for today's content. So I'm going to share something that's been on my mind since we conducted Last Figure Standing, and it's proving out as I look at your submissions for March Madness. Consider today's article as just a conversation starter, and we will have to revisit it, potentially multiple times.

Heading into 2025, Hasbro was building up a critical mass of main characters that were in desperate need of update, headlined by Episode IV Luke Skywalker in my opinion. The demand for that figure actual became problematic as far as I see. Fans blew right past "passion" and landed on "anger". You could see it building as every fan stream passed and there was still no announcement of a new Farmboy Luke. I know for a fact that we lost some collectors over it. They got tired of waiting and quit.

While Hasbro was definitely late, it's better late than never. And to their credit, they have made or announced a lot of the other high priority main characters. Since 2024 we've gotten (or will get):

• Episode II Padmé
• Episode II Shaak Ti
• Episode III Anakin
• Episode III Obi-Wan
• Episode IV Leia
• Episode IV Luke
• Episode IV Han
• Episode IV Ben

You could even count Thrawn and Crosshair on that list except that the wait wasn't quite as long for the latter. That's good stuff, but in the wake of this goodness, it seems that there are no obviously needed figures that unify large swaths of the fanbase. The only exception to that is C-3PO which is also entering the "anger" territory, but I think a lot of fans are wrongly assuming it's coming.

As a result, I see the community retreating to their various "glup" camps (myself included). You can see this with Last Figure Standing. We had six new characters in the Top 12, but it wasn't because those characters picked up new votes as the above mentioned figures were announced. Their 2025 votes were pretty near identical to their 2024 votes. They didn't rise up to the Top 12. The Top 12 came down to them. Those Luke, Anakin, Obi-Wan votes didn't go to Saw, Peli and Pong. They got spread out amongst twenty five different glups who went from five votes to ten.

There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself. Glups are the straw that stirs the 3.75" scale's drink, but the are obviously niche. That's their nature. If you don't have a Cantina display, you have no need for Atheloe whereas I'm guessing three quarters of the fans bought those figures listed above. Why this concerns me is that, once again, someone from Hasbro laid it out for us that tooling budget is directly tied to sales (which is obvious). TBS has twice the budget because they have twice the sales. While we're very right to encourage Hasbro to make the weirdos, I think we have a responsibility to point out figures that have broad appeal that need updates.

This is a very long way of saying, I think we need to revive the Make the Mains campaign in the coming weeks. It was never supposed to stop with A New Hope. That was merely the whitest hot of high priorities. Next up was Revenge of the Sith, which Hasbro is now getting to (even though some of the Jedi might be under the Episode II banner). I felt that The Empire Strikes Back was third highest priority with figures like Luke Bespin and Boba Fett, but they only ranked 33rd and 51st in this year's Last Figure Standing respectively. Are fans really not interested in them, or are we settling back into the "I shouldn't have to tell Hasbro to make these things" mentality?

The too long wait for Ep IV Luke, Han, Ben, and Leia show we don't have the luxury of thinking that way. In fact, we still probably wouldn't have them were it not for the fact that announcing them was critical to the Cantina HasLab success. Or do I have the source wrong? Is it Roque One? I'll be honest, that fact that the TBS Saw was a brutal peg warmer scares me. Plus we already have a Saw, and as Nomad taught me, it's new before redo.

Please don't misconstrue this as an anit-glup take. You won't find a bigger fan of the weirdos than me. I just think when we find the figures that have both legitimate demand from the hard core fans, but also appeal to more casual fans, we strike sales gold. Ask Hasbro how that Snowtrooper did.

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