Do The Streaming Series Change The Nature Of The Related Merchandizing?

In 2019 the entire community was screaming for a Kuiil figure. Anger was steeping every time a livestream passed and without mention of the character voiced by Nick Nolte. The Ugnaught was critical to the story of The Mandalorian and provided a lot of the emotional heart for the inaugural season. When the character died in the finale, it hit the fans hard in the feels. Nearly a full year later, Hasbro released the highly requested figure, and...the fan support has only been tepid. Amazon keeps lowering the price:


How did something go from being nearly universally requested to the online version of "pegwarming"? There are two front running possibilities:

1. Once again the small percentage of fans, who are passionate enough to engage online, do not necessarily represent the overall demand of the fanbase
2. The demand for a Kuiil figure changed

I think it's a combination of the two, but tilting heavily toward the latter. The way fans process these series is different than the movies. The movies are evergreen, but the fans emotionally move on with the series since they are living things. That Kuiil figure's market demand peaked during during season and up until season 2. By the time the figure was released, collectors had switched gears to wanting Luke, Bo-Katan, Boba Fett, etc.

We finally have a Hunter figure pipelined, but it won't be released until after Season 2 of The Bad Batch airs. If his appearance changes during season 2, will fans be as eager for a season 1 version especially since it won't have hardly any complimentary figures? We're finally getting a general season 2 Manadlorian figure with the Beskar spear next spring, but it's coming well after the Armorer has convinced him that the weapon is unbecoming for a Mandalorian. Because Din is a core character, I don't think we have to worry about fans "moving on" in that case, but it also won't catch peak demand. I contend this is something to which Hasbro needs to pay attention.

Now you might be saying, "but what about the Razor Crest?" That was already backed before it was blown to smithereens on-screen, and if you recall, some fans were upset about its destruction with respect to the HasLab campaign. The number of backers did initially go down after Moff Gideon obliterated the ship in Chapter 6. I truly don't believe that a Razor Crest campaign would generate 28,000 backers today. Everyone is all giddy for Mando's N1 now (which does appear to have a different appearance in the leaked Season 3 trailer than it did in The Book of Boba Fett).

Ask yourself if you envision yourself going back and watching season 1 of The Mandalorian over and over? Now how many times do you watch your favorite Star Wars movie? I've watched The Empire Strikes Back twice in the last three months. It will probably be years before I rewatch Mando S1. I absolutely love the series. I've watched season 1 three times, but now I've moved on. I'm not looking back right now.

Hasbro can constantly go back and mine the movies, but if a figure is "season locked", they need to be proceed cautiously if the figure is not out during that season, especially for secondary characters. The market for those type of figures diminishes once the next season airs. That's my opinion anyway. The movies and series resonate in different ways with the fans. One is fixed and indelible. The other is constantly in motion (at least while it's still an active series).

I should note I do feel the same for when trilogies are active, and it's another reason why the frenetic pace of Disney's movie schedule for the ST hurt toy sales (something my esteemed colleague wrote about). Even during the Kenner line, once the Revenge of the Jedi trailer was released, we had moved on from The Empire Strikes Back. We stopped wanting Snowtroopers and couldn't wait to get our hands on Scout Troopers. But at least we had three years for Episode V to marinate first. These series are coming out so fast that Hasbro would be falling behind with five times the annual budget.

---

comments powered by Disqus