Feeling Like Hasbro Still Doesn’t Get Us After All These Years

I don't feel that Hasbro truly gets what hardcore fans want out of their action figures, at least the fans that frequent this site. I should note that I don't think that that's a very critical statement. What you have to understand is that we're all a little bit crazy. Me, you, and everyone reading this. We're all a little off. We accumulate massive quantities of little plastic men. We're not normal, and that's okay. Normal is boring. I like us. But it's because of our collective eccentricities that I think it's perfectly understandable that Hasbro doesn't always see perfectly eye to eye with us (especially when even amongst ourselves we struggle for consensus). It's actually impressive when they do.

That brings me once again to what is perhaps the biggest subject in our little niche lately: 8D8. When our friends from the @SWTVC Instagram page asked about the elbow-less-ness on the figure, part of Chris' response was:

He's not a character climbing walls...

In no way is this meant to be critical of Chris. He's doing amazing things for TVC fans with things like Mando's N1 and the Razor Crest. I actually hate calling out people by name, but I also feel like it would pull the reader's out of this article if I tried to obfuscate the quote by saying things like "Hasbro's response" since we've all watched the the video by now. All I'm trying to do is highlight the disconnect, and hope it can bring some understanding between us maniacs and Hasbro.

It's doesn't matter that 8D8 isn't front and center of an action piece from any of his appearances. Every character in Star Wars has an iconic pose. It's the pose that you think of for the character in your mind's eye. For Tusken Raiders is holding the gaffi stick with two hands above its head. For an Episode III Obi-Wan Kenobi it's the way he addresses Greivous before the final duel on Utapau (side note: Hasbro, this would have to be accomplished with swappable hands). For 8D8, it's with his elbow crooked as he activates the branding device. When a figure cannot achieve the iconic pose of the character, we die a little inside.

And this is at the point where I throw some of the blame back on the community. There's been a constant refrain that background characters do not need super articulation if it helps get more figures in the line. I've consistently said that while this is 100% true, it's also a very dangerous precedent because the Hasbro team is not made up of hard core collectors, and as a for profit business, nor should they be.. I've repeatedly said that I don't trust Hasbro to make the call on which articulation can be sacrificed and which articulation is critical for background characters, so it's safer to just insist on Jedi Level Articulation for all. Well, we collectively kept saying it, and now we have an elbow-less 8D8.

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