Hasbro Should Get Creative With The Droids Expression

I absolutely love the Droids expression. You might have guessed that, but that does't mean that I want Hasbro going down the Kenner catalog. Due to the new tooling it would require, it would never happen anyway, but if there were some hypothetical fantasy land where Kea Moll and Thall Joben were possibilities, I would still vote no. Stylized representations of the humans would disrupt the continuity next to the realistically sculpted C-3PO, R2 and Boba Fett. Realistic representations of those characters would just be boring humans. I don't see how they jive with the figure universe we have. Aside from the A-Wing with A-Wing Pilot and a Vlix (for kitsch reasons), I don't want anything else Droids branded from the Kenner archive. Okay, okay, maybe I could be talked in to the Side Gunner Vehicle, but that's it!

Of course this doesn't mean that I want the Droids product to stop. I'd love for Hasbro to make the White Witch, but that is a bigger fantasy than the aforementioned Kea Moll figure. We'll get a White Witch right after we get a boxed set of all the unmade Cantina characters. There is, however, a way to expand the expression that is more realistic and doesn't lean on ground previously covered by Kenner. In fact, Hasbro has already gone there. In 2009, they released a BL-17 figure in a Droid Factory 2-pack. The problem is that the figure looks absolutely nothing like its cartoon counterpart. You be the judge:



Now, I admit that this proposal is problematic on one front. Making an accurate BL-17 isn't a matter of cosmetics, though getting the colors correct would be a massive first step. It would require a new head, and a new torso (at a minimum). Hasbro seems willing to cost in new head sculpts for the exclusive program as we've seen with the 50th Endor Leia. They also tooled new arms for the 50th Tusken Raider, so minor tooling isn't out of the question. The torso might even be able to be sourced from the existing tooling library. When translating from animated form to realistic form, 100% fidelity isn't always required. As long as the paint applications are accurate, close enough qualifies with the sculpt itself. What really appeals to me about this idea is that both Boba Fett and BL-17 appear in the episode S1:E4 A Race to the Finish where they interact with 3PO and R2 (as you might imagine since they are the stars of the show). BL-17 would complete a mini action figure ecosystem from that episode.

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