Have Current Articulation Standards Doomed The Original 96 Project

Toy Fair 2020 lives in notoriety for Vintage Collection fans. Only two figures were revealed. Spirits were in the dumpster, but one of the reveals offered a glimmer of hope to old school Kenner fans. The Power Droid ushered in a promised focus on "The Ninety Six" referring to the original 96 Kenner figures. Some people refer to the "original 92" because the POTF card backs urged kids to "collect all 92", but four figures were not featured in the photography. The original R2-D2 and C-3PO, as well as the Sensor Scope R2-D2 had been retired, and Yak Face was not released in the United States. That makes your 96.

Completing the missing members of the original 96 in the Vintage Collection would be a long and arduous task, but it gave fans some excitement. That excitement would soon fizzle, however. It appeared Hasbro was only committed to the "Ninety Six" so long as most of the tooling already existed. This led to some horrendously old and out of date sculpts re-emerging on the market, headlined by VC191 - Princess Leia (Endor). Since 2020, only one figure from the O96 lineup was 100% newly tooled. It was VC205 - Lando Calrissian. You may consider VC186 - Boba Fett a second one, but I don't since Kenner never released an Episode VI Boba Fett. Regardless, 100% new tooling gives the O96 focus a wide berth.

Fast forward to this weekend, and I'm finally putting some of my figures out on display. This has been a ridiculously long and drawn out process because I had placed all of my figures in storage bins waiting for my collection room to be finished, but I combined all the accessories for each bin together. Sorting them back out to the correct figure has been a chore. Anyway, I dug into my pilots this weekend. I was struck by how many A-Wing pilots Hasbro delivered. With the exception of 2010, they released one a year from 2007 - 2012:


The A-Wing Pilot is one of the famed Kenner "last 17". It appeared on both Power of the Force and Droids cards. Naturally I thought to myself that Hasbro should tool up a new head for that sculpt (one with the flight cap sculpted to the head) and re-release it on one of those cards for the combined 40th anniversary of those two lines in 2025. But then I realized that I get the definite sense that Hasbro is now slow to re-release anything that doesn't approximate modern standards. As Ambitious Four LOM Droid pointed out to me that, despite the fact that 2024 has been repack heavy, not one of the repacks has swivel hips. I don't think Hasbro would feel comfortable re-releasing that 2007 sculpt next to 2019's Luke X-Wing, which is soon to see the market again.

Hasbro is probably taking this stance because they're tired of getting yelled at by fans. To be honest, if Hasbro is going to paint that take away with a broad brush, erring on the side of not releasing dated tooling is absolutely the right one. But we hardcode fans know that exceptions to that rule could be made. I don't need an A-Wing pilot to do the splits. I need it to sit in a cockpit, and the 2007 sculpt can do that. Malakili is another one that springs to mind, but again, I don't think Hasbro is comfortable going there in a word with barbell hips and hinged wrists.

I need to reiterate that if Hasbro needs the solution to be a yes/no binary, then forgoing old tooling is the right one, but this could effectively end the dwindling prospects of completing the ninety six. I think the A-Wing pilot has a shot with a retool of VC158 to give the lower legs some spats, but Malakili is another story. Evey with Fat Bib's lower body as a starter, I can't envision Hasbro sinking tooling bucks into a naked fat guy upper body. Barada becomes another tricky one if 2012's Kithaba is now considered off limits (some of you may consider that one crossed off already since the vintage Kenner figure was Kithaba). Of course, who am I kidding. It's not like Hasbro would ever tool up a new Amanaman anyway. A completed 96 was probably never going to happen.

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