I Don’t Think The HasLab New Tooling Love Is Being Appreciated By Some

TVC fans tend to be a cynical and often times pessimistic group, but it's usually deservedly so. Despite our willingness to consistently shell out hundreds for HasLabs, it's clear we're the second class citizens when it comes to Hasbro's Star Wars fan segments. We're the younger brother who isn't into sports, but is really good at science. Our dad is much more affectionate towards our older brother who had a scholarship to State, but tragically perished in a drag racing incident down at Dead Man's Curve. But if we step back and look at last Friday, it's clear that Pops is starting to realize that we're going to make a name for ourselves in a different way. We're probably going to be a bigwig food scientist down at Archer-Daniels someday.

If you go onto the Star Wars socials, you're going to see a lot of reluctance to backing the Cantina due to the fact that we're not feeling the love from Hasbro for crushing the Ghost campaign. I'm not going to deny that, but there are two mitigating factors. The first of which is that delay of Skeleton Crew, which was originally planned for December 2023. Early 2024 was definitely going to be populated with some 100% newly tooled figures from that source. Additionally, I can all but guarantee that the E-Wing and Blurgg siphoned off some of the tooling budget that otherwise would have gone to basic figures. (We're always going to be playing this Sophie's Choice game.) These two constraints, combined with Ambitious 4LOM Droid's observation that Hasbro appears to be abandoning repacks, repaints, and partial tools that are not up to at least 2022 standards, left Hasbro with few options for filling in the early '24 lineup with ready to go tooling. The results were somewhat boring (Mando-fatigue).

The second issue is that line planning doesn't pivot on a dime. Going into the Ghost campaign, Hasbro would have had no idea how it would perform. When we blew it out of the water by sailing past the last 17,000 backer stretch goal on the way to 20,000, the pay off would never have been realized in 2024. That year's budget and line would have already been locked when the campaign finished. Any gratification would be delayed, and I would argue we saw it on Friday. Over the course of last Friday's livestream, Hasbro promised to commit to potentially nine 100% newly tooled figures if the HasLab reaches all of it's goals (and six 100% newly tooled figures if it merely backs). Let me repeat, nine 100% newly tooled figures. Do you know how many 100% newly tooled figures we get in a typical year? Twelve to fourteen. And here, in one feel swoop, we saw nine. What's the most 100% newly tooled figures we've every gotten revealed and pipelined in one livestream? I'm guessing four at the extreme high end. We just got nine. This is the quid pro quo we've been asking for with HasLabs.

I know fans are upset about still waiting on figures like Baylan and Shin, but not backing the Cantina as some sort of protest would be self defeating. I have no direct insight into this, but they are coming. Just not as soon as we'd like. I know they're coming without knowing they're coming. Key new media figures seem to have an easier path to seeing production (please note that Frog Lady is not a key figure), but it's just not as fast as we'd like. If we eventually got a Kuiil figure, I'm confident two lightsaber-wielding and series-spanning baddies will be in hand before I retire from the hobby. One last thing about the two discount Sith from Ahsoka, I think the fact that Black Series figures turned out so poorly indicates that perhaps LFL wasn't timely in providing the assets for those characters. Unfortunately with TVC's lesser main line figure budget, once they missed the active window of the relevant media, it takes a while before the next slot become available.

Finally, I get it if the source of these nine 100% newly tooled figures is not in someone's personal collecting focus, but that's no reason to shade the Cantina on socials because Hasbro hasn't announced every action figure from The Acolyte. The next HasLab might be in that person's focus and the fact that Hasbro just demonstrated that they're willing to shell out for the ecosystem around a HasLab should be reason for everyone to celebrate. Once again, in a single livestream, Hasbro either revealed or pipelined a 100% newly tooled Vintage Collection figure:


And there are strong rumors of a 10th. I just hope Hasbro can hammer out the details before the campaign ends.

CLICK HERE if your would like to back the Vintage Collection Cantina HasLab

One last thing in this marathon article, Bret and I are honored to be guests on the Victoria's Cantina Social Hour livestream at 9PM tonight:


I will embed the stream here later. I hope you'll join us. Bret livestreams are rarer than Glasslite Vlixen.

---

comments powered by Disqus