Random Vintage Collection Thoughts For Sunday 2/14

The following are all ideas I had for separate features, but it feel like I'll never get around to that. So instead, I'm going to unpack all the random Vintage Collection thoughts I have here (at least the ones I can remember):

• When Hasbro gets around to making the Original 96 AT-AT Driver in the Vintage Collection, I really hope they don't repack the 2009 BD49 - AT-AT Driver figure unless they make some minor tweaks. That helmet needs to go. It looks like a bad Halloween costume. The ideal situation would be marrying the helmet from the 2015 SL18 - AT-AT Driver (external link) to the Legacy Collection body.
  
  
• I don't expect Hasbro to be populated by hardcore collectors. The intersection of "hardcore collector" and employee candidates with requisite business/engineering credentials is probably the same crossroads where you'd find unicorns. But it frustrates me that I don't think anyone at Hasbro appreciates the fact that we do not have a definitive Episode V/VI Darth Vader yet. It feels like the VC08 - Darth Vader is the horse Hasbro plans to ride to the finish line, but it just doesn't work. In addition to lacking modern articulation, the right hand is sculpted in an open pose and cannot hold the light saber. This is a critical failure for two reasons. One, George Lucas explicitly demanded a two handed "Excalibur" fighting style. Two, Vader was holding the saber in his right hand when Luke furiously chopped it off. A lot of scene recreation is impossible with the VC08 figure. Why is it so frustrating? Because good Darth Vader figures appeal to the entire gamut of the collecting spectrum. It appeals to the most casual collector and to the hardcore collector. That almost always equates to "printing money" (see the recent Episode VI Boba Fett), so any reluctance on Hasbro's part is fooey.
  
  
• Hasbro seems to be marrying the modern Vintage Collection very closely to the vintage Kenner line. This is fine in some respects. No one is going to argue against completing the Original 96. But it also feels limiting. First, there are legions of non-Original 96 OT figures that deserve to be made, but it goes beyond that. I feel it's pigeon holing the line into only those product offerings that Kenner made, which seems to violate the spirit of The Vintage Collection. As I've written many times, The Vintage Collection is not about what Kenner did then. It's about what Kenner would do now. I would love to see an imagining of a Vintage Collection Comic Pack. If you don't want a figure of Jedi Master Sskeer, you get git out.
  

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