Should Hasbro Make the Rebels Crew In The Vintage Collection?

It’s easy to say what Hasbro should make. They should make figures we all want, make them amazingly good, make them available in stores, and make them affordable. It’s so easy! And yet here we are. Here are some factor for and against this idea.




I think it’s clear that there is significant demand for the crew. Using this year's March Madness rankings as data, 5 of the 6 main characters were in the top 30 based on the initial ranked wishlists submitted through various channels. Only Chopper (54) failed to crack the top half of the bracket of 64. Certainly people use strategies in their rankings, so that doesn’t necessarily mean that Kanan, for example, is actually the 13th most wanted Star Wars figure overall. But these rankings have been fairly consistent for a couple of years and show that there are definitely people out there that do rank these characters very highly. The pairwise voting had some surprises too with Hera and Sabine performing very well- knocking off Leia, Han, and the Tonnikas among others.

Even if Rebels was never my cup of tea, I have to admit that there is demand and that these characters remain popular several years after the show ended. Even that miserable putz Ezra. But demand is only one part of the equation.


Hasbro loves reusing tooling. And that’s not a slight on them. Tooling re-use is an important part of the business and has allowed them to produce some great “new” figures without having to cost out each and every part. Lando’s Legs have become something of a joke since they seem to be the default for any figure that doesn’t have distinctive pants features. So does the Rebels Crew lend itself to this production model? That question is a little bit hard to answer because of the simplistic animated stylization of the characters. Looking at the “realisticized” Black Series versions of the crew as a guide, I’d guess there’s very little potential for recycling parts. The outfits still seem pretty unique compared to what we see elsewhere in the Saga. Perhaps parts of Bo Katan would be usable on Sabine. Some arms or boots here and there. But I’m not seeing any obvious options. This means that these 6 figures would need to be close to 100% new.




This brings us to another issue. If we count back the last 6 all-new (or really close to all-new) figures released in the Vintage Collection, that takes us all the way back to the Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reva wave that came out last July. So if Hasbro decided to make the whole Rebels crew, and they all needed mostly new tooling, we’re looking at 9 months’ worth of new figures. That doesn’t mean it would need to be spread out over ¾ of a year, but it would suggest that there wouldn’t be too much else new in that year. Not an ideal situation when we’re facing a backlog of high-priority PT/OT figures and a constant onslaught of new media that has been eating up a big chuck of the new tooling budget.


And that’s another thing! We know that Sabine (and almost certainly Hera) will be featured in the upcoming Ahsoka show. We’ve already seen Zeb make a cameo in the Mandalorian. This will undoubtedly raise demand for those versions of these characters who may sport significantly different costumes. If Hasbro picks makes the live action versions, will that satisfy the people who want the Rebels versions? And vice versa? Would we get some weird hybrid where some characters are sourced from Disney+ series and other like poor Kanan are stuck in their Rebels look that don't quite line up?




And how would all these characters fit in overall? Sure, they’d have each other, but we have no Inquisitor, no Kallus, no old fat Rex, and no ship… We’ve talked a lot about unfinished crews (Rogue One, we’re looking in your direction), but a finished crew that’s out on their own is frustrating as well. If they made the six, would that just highlight everything else is missing.

In conclusion, I think there are a lot of good reasons to get these characters translated to TVC. But there are some significant obstacles that don’t mesh with Hasbro’s current sales models. In the old days, these figures could be put out in a couple of multi-packs and be done. Sure, they wouldn’t have rocker ankles or modern hips, and the face applications would be soft, but we’d have them gosh darn it. I think the best chance for any of this now is a large presence in new media and a concerted push by Hasbro to make it happen. I really can't say whether that would be worth it or not. To use Chris' test, I would not risk my job on it.

Tweet

---

comments powered by Disqus