Bantha Skull’s 2018 Year in Review

2018 started off with the Star Wars community sharply divided, in a way that seemed to mirror American society. For the most part, you either loved or hated The Last Jedi. You either feel it took Star Wars on a bold new path, or you believed it crapped on everything you had held dear since you were a child. The first few weeks of 2018 were filled with fans arguing their positions, belittling others, and generally feeling like the days of Star Wars representing escapism and innocence were far behind us. Frankly, it got old pretty fast, and at some point in the early going, we basically stopped covering the debate. It had successfully sapped the fun out of discussing Star Wars, and we decided we were no longer going to partake in the pointless bickering. Fortunately, for us, there was soon to be plenty of big news (some good, some bad) to distract us from the gloomy aftermath of TLJ.

Sadly, one of the first big stories of 2018 was the demise of Toys R Us. We were cautiously optimistic that the announcement in 2017 of TRU filing for bankruptcy would be a temporary setback, and that the powers-that-be would figure out a way to rescue the company from going out of business. However, that hope took a huge hit in January, when it was announced that sluggish holiday sales were the reason behind 180 stores being on the chopping block. The news went from bad to worse, and after a few potential 11th hour deals fell through, the last great American toy store closed its doors for good. It was a sad day for all, and Star Wars collectors felt the pain as 1 of the 3 big box retailers to carry Star Wars was no more.

Bantha Skull worked hard to keep everyone's spirits up. Amid the gloomy start to 2018, we wished for 5 things to come out of 2018. It looks like we got 3 of our 5 wishes. CJ jumped into the fray by doing his retrospective on the Droids cartoon series, by bringing us a recap of each episode every Saturday morning for a few glorious months. We also had a new guy join our staff, and eventually gave us his own weekly contribution to the site. Jimmy "Jim" James "James" Griffin kicked off his tenure with a look at the Hero's Journey of Luke Skywalker.

A lot of Star Wars TV and film media came out in 2018. Most importantly, Solo hit theaters in May. Amid some mostly positive reviews, but under the shadow of both the late directorial change as well as the TLJ controversy, Solo ended up "failing" at the box office. That is, if you think almost $400 globally is a failure. Bret and Chris each gave our takes. The film was fun, and while the twist at the end got some people all...twisted...it was a more lighthearted film that looked to bring the feeling of adventure back to the universe. Also in 2018, we got the final episodes of Rebels. We got the second season of Forces of Destiny as well as the kid-oriented Galaxy of Adventures shorts. A new Resistance cartoon series premiered, as well as the announced return of The Clone Wars, both from Dave Filoni. As the year wound down, we got confirmation of not one, but two live action series. The Mandalorian, from Jon Favreau, will star Pedro Pascal, while there will be a series dedicated to Cassian Andor, starring Diego Luna.

Oh, and while it was relatively quiet on the video game front as far as new releases, gamers did earn a victory in the micro transaction war against Electronic Arts. And don't forget Disney's buyout of Fox. That was kind of a big deal.

From a collector standpoint, Wookiee Weekend was a bit underwhelming, especially with the demise of Toys R Us. But the April toy releases gave us some Force Link 2.0 madness, as well as the official return of TVC.

In a year when we knew the Vintage Collection was returning, nothing could prepare us for 2018's Story of the Year. At New York Toy Fair in February, Bantha Skull was there as Hasbro announced the creation of HasLab, and the first offering: The Sail Barge. Perhaps you remember? It was quite the day. We were so excited that Bantha Skull made it our goal to do everything possible to help whip up support for the Barge, going on a nearly daily onslaught of Barge-related news, opinions, and, of course, our brand of campaign tracking. This included our in depth investigation into what our Sail Barge display might look like, given the figures and toys we have available to us, as well as what we were missing to make the display complete. On March 2nd, we pitched a Yak Face idea that we thought would help push the campaign over the top. Sure enough, less than 3 weeks later, Hasbro announced that exact incentive. You're welcome, everybody! Things got so crazy the even the world's worst collector backed the barge. In the end, the campaign was a resounding success, shattering the goal of 5000 backers, and finishing with 8810. The whole event was a lot of fun, and did wonders to energize the community following the rough start to the year.

We also pitched 5 ideas for the next 3.75" HasLab offering. Not all of them sucked.

As for some other features we did this year, we got a look at the incredible TIE Fighter Wing of TVC pilots by our friend MaarekStele. We did a 5 part, in-depth look at the Battle of Yavin, and the figures and toys which it inspired. We got a first hand look at the SDCC TVC Dr. Aphra Set, courtesy of LItzkyPR. We did a Top 5 inspired by the return of TCW. One of the best vehicles of all time, the Imperial Assault Tank, arrived this year.

TVC, predictably, got off to a bit of a rough start, although we'd like to think our intrepid reporting helped fix an issue at Walmart that might have clogged the pegs for eternity. We were on the ground for the (somewhat underwhelming) NYCC offsite event. After months of confusion, Wave 3 hit in a big way at Walmart (no sign at Target), while some stores were sadly restocked with the death wave.

In some bittersweet news, our friend Steve Evans moved on from his role as Star Wars brand manager to other responsibilities at Hasbro. Steve has been one of the most enthusiastic and, most importantly, fan-accessible Hasbro reps, and we thank him for his energy and for everything he did to bring back TVC and give us the Sail Barge. We hope Steve's successor will connect with the community as strongly as Steve himself did.

Our bread and butter feature, figure galleries and reviews, featured a retrospective of collector grade figures, starting with TVC Dengar. The retrospective covered all of TVC, TBS Phase 1 (as P2 and P3 were already done very recently) and then went further back to The Legacy Collection, which contained a terrific assortment of figures that are great even by today's standards.

And 2018 marked the 10th anniversary of Bantha Skull. It's been a lot of fun, and we can't wait to see what's in store for 2019! Give us our barges, already!

---

comments powered by Disqus