Schrödinger's cat. You'll never know unless you open the box...
Lets talk all things Star Wars
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Schrödinger's cat. You'll never know unless you open the box...
Interesting…
So, Disney has not recouped their costs of purchasing Lucasfilm?
www.forbes.com
So, Disney has not recouped their costs of purchasing Lucasfilm?
Disney ‘Star Wars’ Box-Office Profits Fail To Cover Cost Of Buying Lucasfilm
Box office profits generated by Disney's Star Wars movies have fallen $2.8 billion short of covering the media giant's purchase of the sci-fi saga’s creator, Lucasfilm.
www.forbes.com
Iskelderon
Sr Member
Though we all know that most money from Star Wars has never come from ticket sales, but the crapload of merchandising.Interesting…
So, Disney has not recouped their costs of purchasing Lucasfilm?
Disney ‘Star Wars’ Box-Office Profits Fail To Cover Cost Of Buying Lucasfilm
Box office profits generated by Disney's Star Wars movies have fallen $2.8 billion short of covering the media giant's purchase of the sci-fi saga’s creator, Lucasfilm.
Darth Lars
Master Member
I would bet that sales of merch for intellectual property conjured before the sale to Disney still dominate the figures though.
I was at Target the other day and usually when I go, I like to check out the toy aisles just to see what's selling. Star Wars toys have been reduced to about a 3-foot-wide section when there was a time they had their own aisle. The Lego section had some Star Wars vehicles and dioramas as well but that was it. I saw a Lando figure and a couple of side characters. I don't recall seeing any vehicles or lightsabers. Granted, movie-based toys don't sell like they used to but Star Wars was always the powerhouse. I think I saw more Godzilla toys than Star Wars.
Joek3rr
Master Member
Apparently Target has quit carrying the 3.75 TVC (The Vintage Collection) line. Target Apparently Stops Carrying The Vintage Collection - Jedi Temple Archives
In my city, we have two Walmarts. One has horrible stock, like Target is now. But the other seems to be well stocked, last I looked. And I've seen in Canada Toys'R'Us have a huge selection of everything.
From what I hear, the merchandising is not doing well compared to pre-Disney. Hasbro has also reduced the articulation (or they had, no idea now) on the regular figures to five points like the OT toys. I think you have to get the 6" versions for articulation. The other factor is that Disney jacked the price of SW collectibles sky high compared to what they were. Yes there's some inflation, but if you use an inflation calculator, the prices are way higher than what normal inflation would be.
Joek3rr
Master Member
The Vintage Collection that is 3.75 inch is very articulated. (Side note, if you see Darth Vader around, even if it's the Kenobi show version, get it. It's the best Vader ever made and has amazing articulation. They also have an ANH version coming this year.) There's a 4 inch line that 5 POA that just recently launched. And back around 2014 or 2015 they're mainline was all 5 POA. And only Black Series (both 6 and 3.75 inch at the time) had all the articulation.
Inflation right now on Star Wars toys is insane. Like I can find a lot of new in box figures from the Power of the Force 2 up to the 30th Anniversary line for the same price as new figures. Sometimes even cheaper.
Wakeem
Sr Member
In my experience, Target usually has a better organized toy section compared to Walmart. But I assume that management at the various locations has a lot to do with it. Getting workers that care about placement and not putting stuff randomly around. Still both stores are nothing like the old Toys R Us.
I'm sure the Star Wars figure lines are confusing to the average person. And even when you figure out the different scales and price structure, it's not like the pricing for figures and vehicles back in the day. Which I guess you could say was fair in terms of how far your money would go relative to the other items I would get like comics, playing in the arcade, home videogames and consoles.
I'm sure the Star Wars figure lines are confusing to the average person. And even when you figure out the different scales and price structure, it's not like the pricing for figures and vehicles back in the day. Which I guess you could say was fair in terms of how far your money would go relative to the other items I would get like comics, playing in the arcade, home videogames and consoles.
Solo4114
Master Member
Here's the thing re: toy stuff. I gotta be honest, but I think the core market for it is just...dwindling. Kids don't connect with toys the way they used to, at least based on my own observations.
My daughter is 8 now. Over the years, we've bought her various toys, from stuff in the Peppa Pig line, to Fisher Price figures, to Bluey, to Star Wars Misssion Fleet, to Barbie. Thus far, the only stuff with staying power has been the Star Wars and Barbie stuff, and even that stuff she plays with sporadically. She plays waaaaaaaaay more with her stuffed animals, usually playing pretend with them. She still plays with the other stuff, but we gave away the Peppa, Fisher Price, and Bluey stuff. Mostly she's just...meh on the bulk of it. She'll think a toy is cool, but in terms of what she actually plays with, it's not especially consistent, and she often loses interest in things and then just moves on. She was SUPER into Harry Potter, consumed EVERYTHING associated with it, and then...just moved on as soon as she finished with it. Now she's on to Percy Jackson, and in another month, who knows?
She's getting into creating stuff on her mom's iPad, and she's always enjoyed this or that kid-oriented game on some touchscreen device. I think in an environment where kids cycle through franchises fast, where nothing really lingers, and where toys are just one thing to play with (rather than the ONLY thing) and compete for playtime with electronics, it's really hard for toy brands to dominate the way they did before the Nintendo was invented, ya know?
I mean, a ton of us here grew up in the late 70s/early 80s, at a time that was just the perfect storm for toy lines. You had the deregulation of children's television, you had a lack of really compelling electronic alternatives (I mean, yeah, there was the Atari, but it was all extremely rudimentary), what could you do? Play with toys. Play with the toys that were on the shows you watched, and where each new season or episode introduced a new toy. Now? Kids play Minecraft or Fortnight or play with their stuffies and then go draw a thing on Sketch or some other creative app on a touchscreen. Why stock a toy aisle under those circumstances, apart from selling to the aging collectors market?
My daughter is 8 now. Over the years, we've bought her various toys, from stuff in the Peppa Pig line, to Fisher Price figures, to Bluey, to Star Wars Misssion Fleet, to Barbie. Thus far, the only stuff with staying power has been the Star Wars and Barbie stuff, and even that stuff she plays with sporadically. She plays waaaaaaaaay more with her stuffed animals, usually playing pretend with them. She still plays with the other stuff, but we gave away the Peppa, Fisher Price, and Bluey stuff. Mostly she's just...meh on the bulk of it. She'll think a toy is cool, but in terms of what she actually plays with, it's not especially consistent, and she often loses interest in things and then just moves on. She was SUPER into Harry Potter, consumed EVERYTHING associated with it, and then...just moved on as soon as she finished with it. Now she's on to Percy Jackson, and in another month, who knows?
She's getting into creating stuff on her mom's iPad, and she's always enjoyed this or that kid-oriented game on some touchscreen device. I think in an environment where kids cycle through franchises fast, where nothing really lingers, and where toys are just one thing to play with (rather than the ONLY thing) and compete for playtime with electronics, it's really hard for toy brands to dominate the way they did before the Nintendo was invented, ya know?
I mean, a ton of us here grew up in the late 70s/early 80s, at a time that was just the perfect storm for toy lines. You had the deregulation of children's television, you had a lack of really compelling electronic alternatives (I mean, yeah, there was the Atari, but it was all extremely rudimentary), what could you do? Play with toys. Play with the toys that were on the shows you watched, and where each new season or episode introduced a new toy. Now? Kids play Minecraft or Fortnight or play with their stuffies and then go draw a thing on Sketch or some other creative app on a touchscreen. Why stock a toy aisle under those circumstances, apart from selling to the aging collectors market?
Joek3rr
Master Member
What about us wackos from the 90s? We played with a ton of toys! (And still do
)But, yes, it seems to be the trend that kids just don't want toys. I'm curious to see how it goes with my kids. We've been trying to focus on toys and imaginative play. And less on electronics (tablet, phones, etc.)They love their cheap light up foam katanas. We have lots of duels. And my son runs around saying he's Darth Maul or General Grievous. Lol
Solos blaster
Sr Member
I agree. I remember trying to get my kids into stuff growing up, early 00’s so toys were still big, but tech was definitely in the driver seat and starting to pull away. My son got the first run of almost all the transformers from the 07 movie, Dark Knight Batman and Robin, etc. We played with them but he never took to them the way I did as a kid. Even if he had friends that had them it was still more video games and believe it or not NERF Guns that they wanted to run around with.
Even as he got older, he had no real affinity for action figures or legos, they got built but never played with, even if it was brand he was interested in or loved. Nerf Guns and video games though, all over it. The kids would have “NERF wars” they called it and it was just running around playing war, not really any different than we did in the 80’s. No darts just playing war, the boys and girls alike.
I feel like the action figure biz is drawn to by collectors and designers companies who grew up when they were the hot item and they ran for what…nearly four decades before video games have supplanted them wholly. And that is what they continue to rely on and think there will always be a market for it, but it’s dwindling, aging out and not being replaced at a steady rate population like it was when we grew up because the market was saturated with it like video game systems and market is now.
Ideology on what’s being made or what and why isn’t is a factor, add to that people not buying them due to their thoughts on unpopular movies or characters. Add to that the lack of action figure interest, and you have the current situation.
I think going into the next decade, bigger toy companies will streamline their products looking for “smaller” more profitable or guaranteed ROI lines. Maybe some even take risks backing some more independent 3rd party designers since that does seem rather popular now. In any case, I think as the collective age for collectors goes up the appeal of large scale lines with “collect them all” interests will die out.
Didn't action figures as collectibles really take off with the start of the dot com boom and everyone was decorating their cubicles with them? I remember friends collecting the Mcfarlane stuff just as hipster decorations.
Interesting… first I’ve ever heard of this
Maybe it was just a bay area thing, I've only worked in an office job once, for sure game developers love to decorate their slave quarters aka cubicles.
I agree that modern kids are less into toys in a general way.
The toy era that many of us grew up in was an anomaly. It was Peak Franchise Toys. It started with Star Wars in 1977 and ran until about early-1990s Batman.
In the mid-1990s more elaborate techy things like video games were gaining 'market share'. But by that time it had been almost 20 straight years of rolling franchises. They all sold the same categories of stuff. Action figures + vehicles + playsets, along with a few more side items like coloring books and primitive video games. Rinse and repeat every 2-3 years as the hot franchise changes over.
Everybody remembers the monsters like SW and TMNT and Transformers. But there were so many others too. Voltron. GI Joe. Dukes of Hazzard. Mask. Care Bears. My Little Pony. He-Man. Go-Bots. Ghostbusters. Etc. There were oddball ones that didn't quite fit the franchise mold like Cabbage Patch kids or Teddy Ruxpin. There were even things that would be electronic media today but they were tangible plastic items at the time, like Speak-n-Spell or Viewmasters. The whole toy industry came up with so many reasons to sell cheap bright-colored plastic in such a short time.
The toy era that many of us grew up in was an anomaly. It was Peak Franchise Toys. It started with Star Wars in 1977 and ran until about early-1990s Batman.
In the mid-1990s more elaborate techy things like video games were gaining 'market share'. But by that time it had been almost 20 straight years of rolling franchises. They all sold the same categories of stuff. Action figures + vehicles + playsets, along with a few more side items like coloring books and primitive video games. Rinse and repeat every 2-3 years as the hot franchise changes over.
Everybody remembers the monsters like SW and TMNT and Transformers. But there were so many others too. Voltron. GI Joe. Dukes of Hazzard. Mask. Care Bears. My Little Pony. He-Man. Go-Bots. Ghostbusters. Etc. There were oddball ones that didn't quite fit the franchise mold like Cabbage Patch kids or Teddy Ruxpin. There were even things that would be electronic media today but they were tangible plastic items at the time, like Speak-n-Spell or Viewmasters. The whole toy industry came up with so many reasons to sell cheap bright-colored plastic in such a short time.
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I think it was earlier than that.
In 1985 I was 11 years old, and my 11-year-old friend was keeping many of his Star Wars action figures in the packages. I couldn't understand why at the time...
I think it depends on the kid. My nephew was born in 2003 and he had tons of SW figures and LEGO stuff. He played with it as much as he played video games.
Joek3rr
Master Member
10 year ago, Disney/Lucasfilm redefined the Star Wars canon. And began anew....
I remember being equally saddened and excited. At the time I had just recently finished playing Jedi Academy for the first time. And I was sad that the new continuity wouldn't have these characters I knew and loved, like Kyle Katarn or Bastilla.
But on the other hand, I was excited to see some missteps of the EU kind of corrected. Like finally Palpatine would stay dead. And Sith wouldn't return post ROTJ. (Yeah that aged like milk.) I was excited to have a new continuity that I could keep up with while it was coming out. Up to that point I had been so far behind in reading the novels and comics.
But then the continuity started to reveal itself. Rebels was immediately off putting. It looked so childish. And though I came around to it eventually,(though I still dislike the revised background lore for the Rebel fighters.) I had already begun blocking out parts of the new continuity. And was already pretty hesitant going forward.
The hype of The Force Awakens completely altered that. I loved it. And Rogue One. And, yes I loved The Last Jedi. And Solo. And I started getting into 2008s The Clone Wars, and I started to love that. I started to parrot the whole "the EU was never 'canon'." "George didn't consider it 'canon'." (yikes I cringe at my past self.)
And then came The Rise of Skywalker. And the new continuity started to fall for me. They had just repeated the same mistake that I hoped they wouldn't. The Mandalorian gave some hope. But then season 2 came out. And Book of Boba Fett. Add to that certain behind the scenes issues, which led to my wife asking me to cancel our Disney+ subscription. With Kenobi being the last show, and final nail in the coffin for me.
For a while I felt a little lost. I was looking forward to experiencing all this new Star Wars with my children and sharing the love I have for Star Wars. And then I remembered the old EU. "But it's not 'canon'!" "It was never 'canon' to George!" I argued with myself. It doesn't really count. And then I realized I had duped into thinking a certain way. That didn't matter if George saw it as "canon" or not. He certainly didn't see the new continuity as "canon." And so I came back to the EU. And it's been amazing. It felt like returning to my childhood home.
And yeah the EU isn't all good. And it's got some stinkers. And the new continuity has some genuinely good stories. But at the end of the day. I'm going to choose the continuity that has Kyle Katarn. The continuity that has the Rogue Squadron games, and the Knights of the Old Republic series. The continuity with Tales of the Jedi and the Clone Wars Multimedia project. And the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project.
And while I still love The Last Jedi. At the end of the day I'm going to choose the continuity where my hero Luke Skywalker was actually successful in rebuilding the Jedi Order. Where Luke Skywalker is and remains the New Hope. That is my continuity. That I will always remain "canon" to me. Regardless of what George says, or the company that owns the rights.
Long live the Expanded Universe. May we as fans continue to share it with friends, family our children and random people on the Internet.
I remember being equally saddened and excited. At the time I had just recently finished playing Jedi Academy for the first time. And I was sad that the new continuity wouldn't have these characters I knew and loved, like Kyle Katarn or Bastilla.
But on the other hand, I was excited to see some missteps of the EU kind of corrected. Like finally Palpatine would stay dead. And Sith wouldn't return post ROTJ. (Yeah that aged like milk.) I was excited to have a new continuity that I could keep up with while it was coming out. Up to that point I had been so far behind in reading the novels and comics.
But then the continuity started to reveal itself. Rebels was immediately off putting. It looked so childish. And though I came around to it eventually,(though I still dislike the revised background lore for the Rebel fighters.) I had already begun blocking out parts of the new continuity. And was already pretty hesitant going forward.
The hype of The Force Awakens completely altered that. I loved it. And Rogue One. And, yes I loved The Last Jedi. And Solo. And I started getting into 2008s The Clone Wars, and I started to love that. I started to parrot the whole "the EU was never 'canon'." "George didn't consider it 'canon'." (yikes I cringe at my past self.)
And then came The Rise of Skywalker. And the new continuity started to fall for me. They had just repeated the same mistake that I hoped they wouldn't. The Mandalorian gave some hope. But then season 2 came out. And Book of Boba Fett. Add to that certain behind the scenes issues, which led to my wife asking me to cancel our Disney+ subscription. With Kenobi being the last show, and final nail in the coffin for me.
For a while I felt a little lost. I was looking forward to experiencing all this new Star Wars with my children and sharing the love I have for Star Wars. And then I remembered the old EU. "But it's not 'canon'!" "It was never 'canon' to George!" I argued with myself. It doesn't really count. And then I realized I had duped into thinking a certain way. That didn't matter if George saw it as "canon" or not. He certainly didn't see the new continuity as "canon." And so I came back to the EU. And it's been amazing. It felt like returning to my childhood home.
And yeah the EU isn't all good. And it's got some stinkers. And the new continuity has some genuinely good stories. But at the end of the day. I'm going to choose the continuity that has Kyle Katarn. The continuity that has the Rogue Squadron games, and the Knights of the Old Republic series. The continuity with Tales of the Jedi and the Clone Wars Multimedia project. And the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project.
And while I still love The Last Jedi. At the end of the day I'm going to choose the continuity where my hero Luke Skywalker was actually successful in rebuilding the Jedi Order. Where Luke Skywalker is and remains the New Hope. That is my continuity. That I will always remain "canon" to me. Regardless of what George says, or the company that owns the rights.
Long live the Expanded Universe. May we as fans continue to share it with friends, family our children and random people on the Internet.
THIS!!!!!
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