What has happened to Star Wars toys?

[NakedMoleRat]

I remember when they dominated the stores. There would be entire isles dedicated just to Star Wars toys.

Now I walk in and all I find is one role-play light saber, and half a dozen black series Jar Jar Binks.

If I want anything these days I have to order it through Amazon.

 

[Cbstudios]

Star Wars doesn't sell well in brick-and-morter retail. A combination of flooded market with toys beginning with The Force Awakens, and a children's target market without a huge interest in the property meant stock didn't really move, so stores didn't want to order as much stock, rinse and repeat until current day. Adult collectors don't buy the kinda product numbers needed to keep it a viable in-store brand.

 

[benhs1898]

Also there isn’t a movie out right now. Big box stores are very particular about how the block out their licensed stuff. Too pragmatic to fill shelves with product in off-years.

 

[Gregatron]

“What has happened to Star Wars toys?”​

They’ve gone away because a soulless and evil corporation called Disney bought the rights, and the franchise was murdered and milked to death by hacks named JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson. In a bitter twist of irony, the ultimate story of rebels fighting against the establishment, made by the most successful and visionary independent filmmaker in history, has now been absorbed into the establishment and been deconstructed beyond recognition within the span of only a few years. This cultural vandalism has also spread to virtually every other beloved nerd franchise, and none will survive.

As a result, people are growing up and moving on, and STAR WARS will slowly and painfully suffer the same fate as its initial inspiration, FLASH GORDON—faded into the mists of history, followed by a loyal niche group of fans, and occasionally trotted out for fair-to-middling reboots over the next few decades.

 

[MattWinchell]

“What has happened to Star Wars toys?”​

They’ve gone away because a soulless and evil corporation called Disney bought the rights, and the franchise was murdered and milked to death by hacks named JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson. In a bitter twist of irony, the ultimate story of rebels fighting against the establishment, made by the most successful and visionary independent filmmaker in history, has now been absorbed into the establishment and been deconstructed beyond recognition within the span of only a few years. This cultural vandalism has also spread to virtually every other beloved nerd franchise, and none will survive.

As a result, people are growing up and moving on, and STAR WARS will slowly and painfully suffer the same fate as its initial inspiration, FLASH GORDON—faded into the mists of history, followed by a loyal niche group of fans, and occasionally trotted out for fair-to-middling reboots over the next few decades.

I can't tell if this is a joke or if you're actually being serious. I won't bother then if so...

 

[Psab keel]

If you get a chance, this video sums it up pretty well.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Spot on!

He's so right about Amazon. I preordered the Mandalorian Retro Collection in October of last year, with a July 2021 delivery. I saw a couple of the figures on the shelf in May. Amazon still sent mine in July, just shoved in a box and each card was bent or curled. Pretty ticked off as I bought them to leave them carded.

 

[Psab keel]

I've been trying to collect the Masters of the Universe Origins line and other than the wave of the first 6 figures, The Sky Sled, Battlecat and Panthor, I haven't been able to find a single new piece in ANY local retail outlets. I've had to get everything else on Walmart.com, Big Bad Toy Store and Evilbay.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Oh, I have been a willing victim of eBay more than once. Tried to get a hold of the Mandalorian and Child three and three-quarter vintage figures. Had to wind up paying $33 for one!

 

[Psab keel]

I had to really hone in on which figures I was going to get because even the few I purchased were way overpriced, though unless Mattel fixes their distribution there is no other way to get them.

 

[CT1138]

The death of SW toys is a sad, long story culminating in a number of factors...

1. Hasbro cheapened out on us. That's really the biggest problem. Hasbro. Is. Cheap. And it's the worst with their licensed lines. In 2015, Hasbro got the Jurassic Park license taken away by Universal. The number one reason: Hasbro made cheap crap that nobody wanted to buy, not even the most die-hard completist collectors. Hasbro took a license they were already putting minimal effort into just so nobody else could have it, and made it worse. And now they're doing the same with Star Wars. If it's not Transformers or Ponies, Hasbro doesn't care. I legitimately think that Hasbro doesn't want to do licensed toys anymore, but they also don't want anybody else to do them either. So they're just content to sit on the license, toss a bone every once in a great while, and let the ends justify the means.

The problem with not putting effort into your toys is that it becomes a situation of self-sabotage. Hasbro makes bad toys. Kids don't want bad toys, they want good toys. Parents aren't going to spend money on bad toys, either. So nobody buys the bad toys, and it allows Hasbro to justify making bad toys because, "well sales are down anyway." This way, Hasbro justifies their self-sabotage to share-holders. No money going in equals no money going out. It's self-fulfilling BS.

2. Disney is an easy target to take pot shots at simply because they're the stereotypical evil corporation, but there's no denying that they made a bad situation worse. The reason Jurassic Park toys got better is because Universal noticed Hasbro license-sitting, and putting minimal effort into the license for 15 years, and took the license away and gave it to Mattel. Now Mattel is making money hand over fist on figures Hasbro had deemed "unsellable" like sauropod toys, and large scale figures (dubbed the "Super Colossal" line). But Disney is apathetic. They don't care, because they have money pouring in for Star Wars from a half a dozen other places. Games, Disney+, continuing home release sales, franchising, licensing to dozens of other merchandizers from Dole pineapples to cotton beach towels.

If you want another example of just HOW apathetic Disney can be, look no further than the Anovos situation. What Anovos has been doing doesn't just reflect poorly on Anovos, it reflects poorly on LFL, on Star Wars, and yes on Disney. The mouse is printed there in the licensing print too. But they don't care, because money rules all. Collectors whining about a lost few hundred thousand dollars is NOTHING compared to what Disney is raking in.

3. Electronics > toys. Kids don't want toys, anymore, they want electronics! They want to shove their nose into an iPad the moment they can lift them to face the screen. You see it everyday. Babies who aren't old enough to even speak, let alone type, enthralled by flashing mobile screens. Parents know it, Hasbro knows it, and Disney knows it. Physical toys are a slowly bleeding market. Instead of using this fact to make BETTER toys to keep up, toy companies are either joining in, or giving up, and it seems Hasbro is doing the latter.

Up until the Disney buy-out in 2012, Hasbro was making some of the best Star Wars toys they'd ever been making. Then something changed. I can't say for certain it was Disney directly, or if the license change made Hasbro nervous, but it was right around then that Hasbro really just stopped trying, and they never started again.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Didn't they start cutting articulation on the regular line of SW figures? I saw some that had as much articulation as the OT figures I had as a kid. I wouldn't buy these new ones if my nephew was a kid now. I'm glad he had the awesome Prequel-2014 figures to play with!

I would also say the incredibly boring/horrible designs from the Sequels might have caused younger kids to shy away. There wasn't really any cool ships or characters from this entire trilogy. That's why the model companies that have the SW license put out the Sequel X-Wing and a few other things and then they sat on the shelf because no one likes them.

 

[CT1138]

Didn't they start cutting articulation on the regular line of SW figures? I saw some that had as much articulation as the OT figures I had as a kid. I wouldn't buy these new ones if my nephew was a kid now. I'm glad he had the awesome Prequel-2014 figures to play with!

Yes, I believe they returned to 5poa figures as a means of cost-cutting.

I would also say the incredibly boring/horrible designs from the Sequels might have caused younger kids to shy away. There wasn't really any cool ships or characters from this entire trilogy. That's why the model companies that have the SW license put out the Sequel X-Wing and a few other things and then they sat on the shelf because no one likes them.

That's something else, too. I once recall somebody pointing out how Kenner built the OT toylines around the ships and playsets. They would release the figures, and then a few exclusive figures in a Cantina playset, and suddenly you wanted ALL the figures to complete your Cantina playset. Hasbro did similar with the figures/ships for the PT toy lines. Sure, you got your Jedi starfighter, but now you need R2 and Anakin to stick into the pilot's seat and droid slot. It was a clever marketing ploy, and yes it worked. Hasbro thought they could get away with selling Han Solos, Reys, and Kylo Rens, but not make figure scale Millennium Falcons and TIE Silencers to put them in. Turns out kids DO want the sleek, cool star fighters that make pew-pew noises.

Not to mention the low quality of the lightsabers and blasters. Hasbro tried selling them on gimmicks like Nerf, but kids don't want neon orange blasters, they want what was in the movie! I can, and have, made full write-ups on just the spiraling quality of Hasbro blasters/sabers.

 

[batguy]

That's something else, too. I once recall somebody pointing out how Kenner built the OT toylines around the ships and playsets. They would release the figures, and then a few exclusive figures in a Cantina playset, and suddenly you wanted ALL the figures to complete your Cantina playset. Hasbro did similar with the figures/ships for the PT toy lines. Sure, you got your Jedi starfighter, but now you need R2 and Anakin to stick into the pilot's seat and droid slot. It was a clever marketing ploy, and yes it worked. Hasbro thought they could get away with selling Han Solos, Reys, and Kylo Rens, but not make figure scale Millennium Falcons and TIE Silencers to put them in. Turns out kids DO want the sleek, cool star fighters that make pew-pew noises.

I was just about to bring up this issue.

The modern SW toys have a really straightforward problem - they didn't stick to one scale/line that was targeted at kids.

In 1977-83 there was a single scale were you could buy every character. They were all small enough to be cheap priced, and they would fit inside affordable-size versions of the vehicles. There were even some playsets. Again, all of it was small/cheap enough so that lots of kids on the block had them.

If your toys are large & detailed (and fragile) enough to impress adult collectors then they are wrong for the kid market. SW lost sight of this.
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I remember walking through the toy aisle at Walmart after TFA opened and there was no Millennium Falcon playset for the figures. FFS, Hasbro had just retooled a whole new Falcon in 2008. They couldn't even be bothered to change the satellite dish and release it for TFA? That ship had a huge starring role in the movie.

But hey, I understand, the adult collectors who love the OT wouldn't have bought the same Falcon again just to get the squared dish. That's who the toys are really for, right?

 

[Psab keel]

Hasbro has priced the toys out of the range for kids to be able to afford them on their own too. Even a lot of adult collectors don't want to pay nearly $30.00 for a single figure. Not to mention the quality control is all over the place. The few times I do see a SW figure on the shelves often the head sculpt or paint application is so bad, no one would want to waste their money on some mutated looking caricature of their favorite hero or villain. The reason I had so many G.I.Joes as a kid growing up in a lower middle class family was because they were affordable. I could go into a store with my own pocket money saved up from allowance or birthdays and buy my own toys. Nowadays just to get a decent collection for a kid to play a simple adventure could easily cost them well over $100.00 for a handful of figures alone. That doesn't include vehicles, playsets, etc. Inflation plays a part, but it's role is diminished significantly when in context to all these other factors.

Part of why I go back and forth with wanting to collect the modern Star Wars figure lines is not just the lack of availability. Even if I could get my hands on all the characters I wanted or the sculpts/ paint was consistant enough to know I wouldn't be throwing my money at mutated space imps, I could afford some really cool screen accurate props or costume materials instead. So I'd just rather spend my money where I know it would be better invested. In items the fans make. Time and again when I do get the bug to collect the official merchandise, I always end up bored with it and end up reselling it at a significant loss.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

I ponied up $25.00 at Game Stop for the 6” Luke X Wing pilot figure in retro packaging. I could not find him anywhere else.

That hurt but I did it. I never had a X wing Luke so I grabbed it.

It’s ridiculous that the only figure on the shelves at Walmart or Target right now is the 6” Jar Jar Binks with shield for $30.00. Kind of a strange choice for a character when no one is demanding him, especially at that price.

Even the Grogu demand seems to have died down with toys.

 

[Psab keel]

The fact that they thought it was a good idea to try and create new versions of the worst selling action figure from The Phantom Menace should tell you everything you need to know about Hasbro's approach to Star Wars. Nostalgia mining never works for very long and even time couldn't redeem that character.

I think my interest in collecting any new figures has more to do with missing out on being able to collect the vintage Kenner line as a kid and I've just been chasing that since and have tried a few times over the years to recapture that feeling. I'd much rather have props and costumes from my favorite characters in the series than any figure though which is why I've focused on them rather than any of the merchandise.

 

[CT1138]

The fact that they thought it was a good idea to try and create new versions of the worst selling action figure from The Phantom Menace should tell you everything you need to know about Hasbro's approach to Star Wars. Nostalgia mining never works for very long and even time couldn't redeem that character.

I loved the prequels growing up, and even *I* disliked Jar Jar. A friend of mine is a big Palpatine fan, and is livid with Hasbro that they produced Jar Jar in the 6in scale, but not ROS Palpatine. Like I said, I think Hasbro is purposely trying to sabotage the license. Whoever thought it was a good idea to produce a 6in Jar Jar obviously has no knowledge of the Star Wars fandom, or the collectors.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

I’ve just gotten into helmet collecting. Black Series. I have X Wing Luke pilot helmet. Vader and Mando are in route now. Should have Vader by Thursday and hopefully Mando by Saturday.

I bought them from Zavi, in NJ, but they shipped from Great Britain?

 

[Psab keel]

I know a lot of companies who have the Star Wars lisence didn't renew after the disastrous sales records from the new trilogy. From a business perspective Star Wars just isn't the juggernaught property it once was. The excitement or lack thereof from the new material is what fuels or stalls the sales of merchandise. I thought Disney of all companies would be able to take Lucas's model of being able to milk every dollar from Star Wars to a whole new level of success. I mean we also have to consider that Star Wars had no competitors when it debuted so that's certainly a factor in all of this. We also live in a time where there is so much content that even the giant properties don't have the shelf life the older ones did back in their heyday because there is virtually no time for people to breathe before they've moved on to the next thing. Some of it is the attitude of the culture, some of it is the acceleration of technology in fueling the pace of all the art, and some of it is the wealth of information available to people at the touch of a button. Those three factors are intrinsically tied to not only one another, but to the way we consume these products.

I had a very interesting talk with my best friend last night about art in the modern era, and he told me that he had a professor when he was in grad school that had a theory that all of popular culture basically came to a close by the end of the 1990's with the advent of the internet and that everything since has been more or less a remix or rehash of previous ideas. Essentially arguing that there is so little time for each new idea to breathe because the world moves so fast now that there is no space for true innovation. It was a fascinating concept and I think there is a lot of precedent to argue in its favor. It applies to so many aspects in these spaces that it's truly staggering when you think about it.