First here is a message from Derryl DePriest (VP at Hasbro and a bang up guy to meet in person)
Thanks to all our Star Wars sites - we hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Please send this note along to all of your readers:
It's a very exciting time for Star Wars as the extraordinary Target exclusive Vintage 9-pack will be going on sale soon (Nov. 28th). There are two important things to note with this set. First, this set will be more limited than some of our other recent exclusives. Second, Target (and we) are so excited about the Vintage collection overall and these 3-packs that we have decided to keep this "collection within a collection" idea going at Target. Another wave of 3 3-packs will be coming in Spring and like these, they follow the Vintage character lineups. We think this an exciting development, and thanks to Target's support, hopefully fans will be treated to even more in this series. Thanks again for the support and be sure to get to Target soon. Happy Holidays - the Hasbro Star Wars team.
I was just at Wal-Mart, and there is about 75% Saga Legends, 25% Vintage/Clone wars. I looked through the "legends"....yeah right. The General Grievous is just a repack of the Sneak-Peak Grievous that was so 5 years ago. How many times are the Shocktroopers and 501st troopers going to be legends in a row? Then all the same stuff: Yoda with wookie gun, C3PO w/Ewok throne, and Obi-Wan. If they aren't going to give us something new with Legends, maybe they could stop flooding the shelfs with them?
Many people assume that Saga Legends are targeted toward collectors. That is not the case. Saga Legends are targeted toward a kid audience and have been for a number of years. While we have done Saga Legends fans' votes, most notably in the 2007-08 30th Anniversary line, the large majority of figures are designed to keep the most popular characters out there in circulation. Kids are much less concerned about articulation or how old a figure is; in fact, the more articulation a figure has the harder it is for young kids to manipulate, which is why we select the figures we do. Another fallacy we are happy to address: that we keep forcing figures out to retailers instead of figure segments that sell better. Saga Legends has been a hot segment since the release of the new packaging with the Galactic Battle Game, and we have been trying to keep up with the demand.
Recently you have told another Website that a Republic Commando pack would imdeed be coming out. Then at Celebration V we seen none other than RC-1138 and the boys in several videos. So my question is this; how far in advance does Hasbro get told by the Clone Wars Producers of characters to produce? and is there any sneaky little numbers waiting in the wings?
Unfortunately, our schedules are much farther out than that of the Clone Wars productions team. It usually takes 12-18 months to produce figures and vehicles, and while the Clone Wars team usually knows the stories it will be telling more than a year in advance, we aren't usually able to get final, locked-down artwork until much later. As a result, we are usually a good six months out from the debut of a show and the time we can get anything out to take advantage of a new character. There are rare exceptions of course, and we can usually get refreshed characters (i.e. Sgt. Bric) out on a shorter time frame. The less complicated a figure is, it improves the chances of getting out quicker, like Galactic Heroes vs. a more complicated 3-3/4" figure.
