Hot toys Snowspeeder Pilot Luke Skywalker

[Chronos1919]

Wait didn?t the SS clone troopers sell like crazy.

Or did they sit around.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that was after the Clone Wars TV show launched and revitalized interest in the PT. PT toys were warming pegs during the theatrical release of the PT, aside from popular characters like Darth Maul.

 

[TaliBane]

I think it?s clear HT overproduced figures for TFA. People bought them, just not in the droves they were expecting. A lot of the troopers that are warming shelves still also have those awful rubber under-suits that make them difficult to pose. They were very hesitant to produce more figures for TLJ and RoS after sales of TFA not meeting their predicted hype.

The same thing happened with the PT. An *** ton of merchandise sat around warming shelves/pegs after they hit the theater. Eventually fans came around and/or new fans came on board. The Clone Wars series helped with the PT popularity as well. If HT had been in a place to make PT figures as that point in time you would have seen the same thing happen. Sure Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Darth Maul, and others would have sold but the clone soldiers and lesser characters wouldn?t have moved so quickly.

Overproduced - not sure, I guess so to some degree. But the drop in the number of HT figures from TFA to TLJ to TROS was just stunning.

I mean you'd think if it was overproduction they'd dial it back by a 1/3 and the following two movies would be about the same - but the numbers plummeted from something like 25 for TFA to less than 10 for TLJ to like 5 for TROS. You'd think at those levels that's underproduction.

Hard to compare HT and Hasbro but while Hasbro dialed back numbers from TPM to AOTC, they cut it by maybe 1/3 or so from what I saw. But there was still a TON of stuff from AOTC and ROTS.

There is that uncomfortable parallel between TPM and TFA - both did huge BO but didn't seem to drive similarly massive interest in toys/collectibles, resulting in a huge glut of unsold merch.

 

[Chronos1919]

Overproduced - not sure, I guess so to some degree. But the drop in the number of HT figures from TFA to TLJ to TROS was just stunning.

Hot Toys also has a limited pipeline to produce figures. Why make a slew of ST figures, especially when they don’t sell as well in China, when you can pump out a ****-ton of MCU figures (that sell like crazy everywhere) instead? Rogue One was well received and they skipped over key characters from that film as well.

 

[medicomsucks]

Everything sideshow sold out early on. I remember old Ben crashing the sideshow website. The clones killed the sideshow line imo. Everything was Clone after Clone. That?s when they stopped selling out right away. People got sick of buying the same repaint on floppy bodies.
They did make some great background characters like the probe droid, tusken, greedo...
Then hot toys came along.

I think at the time another problem with the clone troopers may have been the medicom line of troopers, there were a bunch in just a couple of years, that may have pressured sideshow to crank out their troopers to try to beat medicom to the punch.

I remember trying to order from sideshow back then. I think i spent more time fighting with the priority pre order page crashing than playing with the figures. Then there would be the crash after checking out and then the anxiety of Did my order go through?

 

[TurdFurgusonsHat]

Overproduced - not sure, I guess so to some degree. But the drop in the number of HT figures from TFA to TLJ to TROS was just stunning.

I mean you'd think if it was overproduction they'd dial it back by a 1/3 and the following two movies would be about the same - but the numbers plummeted from something like 25 for TFA to less than 10 for TLJ to like 5 for TROS. You'd think at those levels that's underproduction.

Hard to compare HT and Hasbro but while Hasbro dialed back numbers from TPM to AOTC, they cut it by maybe 1/3 or so from what I saw. But there was still a TON of stuff from AOTC and ROTS.

There is that uncomfortable parallel between TPM and TFA - both did huge BO but didn't seem to drive similarly massive interest in toys/collectibles, resulting in a huge glut of unsold merch.

There is all the evidence in the world out there that a reasonable person can deduce that ST toys don't sell, but toy companies have also now gone on record saying as much. Even Hasbro stopped making ST stuff

 

[jye4ever]

There is all the evidence in the world out there that a reasonable person can deduce that ST toys don't sell, but toy companies have also now gone on record saying as much. Even Hasbro stopped making ST stuff

True now but by the 20th anniversary of TFA the ST will sell toys like crazy and have its own doomcock defending the hell out of it.


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[TurdFurgusonsHat]

True now but by the 20th anniversary of TFA the ST will sell toys like crazy and have its own doomcock defending the hell out of it.


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Maybe after I retire I'll be able to break close to even on the damn TFA Hot Toys I bought

 

[Hoody999]

Maybe after I retire I'll be able to break close to even on the damn TFA Hot Toys I bought

hahaha that's my gameplay too

Until then, I'll pretend to love them

 

[Chronos1919]

True now but by the 20th anniversary of TFA the ST will sell toys like crazy and have its own doomcock defending the hell out of it.

That’s likely. A friend keeps sending me those Doomcock videos. I find them irritating. Seems like a guy just pouring gasoline on a fire and telling anti-ST SW fans what they want to hear.

 

[TurdFurgusonsHat]

That?s likely. A friend keeps sending me those Doomcock videos. I find them irritating. Seems like a guy just pouring gasoline on a fire and telling anti-ST SW fans what they want to hear.

It's easy to discount a YouTube guy in a mask with a voice changer. But this guy 100% has at least one reliable source, he is the one who early leaked the entire moronic plot of TROS. That being said it's pretty hard to take some of the recent stuff he has been hinting at seriously. Like 80 year old George is going to head up Lucasfilm and start a new trilogy...yikes

 

[Chronos1919]

It's easy to discount a YouTube guy in a mask with a voice changer. But this guy 100% has at least one reliable source, he is the one who early leaked the entire moronic plot of TROS. That being said it's pretty hard to take some of the recent stuff he has been hinting at seriously. Like 80 year old George is going to head up Lucasfilm and start a new trilogy...yikes

I feel like he's really gone off the rails lately, as you mentioned. From what I've read about his accurate leaks though, it appears that information was already leaked on forums before Doomcock regurgitated it in his Youtube videos. Though I guess plagiarism can make for a reliable source.

 

[user 67922]

True now but by the 20th anniversary of TFA the ST will sell toys like crazy and have its own doomcock defending the hell out of it.


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As someone currently selling off their entire Hot Toys ST collection I can confirm that these bloody things absolutely do not sell... unless you're practically giving them away. I've sold hundreds of Star Wars toys in the past few years and the ST stuff is by far the hardest stuff to shift on, even at rock bottom prices. The designs and characters just don't have the same coolness factor of the OT and PT, or even the Disney SW Story films. Maybe it's a case of the ST fanbase being predominantly 20 somethings and not having the same disposable income as us old gits.

 

[TurdFurgusonsHat]

As someone currently selling off their entire Hot Toys ST collection I can confirm that these bloody things absolutely do not sell... unless you're practically giving them away. I've sold hundreds of Star Wars toys in the past few years and the ST stuff is by far the hardest stuff to shift on, even at rock bottom prices. The designs and characters just don't have the same coolness factor of the OT and PT, or even the Disney SW Story films. Maybe it's a case of the ST fanbase being predominantly 20 somethings and not having the same disposable income as us old gits.

If the ST was any good boomers would like it too

 

[ZE_501]

The ST has no cultural resonance at this time.

Good or bad, that resonance is more often than not conferred by *time* ? on the order of decades.

Disney?s heavy handed marketing scheme depended on riding on the coattails of the other films ? yes, even the PT because those small children that thrilled to Yoda flipping around and swarms of battle droids vs Jedi are of an age where they?re susceptible to nostalgia.

Outside of nostalgia you need stand-out, resonant storytelling, which is where the ST IMO failed, because contrary to their party line of ?subverting expectations? ... what they really tried to do was pawn off a highly polished copy of a copy that ? in this geek?s opinion ? lacked heart.

Disney?s ST was insincere, and I think it showed. Years from now, maybe the very young children I saw playing with Lego First Order stormtroopers will look on it more kindly, because it?s connected to their childhood.

But in the age of bloated media and infoglut, it?s unlikely to have the same potency of what went before. Maybe other entertainment, with more resonant narratives, will. I don?t know; I?m slowly aging out of this stuff anyway. I?ll always love it for what it was, but one moves on, bit by bit.


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[Rzeznikk]

As someone currently selling off their entire Hot Toys ST collection I can confirm that these bloody things absolutely do not sell... unless you're practically giving them away. I've sold hundreds of Star Wars toys in the past few years and the ST stuff is by far the hardest stuff to shift on, even at rock bottom prices. The designs and characters just don't have the same coolness factor of the OT and PT, or even the Disney SW Story films. Maybe it's a case of the ST fanbase being predominantly 20 somethings and not having the same disposable income as us old gits.

If the ST was any good boomers would like it too

The ST has no cultural resonance at this time.

Good or bad, that resonance is more often than not conferred by *time* ? on the order of decades.

Disney?s heavy handed marketing scheme depended on riding on the coattails of the other films ? yes, even the PT because those small children that thrilled to Yoda flipping around and swarms of battle droids vs Jedi are of an age where they?re susceptible to nostalgia.

Outside of nostalgia you need stand-out, resonant storytelling, which is where the ST IMO failed, because contrary to their party line of ?subverting expectations? ... what they really tried to do was pawn off a highly polished copy of a copy that ? in this geek?s opinion ? lacked heart.

Disney?s ST was insincere, and I think it showed. Years from now, maybe the very young children I saw playing with Lego First Order stormtroopers will look on it more kindly, because it?s connected to their childhood.

But in the age of bloated media and infoglut, it?s unlikely to have the same potency of what went before. Maybe other entertainment, with more resonant narratives, will. I don?t know; I?m slowly aging out of this stuff anyway. I?ll always love it for what it was, but one moves on, bit by bit.


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This is exactly why I think HT marketing strategy sucks!

OT fan base are older, more disposable income. And they are alienating that fan base to cater to the hype train.

They should be focusing on OT now before that fanbase has phased out. The kiddos that were introduced to SW with the ST will be around a lot longer than us older generations. [emoji1]

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[dukefett]

I know HT is to blame with so many different TFA releases, but also remember, it was all these retailers who placed these orders that stock their shelves now. I'm sure some (like BBTS) had super easy cancellation policies that left them stuck with the products, but I still would be they over-ordered to have stock since they almost always do. So I don't entirely blame HTs on the glut of product now.

 

[Hoody999]

I know HT is to blame with so many different TFA releases, but also remember, it was all these retailers who placed these orders that stock their shelves now. I'm sure some (like BBTS) had super easy cancellation policies that left them stuck with the products, but I still would be they over-ordered to have stock since they almost always do. So I don't entirely blame HTs on the glut of product now.

This is what I've been saying for years.

Many people just don't seem to understand that all the Hot Toys figures warming shelves don't belong to Hot Toys, the stores ordered them (based on customer pre-orders) and their own estimations on what they think would sell in the next year or so.

It is the shops who were expecting so many sales, not necessarily Hot Toys.

 

[ObiGlennKenobi]

Another week and STILL NO PO for this figure.
Come on Hot toys!!

 

[jedibear]

Was wondering about that myself....sure hope this isn't another convention showpiece that never sees the light of day!

 

[TonTon]

This is what I've been saying for years.

Many people just don't seem to understand that all the Hot Toys figures warming shelves don't belong to Hot Toys, the stores ordered them (based on customer pre-orders) and their own estimations on what they think would sell in the next year or so.

It is the shops who were expecting so many sales, not necessarily Hot Toys.

I thought I remember hearing that stores had to adhere to minimum pre-order numbers back in the day to keep in good standing, and that this policy maybe came to ahead with the TFA figures. Nearly every store imaginable got stuck with these figures so it's hard to believe that they all were victim to pre-order cancellations and drastic over ordering, etc.

It used to often be the case that some HT would be so overproduced that they would get massive 30% to 40% off sales during Sideshow's spook week, early Avengers figures like Banner, the mime 89 Joker, I remember those getting deep discounts when I first started collecting. Pretty sure even the die cast Robocop got discounted at some point. It's seemingly more and more rare that HT figures linger too long now, even before COVID. Really wish edition sizes were made public like SS did back in the day.