It Would Have Been Better For TVC Collectors If Hasbro Didn't Celebrate ROTJ40 At All

It would have been better if Hasbro didn’t celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Return Of The Jedi at all. (more….)

Is it just me, or is anyone else perplexed by the utter garbage The Vintage Collection has been given by Hasbro to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Return Of The Jedi supposedly?

The products are so bad they’re almost parodies of the once-focused collectors’ brand. What in the world is going on with The Vintage Collection? Are things so bad that Hasbro must recycle outdated vehicles and follow the same approach to screen-inaccurate and disproportionate playsets from the late nineties and revamp them to appear as they should belong in this decade? I was looking forward to an updated Endor Bunker playset. But when I saw how small and skewed it looked, I joked that there was no way they would recycle tooling from 1997 and release it as a premium collector-focused item. It’s all-new tooling, but why does it look exactly like the 1997 playset? It’s still too small and disproportioned. It feels like 1997 all over again.

My, my. How times have changed. And I thought a recycled Darth Revan figure from 2007 was egregious. I can’t find an appropriate vocabulary word to describe this hellish nightmare. It would have been better if Hasbro said, “Screw you, long-time Hasbro supporters. We hate you, and you’re not getting a blessed thing to celebrate the four-decade anniversary of the film that made playing with toys some of the greatest moments of our childhoods. Here! Take this garbage and shut and be happy to pay five times more for it a quarter of a century later!”

The Star Wars Return Of The Jedi line that ran from 1983 until 1984 brought us some of the most incredible characters, creatures, vehicles, and playsets of the entire Kenner line. And this is how Hasbro pays homage to it – with a decade and a half old AT-ST that has yet to stand unassisted, and even worse, an out-of-scale playset whose tooling should have been burned and destroyed 25 years ago right after it was released the first time. Hasbro doesn’t understand that this is the time to make longtime collectors happy. There has been enough Disney Star Wars crap produced to satiate the newbies. This is our time to embrace and love the film that makes toy collecting what it is today.

Hasbro, how about a new Ewok Village modular playset? What about a Darth Vader’s TIE fighter release? How about a revamped Imperial Shuttle? What about a boxed Jabba The Hutt playset? How about a six-pack of unproduced Jabba’s aliens and skiff guards (not just the repacks)? After all these years, you still do not understand your audience and what we want to spend our money on in multiples. So far, you’ve severely botched the 40th Anniversary of Return Of The Jedi for 3.75-inch super-articulated collectors. And to think you’re now throwing in 5POA playsets in the premium line is such sacrilege. I don’t think you’ll ever recover from this error. We won’t let you forget, either.

The products you revealed are offensive to the Star Wars brand, especially The Vintage Collection. How could you not even include a much-requested updated “Return Of The Jedi” alternate card with the pack-in figure? That is a colossal mistake. And while we’re sure anyone can appreciate an updated Nik Sant figure carded, the Endor Bunker playset is completely unacceptable. You should feel shame about this.

The insult to injury is far too great here. I don’t think there is any way you can come back from that. Then again, the amount of barking and clapping seals in this hobby would most definitely accept dog doo packaged on a TVC card.

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