Hasbro's Questions & Answers #57

     Don't forget, you can submit questions in our forums and we'll try to get as many as possible submitted to Hasbro. We can send only three questions per week, so make sure they are good ones! Now, on to this weeks Questions and Answers directly from Hasbro.

Q. We recently saw the Diamond/Online exclusive Pirate TIE Fighter with Hobbie revealed.  It's an interesting take on the upscaled TIE Fighter.  But will it feature some of the unique aspects of that TIE as it was featured in the Dark Horse EMPIRE series?  Can we expect Hobbie to come with a sniper rifle, and the TIE to include some kind of additional hyperdrive pack and astomech droid?  The higher price point (approx. $55) compared with the current TRU exclusive TIE Fighter ($39.99) seems to suggest that there might be some value added features.  Can collectors expect as much?

A. It will be the existing TIE with the new deco.  We just couldn't afford to redo the body for the Astromech port and instead drew inspiration from the idea that these TIEs, with their pilots Biggs, Hobbie, Wes Jansen, etc., formed an important early wing of the Rogue Squadron's forces after their mutiny from the Ran Ecliptic storyline. As for retail price, we don't set that, and retailers often vary for the same item.  When it's an exclusive, they set the price they need to drive their overall business, so it's difficult to infer features from the price or even compare across retailers in this case.

Q. In the ramp-up to The Clone Wars, we've seen artwork on www.starwars.com for the Y-Wing fighter as it would appear in The Clone Wars (image attached). If the Y-Wing does appear in the Clone Wars series in this form and it gets enough screen time to be a serious contender for the vehicle line, would you redesign it from the ground up, or attempt to modify the existing tools and add some kind of body fairings?  One of the interesting EU notes about the vehicle is that it required such regular maintenance that the groundcrews started to leave the body fairings off in order to more easily maintain their fighters.

A. The new Y-Wing is definitely one of the vehicles we have our eye on, and if it appears in enough episodes we would take a look at it.  It is so different that it would need to be an all-new vehicle, hence our wait-and-see approach, balanced against other vehicles that we may see coming down the road as well.

Q.In a previous Q&A session with Jedi Temple Archives Hasbro confirmed that we will be seeing the Republic Gunship reissued with new deco.  Will the Gunship be shipping to retail in cases of Gunships alone, or as part of a large vehicle assortment as it did with the Revenge Of The Sith era ARC-170?  And can we get a sneak peek at the new deco for this fan favorite vehicle? Is this new deco shown on the box of the Wal-Mart exclusive that recently showed up online?

A. The Republic Gunship will be shipping by itself and not as part of an assortment.  The colors are reminiscent of the EpIII color scheme with the addition of the new Squadron-approach to nose art insignia.   In this case, it's a cool version of a Twi'Lek.

Check back in a few weeks and we'll post the next round of Questions (and answers) as soon as Hasbro offers them.

    Hasbro Homepage
    Search Hasbro

Most Recent Hasbro: