New Vintage Collection Tooling That Would Be Wise Investments For Reuse

Posted by Chris on 05/06/22 at 07:05 AM Category: Vintage Collection

If my dire forecasts for the Vintage Collection come to pass should plastic free packaging come to the line, Hasbro will have to get inventive with the tooling budget to keep the volume of figures per year at a decent level. The easiest way to do this is to stretch the budget with sculpts that can be repurposed to make many unique characters with minimal new tooling required. Here are three:

Imperial Officers

This one is honestly a little overdue. Our best Imperial Officer sculpt dates all the way back to 2008 with BD40 - Captain Needa. That figure no longer cuts it for a number of reasons. With a host of Original Trilogy Imperial Officers that need to be updated or made for the first time, lead by Captain/Admiral Piett, plus officers from new media, such as Director Krennic, Hasbro could crank out a ton of figures from one definitive tooling template. Plus, who wouldn't want a Valin Hess to go with the upcoming Morak Din Djarin and Mayfeld?

Protocol Droids

Despite the fact that the C3-series protocol droid is ubiquitous through the entirety of Star Wars, we do not have a definitive sculpt of one. The current standard bearer, VC06 - C-3PO, is really starting to show its warts. It's too small, and OUR PETS' HEADS ITS PARTS ARE FALLING OFF. Some fans want to see Hasbro use the Build-a-droid (BAD) sculpt for protocol droids, but that is also too dated. Protocol droids do not need Jedi-Level-Articulation (JLA), but they do need ankles! New C3-series protocol droid tooling could go a long, long way.

Phase II Clones

As I keep mentioning every chance I can get, I am completely and utterly over removable-helmet Phase II Clones on the super skinny VC45 Clone Trooper body (please note that for some reason the Phase I Clones don't look quite as bad using that sculpt). The George Lucas iteration of LFL put massive importance on merchandizing, which is assuredly why the Phase II Clones expressed their organizational assignments via distinctive paint applications. It allowed many characters toys from one. That's why new Phase II Clone tooling would be in service until it cracked.