Tag: hasbro

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Sabine Wren only female finalist in Hasbro Fan’s Choice poll

sabine

Well, the votes are in, and Rebels’ Sabine Wren was the only woman to make the finals in the Hasbro Fan’s Choice poll, up for vote now on StarWars.com. The other finalists are Ben Kenobi (A New Hope,) Lando Calrissian, Darth Revan from the Knights of the Old Republic games, General Grievous, a Gamorrean guard and a snowtrooper. When I voted, Revan had a strong lead, with Obi-Wan second and Sabine in third.

The winning character, to be announced at SDCC, will be made into a 6″ Black Series figure.

Several other women made the finals at individual sites: Mara Jade was #1 at Topless Robot , #2 at Making Star Wars and #3 at Yakface, among others. Asajj Ventress and Ahsoka Tano (The Clone Wars version) also made a strong showing – here’s an informal countup of all the sites that posted their results publicly.

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Want more Star Wars ladies, in action figure form? We’ll have to vote one in

A Leia in Boushh disguise is one of the few women featured in the 6" Black Series line so far.
A Leia in Boushh disguise is one of the few women featured in the 6″ Black Series line so far.

We’ve bemoaned how hard it is to find action figures of Hera, Sabine, and well, pretty much anyone that isn’t Slave Leia. Sure, there’s a 6″ Rebels Ahsoka figure in the pipeline, but what else can be done?

Seems like Hasbro themselves has an answer – well, sort of. They’re doing a Fan’s Choice poll for a 6″ Black Series figure, in collaboration with several Star Wars collecting fan sites, and all characters (except for those from The Force Awakens) are eligible at this point. All you have to do is submit a name – via the comments at Jedi Temple Archives and Rebelscum, or via email to Yakface. (Also: Jedi News, Making Star Wars, ComicBook.com, Sir Steve’s Guide, Topless Robot, FlyGuy, Yodasnews and Galactic Hunter, Jedi Business.) The top choices at the fan sites will be used to create a top 6 that will go up for a vote on StarWars.com next month, with the winner announced at SDCC.

This is a great opportunity to show Hasbro that there is an interest in more female figures – remember, a Fan’s Choice Poll was how we got that last Mara Jade figure, though that hasn’t stopped at least one fan from making a case for a 6″ Mara.

(H/T to The Mary Sue.)

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The Force Awakens: Interviewing Annie Leibovitz, revealing Andy Serkis’ role

snokeStarWars.com has an interview with Annie Leibovitz today about her Star Wars work for Vanity Fair. There’s a photo of Andy Serkis in mo-cap gear, and the reveal that his character is Supreme Leader Snoke.

Snoke! Granted, it’s no Sheev, but aren’t we glad I didn’t do the Twitter roundup last night?

→ The first actual The Force Awakens action figures have been spotted – on eBay, naturally. It’s a stormtrooper.

→ Spoiler corner: Finn and his hot new accessory.

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The Force Awakens: Costumes, Pip Andersen and bōjutsu

tfa-teaser2-firstorderToday, Vanity Fair has an interview with The Force Awakens costume designer Michael Kaplan, which actually feels surprising revealing for this point in the process. Namely, the stormtrooper uniforms are sturdier and Empire and Rebels First Order and Resistance are more color-coded. On that note, a new photo of Oscar Isaac in his base jumpsuit has emerged.

→ Pip Andersen talked a little bit about his role.

→ A few more tidbits from the Japanese interviews: Kathleen Kennedy said Daisy Ridley was trained in the bōjutsu fighting style, which means she’ll actually be fighting with the staff we’ve seen the trailers.

→ Hasbro has announced a Star Wars panel for SDCC. Maybe they’ll finally show some stuff for The Force Awakens?

→ Rumor corner, take 1: There’s something floating around a third trailer for TFA may be on Pixar’s Inside Out, and that it’s already been shown at a “Disney blogging conference.” However, another attendee has denied it.

→ Rumor corner, take 2: A Youtube video that supposedly shows an effects scene being filmed has popped up.

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Hasbro delays one of their few upcoming Princess Leia figures

UPDATE: Apparently the figure is only being delayed “due to a production issue with Princess Leia’s robe.” She’ll be back on shelves “later this year.”

hasbro-yavin-leiaSo hot on the heels of the last dustup over the lack of female figures, Jedi Temple Archive reports that Hasbro has pulled the Ceremonial Princess Leia figures from Wave 7 and Wave 8 of the Black Series, replacing her with… A stormtrooper and a clone trooper.

Yakface, one of the first to bring this to the attention of the wider fandom, started the #whereisleia and #wewantleia hashtags.

Devin Faraci at Badass Digest wrote about looking for action figures for his niece, the latest in a familiar refrain:

The fact that Hasbro is canceling one of its few Leia figures means that they’re only keeping the status quo. Would more girl toys sell now, as the demographics of fandom shifts dramatically? No one can know when the toys don’t exist. I wanted to go and spend my money on female characters for my goddaughter, but I was not offered the opportunity. Young female fans should be able to walk into Toys ‘R Us and find a toy based on the largest and most popular stories in our pop culture that speaks to them. It’s as simple as that, and when the only option is a sexualized and subservient variant – why would they want to buy that? Why would their parents want to buy that for them?

Sure, there’s that Ahsoka figure coming and it seems like Boushh disguise Leia is still on, but canceling any of the few Leia figures they were hyping just over a month ago isn’t exactly fostering good faith in their intentions.

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Hasbro thinks they’ve released “plenty of female characters” for Star Wars

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“Hasbro feels they have released plenty of female characters in the line.” That’s the money quote, from a Toy Fair Q&A with collector site Jedi Temple Archives. Granted, it doesn’t seem to be an exact quote, but the sentiment is pretty clear in any case. UPDATE: The answer has since been revised, at Hasbro’s request, to namedrop figures released over the past several years – that Mara Jade figure came out in 2013 – but the problem still remains. The Mary Sue has a great response to this:

It’s not that there aren’t any female characters in their line, because of course that would be untrue—it’s that they clearly take a backseat to the male ones which Hasbro thinks will sell better to boys.

Hasbro also said have no more Leia figures planned at the moment. (Though I doubt that includes The Force Awakens, which they are very much not talking about yet. But then again, who knows?) Asajj Ventress is also in the “no current plans” category.

Does our only hope for more than a paltry handful of women figures rest solely in the hands of the new film? We know there are multiple women in the cast, but such is the case with Rebels, and that rollout certainly hasn’t been without issues. (Though the recent issues finding figures – all figures – is likely due to an ongoing labor dispute at west coast seaports.)

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Rumors: New Hasbro releases point to a digital saga release in the spring; When will The Force Awakens toys hit?

HasbroJedi News is all over toys today. They say there are Hasbro box sets of prequel and original trilogy stuff due out “to support the digital releases of the films.” That rumor has been floating around for a while now – last time it was fall 2014 – but if there’s any truth to the toy stuff, it’s a lot more evidence than anything else we’ve had lately. Capitalizing on May 4th makes plenty of sense.

Of course said box sets are completely lacking Padme and Leia figures, because that’s just how things are, right ladies?

But onto The Force Awakens – Episode VII LEGO stuff apparently has a street date of September 4th, and there will be a Millennium Falcon and an X-wing among them.

UPDATE: Making Star Wars has a source who backs up the release date, and adds something new: Kylo Ren will be on all the packaging.