He quit before, which is what wound up giving The Fans Strike Back control of their Bantha project and the legacy of quality that Smith Lord Creations used to have that persuaded people to prepay for the 13 figure set that has never been completed.

But it's like with the way his droids just dried up: he has said he can't rerun them because he had to switch factories and lost the tooling, but also he is (rightly so) very reluctant to do second runs of any of the figures, because he doesn't see that the market will buy a full second run and he would be losing money in the transaction. Can't ask him to do that, but it seems to me there are plenty of reasons for him to consider tooling that astromech up again at the new factory and continuing to do smaller runs of those and of course getting to new, different, unique ones.

And then the caveat, if Hasbro lets the flood gates open up on their Retro collection now that they've done the Artoo, too, he's out of business on it anyway. I know he took a hit last year tooling up Retro Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood figures. He only got the the Marion out just ahead of Hasbro's announcement and scrapped his Indy release plans...that's an a lost investment that would probably make me second-guess decisions in the future too.

He reached out to me a couple weeks back wondering if I would do a trade of some of his figures for some Cardboard Galaxy stuff, so I took him up on it (it will get my stuff exposure to his fans, so why not?)

I will be receiving a Baby Wampa and a Toothface (J'Quille) soon, I will let you know what I think of them when they arrive. If the new wave had been announced when we did the deal I probably would have made different choices.

His figures definitely have their own style which is a bit askew from what I see as the Kenner aesthetic, but if he does a Kenner style Muftak down the road I don't think I would be able to resist it, no matter the style.

I dislike the inanity of the Retro Prototypes so much so that I was planning to do a weekly feature on my Instagram highlighting how Hasbro could reuse the molds in fun creative ways with 0 new tooling, a la all the different droids Stan Solo has done, but there could be so much more that would be fun and unique. Like, I would absolutely buy a Bespin Luke with in Burger King glass blue deco, or Hoth Han with a ANH Han head. Or any of those droids...

Yularen and Tarkin are two officers in particular that I'd like with this new body. Motti is also screaming for an update, as is Veers. I hope they can possibly have new legs at least for some of them to give variations to the heights.

I am aware the Officer Onslaught is on the way. I hope they knock a bunch of identifiable faces in a 4-pack.

Motti is probably my most wanted resculpt in that field.

Watch that leg swap wish, you'll either get Bith pockets legs or General Lando legs!

Thanks for posting that link, I have heard plenty about them but never sought them out as a potential customer.

Now I have a Fleet Trooper and Sandtrooper on the way ( that Hasbro ought to easily have taken my money for instead 4 years into the Retro line) and I am really considering a rocket firing Fett.

I have seen no official explanation,  but I kind of figured the accident we see the remnants of in the quarry killed everyone inside, leaving just the non working children alive on the planet. And when the Republic /Empire found out (probably right after the Andors left) they purged the planet to keep the story quiet.

I heard that the only reason we flashed back to Kanari was because Tony Gilroy got a bug in his head about really needing to explain why Cassian 's accent was so different from everyone else. It was one little detail he had to lock down before he could move on to the story in general.

This is Kafkaesque. Nobody wants these. (Completists notwithstanding.)

At that price I hope they rot on the pegs and target never feels compelled to order another exclusive Star Wars figure.

And I am adding a prayer for the Boba Fett and Clone Arc Trooper tooling to break to my evening prayer list.