There are definitely plenty of grievances to air over the whole line in 2022.
The repainting / reuse issue is becoming a real thorn in the side of many collectors of both the 3.75" and 6" figure lines. And making Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers in alternate deco is becoming a very obvious and lazy way out for Hasbro these days. It seems to be a case of "be careful what you wish for", because all of the wishing for troopers has led to lines that are dominated by them and main characters seem to be falling by the wayside. As for secondary and tertiary characters? Secondary characters haven't been packed in appropriate quantities, and tertiary characters are nonexistent!
The whole Boba Fett repaint situation is completely obnoxious on the part of both Hasbro and Target. It's inexcusable when that figure sculpt debuted as VC186 in 2021 for $12.99 and in 2023 Target is selling that same sculpt for $22.99. Is this Target trying to recoup money that they must have lost on the Black Series Carbonized figures that were a complete sales dud? If that's the case, F*** YOU, TARGET! Maybe if your buyers paid attention to collectors on social media, they would have noticed that collectors were over the whole carbonized thing pretty quickly. Ironically, who would have thought that Walmart would have far more reasonable prices on their exclusive figures????
Distribution remains an issue, but that's where we are when we have 2 primary brick and mortar retailers, and online retail is dominating the landscape. Online retail has been great for collectors to an extent, but the diminishing presence in stores is a problem for the health of the line. The reason being that online retail is geared towards customers who know exactly what they want to buy. But what the line needs is volume sales in order to have greater sales success, and that depends on more casual customers who are buying for kids because they see a figure hanging on a peg. Will the presence of Toys R Us sections in Macy's actually lead towards an eventual return of actual TRU storefronts? We'll see. But I'm not holding my breath.
Vehicles? The situation there is bleak. And I think the price points have been prohibitively high. The quality has been fantastic, but charging anywhere from $70 - $200 for vehicles doesn't lend itself to volume sales and financial success.
