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« on: January 28, 2021, 06:07 PM »
The biggest issue I have with Hasbro's current repaint/reissue philosophy is that it leads them to make lazy choices that don't further the line to the betterment of collectors. For instance, I won't even mention the current TVC repack wave, but how about the "ESB 40th anniversary repack wave" from last summer? They put a "Lando" figure in there to check a box, but didn't have the knowledge or follow through to realize it was a ROTJ General Lando. They picked the tooling because it was handy--they had already reused it in 2016. General Lando made no sense for the wave in the minds of collectors. It made no sense as a release meant to go along with the Carbon Freeze Chamber. Lando would have never crossed the minds of a fan putting together a TVC reissue wave focused on ESB, because any fan could tell you we don't have an ESB Lando in TVC yet. (VOTC, yes, but not TVC.)
The current crew at Hasbro are clueless to these distinctions. They are simply manufacturing widgets, and using standard business practices to sell more units using less investment, without wanting to engage in the fan's emotional involvement with the product. They are happy we love this stuff, but they don't see the benefit in taking extra effort to make the line cohesive. So, with their maximum effort engaged they offer us solid gold repaints, holiday color repaints, shiny metallic repaints, concept art colors repaints, Kenner colorways repaints...all of which exist adjacent to the "real figures" as any fan would categorize it.