In fact, just this past Saturday I saw a little boy and his sister go "Wow, Chewbacca" then ask their mother if they could get it, and she just told them to put it back and off they went.  I almost wanted to just buy it for them even though I had no idea who they were.  Maybe I was just spoiled, but if I was being a "good boy", I think I could have talked my parents into one action figure on a shopping trip.  I usually had enough allowance money on my own to pick one up, and can remember saving up for particular figures in the vintage days (Trenchcoat Han, Jedi Luke)....but as much as we will always take lower prices, I guess I don't think $5 is that much to give some joy to a child with a toy...especially when you aren't a collector and you're buying 20-50 of them

I'm right there with you, mosnab.  When I was growing up, I got a 5 dollar allowance every two weeks (and then only if I had done my chores and behaved) and I used to look forward to going to the local department store and picking up 2 GI Joe action figures (showing my age there).  As I have no children of my own, I don't know how the allowance game works these days, but as I said before one of my pet peeves is kind of what you described the mother doing (and what I referred to another mother doing earlier in the thread).

When I was a kid, if we drove by a toy store and I asked to go in, my parents pretty much told me if I could have anything right then and there, before we even stopped.  More often than not, Dad would say, "We can go in, but we can't afford to buy anything."  I would know up front that I couldn't buy/get anything and most of the time I would elect not to go in since seeing all the cool stuff that I could not afford to get would have made me sad (reading that, it sounds like I was a shallow kid, but that's not the point).

Anyway, what always bothers me (and this is going to go horribly off-track, but I'll get back to the point in a moment) is when you see parents who take their children into a toy store like TRU or a toy section of a department store like WM or Target, the kids are just in awe of all the "cool stuff" that they see, and when they ask the mother/father if they can get something (usually a cheap item like an action figure or one of those non-electronic lightsabers), the mother flatly states, "No, let's go" and they drag the kid off.  Maybe I'm crazy, but it comes across as teasing in a way, akin to the old Eddie Murphy skit, "I got some ice cream, I got some ice cream, and you can't have none." 

But back the point, I must be living in a vacuum, because I don't see any children going through the action figures around my stomping grounds.  99% of the time, the only times I see children in the toy section is when they're looking at the bikes in Wal-Mart or the Leap Frog stuff.  The other 1% of the time, they're looking at guns (the toy ones, although strangely enough, the real ones are about 25 feet away in most WMs). 

I didn't want to start a separate thread for this, and since it is kind of related to sales expectations, I figured it would fit well in this one.

On a trip to the local Target yesterday, I was absolutely shocked to see a mother and her two kids in the aisle (this is literally the first time I have seen a child looking at SW toys in Target in at least a year) looking at the new toys.  The thing about it was that the kids were not even interested in the action figures or vehicles; their main concern was the GUNS.  They were both begging their mother to buy them a gun (they went through them numerous times comparing the features before eventually deciding on Grievous' gun) and she (as in one of my pet peeves, e.g. taking a kid into a toy store, letting them look at all the cool stuff, and then saying what she said) said "No."  Her reasoning was what got me though, and I quote verbatim:

"20 dollars is too expensive for a toy.  It will be on clearance for half that in a month anyway.  They're just trying to sell it for more now before the movie comes out."

One of the kid's responses to this statement was priceless:

"There's a new 'Star Wars' movie coming out?"

That situation reminded me of the WSJ article (and thank you for posting that Xander as it was an interesting read) and LFL and Hasbro's attitudes about why the AOTC stuff didn't sell as well as they expected.  Mom didn't want to buy the stuff because it was too expensive (for her, at least, and being a presumptuous idiot like I am, it didn't look like she was having any money shortages by the size of the rocks on her fingers), and I got the impression that SW wasn't as big a selling factor for the kids as the fact that it was a cool gun that lit up and made noise. 

Hasbro needs to face the fact that, despite their constant claims to the contrary (and their persistent use of really insulting catchphrases lately toward collectors), collectors make up at least 80% of who buys these products.  Kids don't give a flying rat's ass about the Force Battlers and neither do adults.  That's why they (sans Vader) are sitting on shelves collecting dust not a week after their release.  If Hasbro put as much time into making the core lines of a much better quality than what they are and less time focusing on "new and exciting" secondary lines that might as well come with a SRP and a Clearance Price tag affixed to them in the case, the line might stand a fighting chance, and they might make more money than they did with the AOTC merchandise. 

But no, it's more economically feasible to develop another miniature line that nobody seems to be buying than it is to do VOTC-style versions of the main ROTS characters in Collection 1 that would surely sell a lot better than the 1500 versions of Obi-Wan that hang around forever.

First of all, and this might be a spoiler, the scenes of Plo Koon piloting his starfighter for ROTS were shot inside the newer Jedi Starfighter cockpit (they used the same one for Anakin and Obi-Wan, with different droid heads in place for each actor/character), so this retro-JSF for Koon is obviously one of those post-production decisions made by LFL. 

That said, I wonder when we'll see this one pop up on the Hasbro website, in reference to the "bitchin'" 12" Ultimate Villain Anakin/Vader (that I recently detailed my experiences with in the 12 inch forum):

"Comes with  AWESOME barefoot action since his boots are so AWESOME they don't ******* fit!"

Damn right I'm still bitter. 

Okay, so in one pack we've got:

1.  Yavin 4 Anakin with someone's head who isn't Anakin
2.  The worst execution of a much requested figure EVER
3.  The third release of the SP Grievous in three months
4.  The Saga Padawan 2-pack Yoda
5.  A slightly repainted Asaaj Ventress

Then, later down the line we get the second pack...

1.  The biggest pegwarmer of Saga overall (Mace)
2.  The worst of the Jango Fett figures (well, second worst)
3.  Another Maul (probably the MOTDS figure)
4.  The crappy Deluxe Anakin from Saga
5.  An unidentified Obi-Wan that is more than likely a rehash

You know, they do stuff like the 12" Sidious, the ARC-170, and all the Collection 2 ROTS stuff and you think, "Maybe they've figured it out."  Then you see this kind of crap and realize they aren't even close to figuring it out. 

Well, this story has a happy ending.  I called the local K-Mart this morning to make sure it would be okay for me to return the Vader to them (considering this wasn't the K-Mart that I bought the doll from in the first place) and they assured me it would be.  I just returned from, well, returning the doll and it went very smoothly.  The woman at customer service was extremely nice and understanding and helpful; I could not have asked for a smoother return experience, and as such, I will be giving this K-Mart more of my business in the future.  At least its employees are generally nice, which is more than I can say for Wal-Mart.

And while I was typing this post, I received an email from Hasbro regarding the email I sent them last night.  It was as follows:

Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate your taking the time to share your opinion with us.

Consumer satisfaction is very important to us. We will share your comments with our management team so that they are also aware of your views.

Since our ultimate goal is to bring happiness to the consumers who use our products, and certainly not disappointment, under separate cover we will be sending you a coupon for you to use when you purchase your next Hasbro product.

We want to assure you that we are dedicated to maintaining quality products and service. We hope you and your family will enjoy our products for many years to come.

Although a coupon isn't necessary or warranted (IMO), I do hope that my comments sent to them regarding the doll will lead them to use one of the newer style bodies (with a note saying that it is "IMPROVED" or something on the package) in future Anakin/Vader dolls.  I'm not advocating a total recall (DAMN YOU KUATO!), but at the same time, for such a visible and important piece of ROTS merchandise to be of such low quality is disheartening.

Well, I've had two days to sit and simmer on this, and I have to say that the 12" Anakin/Vader Ultimate Villain doll is the most disappointing item I have gotten thus far.  At first I thought it was just me needing to get used to how it worked, but after 2 days and several hours of trying to get it to do what it is advertised as being able to do (changing Anakin into Vader and all), I've simply given up.   I'm so discouraged that I actually sent Hasbro an email telling them how in the 27 years or so that I've been collecting SW, and other Hasbro products like Joes and TFs in the 1980's, no other product has made me more frustrated and upset to the point of writing a letter than this doll.

Basically, for those of you who haven't opened it up, the Anakin uses the older, mid-90's Joe body.  So he's bulkier, to be sure, but that's not the problem.  The problem is that the ankles on this body are not articulated and it makes putting the boots on nearly impossible.  The lower legs are one solid piece and the boots, being boots, are very tall, reaching almost to the knees of Anakin and all the way past on Vader.  The material used for the boots is too rigid to roll them down, and it took me an hour just to get one Vader boot on and another two before I finally gave up on the second one and redressed him as Anakin.

This kind of goes into what Tydirium has been saying about Hasbro's recent "They're toys and meant to be played with!" attitude on their website, because the action features on the small figures, while questionable in quality, are only a 6 dollar mistake.  This entire figure/doll is based on the premise of being able to change outfits and due to his feet and boots, you can't even do that without large machinery and the Force itself apparently.  As I told Hasbro, if I, well-educated and possessing fine motor skills, am unable to put boots on a doll, what hope does a 10 year old kid (their target audience that they always talk about) have of doing so?

So, yeah, Anakin/Vader is back in his box (after an hour spent getting his Anakin boots back on    and I'm really regretting the 45 dollars I spent on it.  Naturally, K-Mart won't take it back since it has been opened, so I'm (for the moment) stuck with a 12" Anakin/Vader that is useless to me.

His ass.

Yeah, same general vicinity.  I figured since I throw around the F-bomb like it's my last name, I have to draw the line at profanity somewhere.