Well Towelites it’s that time of year again! A new Star Wars movie is headed to theaters in December and Force Friday II has arrived. It’s the day that us fans are able to get our hands on all of the new Star Wars merchandise that will be flooding our children’s toy chests or sitting on our display shelves. I should be excited as a Rathtar, yet something seems awfully familiar about this… what you ask? Well, let’s start with a little article I wrote after my experience with the first Force Friday back in 2015, you can read it here and when you’re done come on back! As a note: I have not participated in the midnight event for the past two years and will never do so again. In my opinion, there should be plenty of stock for the next day (and even the following) and that’s where this rant is headed.
Now you would hope that Hasbro, Disney, whoever, would learn from their mistakes; but it seems like that’s a little too much to ask for these days. Looking back now, I can see where the conservative action on the part of the retailers and perhaps Hasbro themselves could have come into play but 2 years later and the responses from collectors on the first run should have given them an idea of what NOT to do. There’s an old saying about the definition of insanity….
Personally, there are a lot of products that I COULD see myself picking up and being ok with, if they were in stock. Luckily I was able to order two of the Hasbro Black Series figures that I wanted, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Hera Syndulla, before they were out of stock on Amazon. Living in California is a benefit as the products go up online based on EST so I was able to leisurely watch and see the action as it unfolded while I enjoyed my (superior) West Coast IPA. I was actually surprised that Amazon put the new Black Series figures up as a preorder, though I think that it makes more sense so that they know what they have to order from Hasbro. This action is actually very intelligent to me unlike the major retail brick and mortar stores that still can’t seem grasp the demand that they are facing. We’re dealing with simple economics here people.
Being a member of many action figure clubs on Facebook it is interesting to see the pictures that the other members share of the displays that were present in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It makes no sense to me whatsoever that stores and Hasbro distribution think it is appropriate to assign a 3 foot section to these releases and only have a handful of product available. I mean don’t you see all of the nerds lining up outside? I read reports last night where there were 50+ people in line at some locations, now if that’s not demand then I don’t know what is. Granted, most of these products will be readily available over the next few months while Hasbro plays catch up; so I don’t get too worried about not getting something today, nor should you even think once about paying scalper prices. In reality, half of this plastic garbage will be marked down sooner than later.
I titled this article ‘Force(d) Friday’ because we as fans are being made to think that this day is something special when it really isn’t. The magic of Star Wars is being diluted by corporate pigs who don’t have our best interests at heart because if they did, there would be some standardization to what they are doing. In the end, there’s noone to blame but Disney and Hasbro. If Disney were to allow other companies to produce action figures, or import them in the example of Bandai, we would all benefit. I am sick and tired of the half-assed products that Hasbro produces and the lack of supply that is available to us on what is supposed to be a special day for fans.
Note: Sideshow, Lego, Bandai and Sphero keep doing what you’re doing because you clearly know what the fans want.
