How Many Star Wars 12" Figures Will Be Released Before The Line Looses Steam

Let me throw this out there just for general interest sake. Keeping in mind the current production history we have seen through many of the 12" figure lines that Sideshow Collectibles has produced, how many 12" figures do you think Sideshow will be able to produce before the Star Wars line starts to loose steam and Sideshow begins to slack off on their production of figures in the line.

Keeping in mind that Sideshow seems to function under the thought/production process that each years line has to see the re-release of key figures (in different outfits) from the movies in each years line up. This in turn causes a limit to the number of "new" figures we as collectors will see in a given year due to the redressing of major figures from the movies themselves.

Also keep this in mind using, say, the Buffy line-up as an example. How many people out there have been clamoring for a Giles only to see one more Buffy figure (redressed) be released to keep interest in the line?

So, how many redressed Han Solos are you willing to buy? How many redressed Lukes are you willing to buy? How many age different Obi-Wans are you willing to buy? And how will these redressed/aged variations effect the production of new and possibly obscure characters from the various films?

I throw that out there because I would love to see some of the more obscure characters made but I wonder if that is even going to be possible given the way Sideshow markets their lines.

Case in point, Hasbro released a pretty piss poor Death Star Gunner, but it was a DSG none-the-less. Do you think Sideshow would ever get around to producing a generic DSG or a Garindan for that matter?

I really don't think this will be an issue for SW or LOTR both have a major following of crazy nutty folks (myself included) that will buy till well I don't know if there is an end actually.

I think it depends on what "losing steam" means. There may come a time when the exclusives actually take a few hours to sell out. The real test will be what happens to the regular versions. Compared to the endless numbers of 12" figures that were released in the past by Hasbro, I think that the line will continue to be popular as long as they keep putting the figures out there. The relatively limited total number of releases will continue to satisfy the huge number of Star Wars fans out there for quite a long time, as long as the quality is evident.

Bite your tongue man!

Anyone notice that Han isn't sold out yet?

Customikey said:

Bite your tongue man!

Anyone notice that Han isn't sold out yet?

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Yep! Interesting isn't it?

With the limited production and about a figure a month and lots of characters and versions of those charactes, I don't see the line losing steam for a very very very long time. Heck even a 10 year run would give us at least 100 figures.

Right now Star Wars collectibles are as hot as they have ever been and perhaps will ever be again. So the question asked is tied to, "when will Star Wars loose steam?"

Without new movies or other culteral phenomenon to generate interest, the Star Wars francise will decline. I'd say we have a good 3 - 5 years of being in the sun. Then another 5 or so of steam losing before Star Wars has the value of Star Trek. And then who knows. I'm postitive that Star Wars will continue in new movies or remakes or something just as I'm positive that Star Trek will. Someone somewhere will breathe new life into the saga when it needs it (George Lucas' estate, maybe, or his son wanting to be a Jedi again) but when and how and who will care about Mark Hammil's likeness when it happnes... dunno.

So if we can hope for a good 8-10 years of healthy productivity... it depends on how many figures SSC can produce in a year. One a month maybe? That's 80-120 figures.

If you take out half of them as redressed figures... that's 40-60 ancillary characters. Half of those, at least, will be military figures so that leaves 20-30 oddballs.

But that's just lazy math based on conservative predictions.

Remember that there are two different television series coming our way, along with the eventual high definition complete saga DVD box set, featuring even more tweaks and adjustments (including the replacement of puppet Yoda with CGI Yoda throughout all of Episode I, which we know has already been done). Star Wars in general will hold our interest for quite some time.

Darth Kustomizer said:

So, how many redressed Han Solos are you willing to buy? How many redressed Lukes are you willing to buy? How many age different Obi-Wans are you willing to buy? And how will these redressed/aged variations effect the production of new and possibly obscure characters from the various films?

I throw that out there because I would love to see some of the more obscure characters made but I wonder if that is even going to be possible given the way Sideshow markets their lines.

Case in point, Hasbro released a pretty piss poor Death Star Gunner, but it was a DSG none-the-less. Do you think Sideshow would ever get around to producing a generic DSG or a Garindan for that matter?

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I guess you can count me as one of the dweebs that wants all phases of Obi-Wans maturity represented (from padawan to ghost) as well as EVERY Luke possible. My focus is the Jedi and Sith characters. Given the hefty price tag of each piece and the immensity of the line, I don't have much interest in the "blink and you'll miss 'em" characters. It will be fairly easy to say no to a Sideshow Garindan.

And as the line develops, you are going to see collectors finding their focus as well; they will become more and more picky as to what they will buy. Will everyone be able to keep up with Sideshow. At some point will anyone actually want to? Once collectors get some of the figures that they have been BURNING to get, and some level of satiation is acheived, the membership of "__ out of __" club will dwindle.

Also, the practice of pre-ordering them right out of the gate will change for me as well. Right now, I'm pre-ordering EVERY exclusive. But I can see that changing when some of the border line interesting characters (at least to me) are announced. Take Lando. If he is announced, I might find myself waiting (perhaps YEARS) until the line calms down to pick him up in the secondary market at a reduced price... like I've been picking up the Buffy and any extra POTA figures I might need. I got to have MORE Gorillas!!!

Also, wasn't this line originally billed as a line that would build on the success of the Hasbro line... I seem to remember reading that somewhere. Well, for all intents and purposes, wasn't Hasbro's Garindan serviceable? Sure, Sideshow would do a better job, but there is already a decent representation of the character already in the marketplace. I don't think a would purchase a $50 Sideshow version when I can buy a Hasbro version for under $10. The same can be said for a bunch of of the Hasbro creatures... Jawas, Sebulba, Watto, Battle Droids.

Sideshow is right to ask for a premium for their figures... it just makes it hard to be a completist.

Considering that they've broken it down into 5 distinct lines under the SW banner leads me to believe that we won't see obscure characters suffer due to re-release of major characters. It's not likely to be treated like the Buffy line at all as SW has a much wider base. Sure it's impressive when a 2nd human Angel can sell out 500 in a week, but that doesn't compare to Kit Fisto selling 1250 in 30 mins.

There's always been a huge fan base for 12" SW figures and there are hundreds of characters to choose from. Will we see the same characters repeated before we see obscure characters? I'm sure of it. It won't keep me from buying them.

One of Hasbro's problems was the quality of figures, not just the repetition. And while they did do a good job on some figures, I can't wait to see what SS does considering how much attention to detail they give.

As far as Buffy goes, I'm not that familiar with the figures. Have people not bought certain figures because they were redressed? Besides Giles are there any other in the Buffy line that haven't been made? Just wondering.

Customikey said:

Bite your tongue man!

Anyone notice that Han isn't sold out yet?

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I don't think this is a good gauge of SW 12" popularity. The Han Solo figure is the first prototype to have a really poor likeness. I think the mass majority of SW fans are clamoring for a Han Solo that looks like 1980 Harrison Ford, not some chubby guy dressed as Solo. Hopefully Sideshow learns that they have a standard to keep and can't drop the ball on SW characters and still expect fans to continue slurping them up.

JustinLuck said:

I don't think this is a good gauge of SW 12" popularity. The Han Solo figure is the first prototype to have a really poor likeness. I think the mass majority of SW fans are clamoring for a Han Solo that looks like 1980 Harrison Ford, not some chubby guy dressed as Solo. Hopefully Sideshow learns that they have a standard to keep and can't drop the ball on SW characters and still expect fans to continue slurping them up.

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The likeness isn't the best we've seen from this line but I don't think the way your putting it is correct either. I think SS knows the standard that fans and themselves expect from this line so I don't think they need you, me, or the pope himself reminding them of that.

If they knew, why did they release such a lackluster Han Solo sculpt?

I have over a hundred hasblow figures. So far I have all the sideshow stuff on order, but honestly I won't buy any other version of luke or han or leia. Obi-wan just if its a ANH version. But everyone else gets one figure buy from me. I just don't have the space.

With all the excellent secondary and primary character choices Sideshow can explore in the Star Wars universe, I think this line will have plenty of legs for years to come. 30 minute sell-outs aren't required for a line to be healthy - after all, it took the original Sideshow LOTR Balrog months to sell out. The upcoming TV shows and other projects will only help to keep Star Wars in the public eye.

They will be able to sell out until they decide making all of that money is boring!

HighElven said:

If they knew, why did they release such a lackluster Han Solo sculpt?

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In your opinion it's lackluster. I've read a few people who agreed of course but I've read as many that liked it.

Thing is, Star Wars has so many A-List characters, if they do half the lineup of each year on big names they can last a long time.

We still have by my count:

Darth Maul
Count Dooku
Jango Fett
2 versions of Boba Fett
4 versions of Darth Vader
2 versions of Palpatine
7 versions of Leia
7+ versions of Padme
3 versions of Han Solo
5 versions of Luke
Qui Gon Jinn
2 versions of Yoda
2 more Anakins(assuming they make the TPM little kid)
3 more Obi Wan Kenobis
3 versions of C3P0
2 versions of Chewbacca
3 versions of Lando
R2D2

So 50 or so, and I probably forgot a couple. Add to that these popular but less well known characters:

half a dozen prequel Jedi at least
half a dozen bounty hunters
15-20 trooper variations
half a dozen Imperial Officer variations
Half a dozen Rebellion Officer variations
about a dozen Cantina Aliens

At twelve figures a year? This is like 7-8 years worth of stuff that is yet unannounced. And these would all pretty much sell well. By the standards of regular sideshow figures, anyway. Han took a while to sell out... ten times more pieces than most other figures from other licenses.

Yeah, the SW line can go literally for years with all the characters and as you said that's just the main guys/gals. Then you toss in the secondary characters and Clones holy cow it's the never ending story .