Hasbro has been doing some really cool things across its brands. Both Star Wars and Transformers are getting gigantic, crowd-sourced toys through the company's HasLab project. Making a gigantic Jabba's Sail Barge for retailers across the globe may not be the best idea for the toy company, but crowdfunding it and making a limited quantity for hardcore collectors is a more viable strategy. Currently, HasLab is crowdfunding its gigantic Unicron Transformer, which will cost consumers $575. However, this all kicked off last year with a Star Wars project.
Back in October 2018, we got a decent look at the prototype of Jabba's Sail Barge--The Khetanna--in person, and it was huge. The biggest issue with this monstrous vehicle is that it's impossible to take a full photo. At Comic-Con this past year, Hasbro had the Barge on display in its diorama, which was a love letter to everything Jabba-related from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. While this display was only made up of a few scenes, there were an endless amount of items to look at inside the glass case.
Additionally, Hasbro had some of its Star Wars SDCC exclusive toys on display as well. GameSpot spoke to Hasbro design manager Sam Smith about everything the booth had to offer, and we begged him to mass produce the Rancor in the diorama.
GameSpot: How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea?
Sam Smith: So this actually is all kind of spawned around the [Jabba] Sail Barge. We figured out early on [that] what we want to do is a diorama for all our supporters of the barge. Outside of the people that bought it, no one has really seen it.
How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea? (Continued)
Smith: We haven't shared anything with it publicly, in terms of being able to display it. So this became a great vessel. San Diego is obviously a huge convention to finally be able to do that. And really be able to showcase not only the barge, but also the great items that... have come to fruition because of the barge itself. The vintage collection skiffs, the skiff guard three packs, and ultimately everything to really kind of amp up and accessorize that.
How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea? (Continued)
Smith: It's kind of a thank you. It's a great way to sort of showcase a great collection of vintage and some even Power of the Force figures. Just kind of spanning that gap to be able to showcase them all around kind of that show piece of a Sarlacc pit and the Pit of Karkoon.
How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea? (Continued)
Smith: We had a lot of fun doing that. We also have a lot of six inch collectors, and a lot of people come out for that. We wanted to be able to do something to celebrate that, as well. Having the Dune kind of naturally transition up to the exterior shot of Jabba's Palace where we see the scale switch over to six inch, and as you come around the side you really get to kind of see an appreciation for what that six inch scale really offers.
How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea? (Continued)
Smith: We have a customized trophy room complete with a taun-taun and gerba head, we have Han Solo in carbonite. That changed out throughout the convention. Each day we're actually going in and changing all the figures around. You'll see now Han Solo's actually emerging from the carbonite block as well as sort of Jabba and all his denizens kind of deep in shadow there ready to sort of pounce on Leia-Boosh.
How did you guys come up with this year's diorama idea? (Continued)
Smith: As you go underneath, we have something that was, again, really just sort of put together for the show and that's Jabba's most prized trophy of all, which is the rancor. A six inch scale rancor coming in around nineteen and a half inches tall. Again, it's sort of been progressing from his cave throughout the show. Just recently picked up the Gammorian guard and is getting ready for that pre-Luke snack.
I want to see that rancor as something I can buy. I think the pictures will do it justice but it is an immense figure.
Smith: Yeah, well the rancor among that all had to come together in three weeks. So the rancor was a very important, key part of that and was continually progressing throughout the entirety of that stage. The whole thing was built in parts and ultimately we put it all together in that time frame.
I'd say that the rancor itself probably has well over a hundred hours individually invested into it between the sculpt we had to put together, and the machine build time, and then all the time that our painter had to do in terms of bringing that character really to life.
SDCC Exclusive Luke Skywalker Set
Tell us about the Luke Skywalker SDCC exclusive set.
Smith: We have our Luke three pack, so we have a Stormtrooper Luke, a Jedi Luke from the beginning of Return of the Jedi, and an all-new vintage collection Luke Skywalker.
Stormtrooper Luke
Smith: All three got catering of new tooling; it's a partial on the Stormtrooper Luke, on the Jedi Luke, and an all new tool ultimate gear for the X-wing pilot.
Jedi Luke
Smith: All those figures feature completely new portraits with photo-real face printing and they're beautiful representations to really celebrate the character from the original trilogy.
X-Wing Pilot Luke
Sith Trooper
What can you tell us about the new Sith Trooper?
Smith: It's an awesome new Stormtrooper design, asymmetry with a ton of influence from the First Order as well as some other trooper designs in the past. Wrapped in all-red armor, which is gonna definitely be a first for theatrical entertainment, so we're really excited to see how that plays out in the film.
Sith Trooper
Sith Trooper
SDCC Exclusive Black Series Boba Fett
Tell us about the SDCC Exclusive Boba Fett Black series figure.
Smith: Forty years ago, in 1979, Boba Fett was introduced as a character on the original A New Hope card back, so we went ahead and celebrated that by Way of the Black series. Putting Boba Fett out in those original Kenner colors but still giving it the attention to detail of the Black series.
But having it on that great 40th anniversary card back really premium finish to celebrate that character.
Does the rocket fire?
It does not fire. That is a safety concern, sir.
from GameSpot - Galleries https://ift.tt/310kiNT
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