Coming five years after Hasbro released its Star Wars: The Black Series action figures, a new edition is on its way! The Black Series featured highly detailed, six-inch figures. They were wildly popular and are still selling to this day. But there were three main reasons that made Patrick Schneider, senior brand manager, and Steve Evans, design director, decide to bring out an all-new Archive collection.
The first was an advancement in painting technology, called Photo Real Technology. It makes the figures even more detailed than before. Schneider and Evans noticed many fans were repainting the original Star Wars figures to extreme detail and wanted to meet fans expectations. Evans has said:
“Yoda in particular is a perfect example of where Photo Real really comes into play. I wasn’t satisfied with the deco previously. It’s Yoda! You have to deliver Yoda really well…. When you look at the puppet or the CG character, there’s a lot more soul in those eyes. I think with Photo Real we can take those images and apply them directly onto the sculpt and therefore give a much more sophisticated palette for the eyes, which as everyone knows are the windows to the soul. For Yoda, that’s really, really important.”
The second reason was that after-market pricing had huge inflation. Figures that were once $20 were now $100. And, finally, the fans wanted more Star Wars figures. Schneider has commented:
“We’ve actually been discussing this in one form or another for literally the past two years. Fans would say, ‘It’s great that you’re releasing 4-LOM. I want 4-LOM. But for 4-LOM to make sense, I also need Boba Fett and Bossk and IG-88.”
These new Star Wars action figures will launch in the spring of 2019. While there are over 160 Black Series, there will only be a small amount of the new Archive Collection. Some of these include Yoda, a biker scout from Return of the Jedi, and Anakin with two interchangeable heads from Revenge of the Sith.
What do you think about these new Star Wars action figures? Let us know in the comments below!