On April 10th, we sent our tenth batch of questions to Hasbro to once again take part in their Star Wars Question and Answer sessions. Today, we've got the answers to those three questions!
1. Recently revealed in an issue of Star Wars Insider was plans for a new Ewok 2-pack - Paploo & NoApaak. Paploo I know, but who or what is NoApaak? You hinted at a great story behind his name, care to share? And any chance you've got a pic you could share?
** Sure - we'd be glad to tell the story. It starts in Spring 2008 when a 7-year old boy named Noah came to visit Hasbro. He lived locally, and was about to undergo an operation that would keep him bedridden for months. Noah was a big Star Wars fan, and when we learned of this we wanted to meet him and sit down and talk about Star Wars. This young man was amazing - sunny, and bright, and even though he had been through a lot of pain and medical work before, it did not disrupt his disposition. And he clearly knew his Star Wars!
As we love to do with kids who are fans of Star Wars, we started to talk about what their favorite characters or moments were in the films (remember, this was pre-Clone Wars so his knowledge was primarily from the films). As it turns out, Noah was a big fan of Ewoks and we were about to design the Ewok set from the EpVI wave.
We had handy one of the on-set shots with all the Ewok characters given to us by Official Pix (we often source these set shots for development inspiration). So we asked Noah which two Ewoks stood out to him as interesting and that we should do next. One of Noah's choices was Paploo - an excellent choice since Paploo was overdue for an upgrade. We did not recognize the second figure but he seemed an interesting choice and we stuck with it.
A few months later when we were discussing the set with Lucasfilm, we realized that the second Ewok Noah has chosen has never been officially named (turns out there are a number of them still). When we told Lucasfilm the story of how we picked this figure (or rather how Noah picked him), it suddenly made perfect sense to name the character after Noah as a tribute to the strength and bravery of an incredible little boy. Lucasfilm wholeheartedly agreed, and came up with an Ewok-language name incorporating Noah's first and parts of his last name. We were thrilled, and when we called Noah's family to tell him they were beside themselves.
Since then, Noah has had his operation and is making a strong recovery. We promised him that we'd get together and celebrate as soon as we got our final samples at the start of production so he can have the first one. It's a small story in the grand scheme of things, but it made a *huge* impact on Noah and his family, and we can't thank Lucasfilm enough for helping to make one little boy's life, and Star Wars experience, magical and something we'll all never forget.
2. What are the chances of the following figures being recycled into future Saga Legends assortments - VOTC Chewbacca, VOTC Han Solo, and VOTC Luke Skywalker? All three seem to have developed a bit of demand on the secondary market lately thanks to that Big Falcon and most folks wouldn't mind seeing them again on the new cardbacks.
** Good questions. The VOTC Chewbacca will be coming into the Saga Legends line this Fall. The VOTC Han is not available because his tooling is in use elsewhere for another set; instead, we will be getting an older Bespin Han back out there (not a vintage-quality articulated figure, but since this line is kid-targeted we went with the best one we had). We did not have the VOTC EpIV Luke planned for re-release because of the upcoming DSII Luke, but he is a good candidate for getting back into the rotation sometime. Thanks for the suggestions.
3. And finally, a question from one of our readers: "Any chance we could ever see some Star Wars themed Clipo sets? My kids love using Clipo to build 'ships' for their little Star Wars Heroes figures!" - from aSWmom
** We do not have any plans to cross Star Wars over with Clipo. Cool idea, though - send us some of your kids pics when you get a chance so we can see how the little ones are playing Star Wars!
