It's part of the story, but it's not really the complete picture. Every era has stuff that has sold well and stuff that doesn't move. TFA was overall a huge success, and it was actually Rogue One (not TLJ) which began the sharp fall in sales (that no doubt worsened following tantrums among some fans). Market saturation doesn't help either. SW Merchandise has had rejuvenation in Mando, but even then, I believe it's mostly Mando and Grogu that sell across the board, the others not quite so much. I'm still astonished Hot Toys produced a Kuill figure. They'd never had done that kind of character even for the OT or for Marvel. I can't imagine it sold that well. The million Grogu's paid for that one!
There's also a cyclical nature to these things. There was a time after ROTS where the PT merchandise was generally not produced and sold. A lot of the PT figures from SH Figuarts were limited run exclusives because the fear was that they wouldn't be popular. Lego has only just begun to produce prequel UCS sets (and even that's more TCW than the movies). But these days prequel kids (which I think a lot of you guys are) have grown up and are the ones spending the money and the market has shifted in their favour.
Soon it will be the ST kids who grow up and will want to spend money on their favourites. It's the anniversary milestones that remind people of what they love and it'll be as good a time as any to start actually producing ST merchandise again. It's not selling at the moment because virtually nothing is being made, so everyone's fears are based on old data. The irony is that I only started collecting Hot Toys because no-one was producing ST figures and I wanted to get something cool. I still can't find TLJ Rey for a reasonable price.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against people who love the ST which you presumably do. I gave it a chance and defended aspects of it up until TROS. I try not to think about all that too much now but I still want the Rey movie to do well and fix the era.
I still have a fairly substantial amount of ST collectibles with ANOVOS helmets, almost 2 full squads of Hot Toys Stormtroopers, Galaxy’s Edge ST merch, etc. I haven’t done a full purge as others have.
I understand those points though I don’t agree with some. These sorts of discussions have been done many times over. I have participated in many and I do try to take a balanced approach. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the ST and understand there’s a difference of perspective. So I’m not saying this to just be disparaging of the ST. I’m saying this as neutrally as possible.
With that said, there’s just no getting around the numbers. These companies have flat said ST merch did not sell anywhere near the numbers they hoped. Howard said it was a very dark time for business, and I’ve heard similar from other companies. While there was an initial surge of sales based on the excitement for a new trilogy, that tapered off very quickly.
Hot Toys made fewer figures for Rogue One in quantity and variety partly because TFA figures were not selling. TLJ and TROS also got fewer and fewer figures as a result.
Rogue One would’ve sold more merch if companies had made more. But they didn’t partially because TFA merch was still sitting around and they couldn’t predict how well RO would be received. Especially with some of the fan backlash against TFA, some fair and others not.
Objectively speaking, there’s just no comparing sales overall. ST merch can’t really compare with the lasting appeal of the OT, the resurgent love for the PT led by TCW, and Mando fever that exploded after the show.
It’s also far too early to say if ST kids will show up to buy toys and collectibles in the future. Kids don’t have the same attachment to toys anymore as they used to. OT kids have fond memories of vintage Star Wars toys, PT kids have memories of Clone Wars toys. TFA toys were terrible quality in general and don’t have the same lasting appeal. If kids wanted them at all. There was less and less and the trilogy went on.
It’s not really safe to assume there’ll be a nostalgia based resurgence as a whole like the PT either, at least on the same level. There’s a lot more content to be nostalgic for with the PT and TCW versus the ST… and Resistance I guess. The ST era does not have something like Clones which is a huge part of the appeal. Most of the ST characters were also unfortunately not developed enough to be as memorable, nor did they benefit from something like TCW that further developed them. I know there are people and kids who love the ST characters, but they’re not necessarily all going to drive enough sales to make making a lot of new products worthwhile.
And also important for sales, many people who weren’t necessarily fans of the PT can look back and see it didn’t really damage the setting and justify that it was still all Lucas. They might even realize there’s a lot of good content. Those people are going to look back on the ST and still be upset about how it treated the legacy characters.
It’s not the same situation and I think the 10th anniversary is way too early for people to really show up with money to spend on TFA.
