Oh absolutely! I had people in our complex and friends that NEVER watch Star Wars, asking me (I'm the resident geek, I get asked a lot of questions), where they could get the toys of this character when he first appeared. You could tell Disney dropped the ball on that one, cause there was NOTHING out for Christmas last year.
How do you have it on "stand by" without showing it to the toy designers? Cast and crew were under strict NDA, and the only cameras on set were probably the production and behind-the-scenes equipment.
Reference photos and digital renderings were probably emailed out the second the first episode debuted.
I'd love to think they did that, but this is Disney, so I tend to believe the "they were taken by surprise" reasoning for no Child merchandise being available rather than a cunning plan.
the only cameras on set were probably the production and behind-the-scenes equipment.
You'd be surprised. Not the first season, but a friend happened to be on set while they were filming S2E1 last year and managed to snap a couple photos. Not affiliated with the production in any way, but happened to be called in as an outside contractor one day. He said he was surprised they didn't confiscate their phones at the gate before going in.
Maybe security was tighter during season one filming, but either way I'm super impressed and grateful they managed to keep it completely secret. What an awesome reveal that was. I wish they'd been able to do the same with Ahsoka's appearance.
I'll always suspect they were totally surprised; Mando was some little side project to help Disney+ but the real hit was going to be TROS and all the merch from that... then that dumpster fire came out and everyone loved Mando and ADORED "Baby Yoda"... Disney shit themselves and started whipping their factory slaves overtime to churn out Mando merch ASAP!
They're surprised because they're stupid and don't actually care about Star Wars, just how much they can milk it. If they actually truly gave a shit about the lore they would have foreseen how popular Grogu, (a BABY YODA) would have been and jumped on that instantly.
Even if it "leaked" it would have only have fed the hype into frigging overdrive and made them so much more money while having everyone repping Grogu which would have spurred even more positive word of mouth and advertisement for the Mandalorian and the series as a whole. For them to be surprised is pure stupidity on their behalf, dropped the ball is an understatement.
Although they managed to make a doll that's oddly disturbing to me, not cute. I literally don't want to be in the same room as that doll. I would have thought Disney knew how to make a cuddly stuffed toy by now.
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u/HitlerPot Resistance Dec 05 '20
When I first saw "the child" I knew Disney was gonna make a killing on the merchandise.