Diamond Toys Confirms There's NO Demand for Ep 9 Toys

The toy/collectible sales for the sequel trilogy have been in steady decline since the beginning, (that being The Force Awakens). But it really shouldn’t be so surprising.

TFA drew in such a large following. Disney converts, general moviegoers, and OT fans giddy over the OT nostalgia in the film. The small minority criticizing it for being such a on-the-nose copy of ANH were ignored or rebuked. Most professional critics give this issue a pass though. At that point the only concern seemed to be that little girls weren’t buying quite as many Rey action figures as they’d hoped.

Fast forward to TLJ. OT fans are split down the middle as many of them feel betrayed by how characters and storylines are handled. Especially where Luke Skywalker is concerned (among other things). The backlash is palpable. But many critics enthusiastically approve of the trade off. The trade off being that they’d gladly see the Skywalker character be recreated into some MacGuffin to subvert expectations and champion one of Rey’s character values... that she doesn’t come from anything special, that she is a nobody who can achieve greatness by her own doing without the guidance or help from anyone else.

Many of these same critics - along with pro-Disney social media and ardent fans of TLJ/Rian Johnson - paint a public picture of disapproving fans being a loud but insignificant minority of misogynistic basement dwellers. But toy sales tell a different story. The drop off in sales suggest that there is a bigger, more diverse number of fans who didn’t enjoy various things about TLJ.

Fast forward to TROS. Some fans now critical of the trilogy are not enthusiastic about seeing the movie. Another problem is that avid TLJ fans are angered by certain themes being reversed, especially ones involving Rey. Reylos are disillusioned by where they thought Reylo was headed based on TLJ, but didn’t. But the biggest problem of all is that the majority of professional critics also penalize TROS for reversing some of the moral themes surrounding Rey that were created in TLJ. For the first time, it’s not just fans betrayed by TLJ or the Fandom Menace telling sequel trilogy fans that they shouldn’t be enthusiastic about what they see onscreen. It’s also the critics who have always been on their side. So it’s no wonder that many of them have lost confidence in buying collectibles of the new trilogy characters.

Toy sales are down because there really weren't any new characters added that demanded to be added to a Star Wars toy collection. It seemed the toy they were pushing the hardest was the new droid and nobody wants that thing. Force Awakens had BB-8, which felt new and fresh and was a cool character people liked immediately. Last Jedi had the porgs, which were funny and unique. D-Lo isn't as cool as BB-8 or as unique as the Porgs. It's just another small droid, except this time it talks in a human voice.