Interview: Hasbro's Star Wars Team Discusses New Vintage Collection and Black Series Reveals at SDCC 2025

This past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 in Southern California, I had the wonderful opportunity to return to Hasbro’s booth for another interview with designer Chris Reiff and brand manager Jing Houle all about the popular toy company’s new announcements for its Star Wars: The Vintage Collection and The Black Series action figure lines coming out of the annual convention.

Mike Celestino, Laughing Place: How is your convention going this year?

Chris Reiff: It is amazing.

Jing Houle: It's going so well. There's a lot of people [and] a lot of energy here this year. It's been a lot of fun.

Reiff: I probably say this every year, but I feel like it's true– it gets denser and more consistent over the course of the  [four and a half] days. Last year I felt like Friday and Saturday were about the same, which is unusual– Saturday’s usually the big day. [This year] it feels like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday have all been about the same. It's amazing. That might be because we're standing in the booth and we're just packed in with people. I don't know.

LP: You guys had your big panel yesterday, and we're standing right next to the big reveal, the next Star Wars HasLab. I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first one in the prequel era, correct?

Houle: For the HasLab? Yeah.

Reiff: Yeah, because we’ve done the Sail Barge [from Return of the Jedi], the Razor Crest [from The Mandalorian], the Ghost [from Star Wars Rebels], and the Cantina [from the original Star Wars film].

LP: So what made you turn toward the Clone Wars era for the next HasLab– the Republic gunship?

Houle: We have been hearing a lot from fans that it is the time for prequels. We did Return to Tatooine, which was amazing. It was a year-long celebration of all of the great reveals that we've done and you know we closed that out and we were like, ‘What's next?’ And we wanted to do something prequel-themed. We've seen the gunship being thrown around for HasLab ideas in the community for years now, and we're like that could do [with] a really good update under Chris's wonderful hands to make it HasLab special. And then we built a whole world around it with [the] Battle of Geonosis. That was a key, action-packed moment in the prequels.

Reiff: Oh yeah, it was the big climax [of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones] and groundswell– Jedi showed up, lightsabers everywhere.

Houle: Yeah, the clones coming to help, saving the day.

Reiff: The gunship makes a perfect anchor for a new theme, and It kind of sets us in motion for 2026 the same way that the Cantina did for 2025.

Houle: It’s fun. We thought that that was a great moment now that the Cantina [and] Return to Tatooine is closed out, to really look forward to that next stage.

LP: Speaking of building out that Battle of Geonosis theme, tell me about the unlock tiers coming along with the Republic Gunship.

Reiff: So we're standing here at the case; we're looking at the cardbacks for the three tier unlocks: we've got Coleman Trebor, Saesee Tiin, and Agen Kolar– there are stories behind each of the names, I'm sure. But they're cool characters that have never seen [The Vintage Collection] treatment before, so it was great to dig in and find those that were relevant to both the story we wanted to tell, to bring some great alien Jedi into TVC, and two of them are Jedi council members. It's great, extended beyond the campaign, but it's really delivering core characters in a new way.

Houle: [The project] is live now at HasbroPulse.com. You have until September 8th, so you have the full 45 days, but it's up there right now for anyone that wants to back it.

Reiff: Yeah, we want to build that excitement early and get it flowing so we can get to all those tiers. We don't want to leave anybody on the table, and I think it'll just get that community swell behind it. I think we’ll be doing great.

LP: Turning toward The Black Series, another toy that people have been requesting for a bit now is the Stranger from The Acolyte. Tell me a little bit about this figure.

 Reiff: Well, we did so many of the Jedi. Now we have somebody to poke them all. [laughs]

Houle: Too soon, too soon.

Reiff: But no, he's an awesome figure. And being respectful with our partners at Disney, they wanted to be careful about how the info around that character was released, to help celebrate him more in content at the time. They worked with us [wonderfully] obviously on the helmet and getting us that reference [material], and then we agreed to hold back on that character a little bit. So now that we've had the chance to move forward with the development on him, and really address him in a great fashion for The Black Series. And understanding him in [The Acolyte] along with everybody else, in that full formal form, really let us decide and develop him appropriately with the right soft goods to get all the great action, and what was important to that character and content.

Houle: Yeah, the two lightsaber hilts, for example– how the hilt can plug in. He was a standout character, I think, for Acolyte.

Reiff: Sometimes a character is very clear on what's important with [them] based off of just basic photo reference. With [Qimir], so much about that character was about how he was going to move, and what he was going to be able to do, and how the helmet was going to be off or on. hairstyle, all that stuff. [Those were] all things that weren't going to become obvious until we saw that in content. So it's one of those [figures] where I think it's better because we waited, and now we have him.

LP: With the duel two-pack between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from The Empire Strikes Back, do you consider this a companion piece to the SDCC exclusive depicting Anakin vs. Obi-Wan?

Houle: It’s familial, but it’s in a different era. For us, it's really about storytelling and taking Black Series to that next stage. Because Black Series has a long history, and a lot of times it's mostly [about] the standard figures, which builds out great collections. But what we really crave– that we get to do a lot more in Vintage– is that world-building and expanding it a little bit bigger. We're trying to figure out the right way to do that with Black Series: snapshot moments to get just enough to capture that feeling, that memory, and being able to do that in Black Series. Hopefully the reception's good, because I feel like it takes Black Series to that next stage, to that next opportunity.

Reiff: Part of it, too, for me, is the excitement that if you're a fan who's not a Black Series fan– if you're a TVC fan who's curious about the Black Series stuff, or somebody who's more casual– those are fantastic sets that just get that [moment]. You get the characters that are pivotal to that scene [with] a little foundation piece for them. And it lets you do that on a smaller scale without feeling like you have to have 16 troops to support [it], or any of that. ‘Here's my neat little package.’

Houle: Just enough to get us that emotional feel.

Reiff: Yeah, great ways to interact with those figures and with that scale.

LP: Everybody's been talking about the alternate Sebastian Shaw head for The Vintage Collection Force Ghosts three-pack. What made you decide to include that?

Houle: We recognize how important it is– he was a big part [of] the original [version of Return of the Jedi], right? So being able to include that in a way that makes a lot of sense [was great]. Even the neck piece was a little different.

Reiff: Yeah, there's some differences even between original Anakin and new Anakin in how they were dressed. They got it very close, but the way his collar lays on new Anakin is different than how it was on the original release of Return of the Jedi. The team did a great job of separating that part of the robe out, so that when you switch the different heads in, you get the whole neck. It's one of those things, too, that with that version of that character, that's not something that's a more mass or casual audience version– the new version of Anakin is the way they're aware of it and familiar with it. So that works for a broader approach, but in an item like this that's our fall convention exclusive, that's speaking straight to fans, especially fans of the Original Trilogy. [They] really know that original moment and that original version, so it's a great time and a place to address that portrait.

Houle: Fans know, right? We've had so many people come and tell us how much they appreciate that, and I think for fans like old and new, it's just so cool to be able to celebrate history like that.

Reiff: And he's one of those figures that Kenner even did [in the original Star Wars action figure run], so it's fun to think about that and have that in our arsenal now.

LP: Lastly, are there any other highlights from your SDCC announcements yesterday that you would like to mention?

Reiff: Well, we announced three new TVC figures, some of which were pipelined already– you had seen the Han and Chewie, but those are top characters. That's getting core characters done as we hit the on-ramp to the 50th [anniversary of Star Wars] coming in 2027. We're not there yet, but we know those characters are critical to that and things like the Cantina, so [we] wanted to get those out. We [also] did a lot of great stuff in The Black Series.

Houle: From the prequels, we talked about Asajj [Ventress] and Jango [Fett], which is huge, the set that we just talked about with Vader and Lu those are huge. The Return to Tatooine poster– we're handing out posters here in San Diego, and then we teased that there could be more coming. We don't want to tell you exactly what it is; I wish I could tell you more. But I think it just shows the fans that we are there to support the HasLabs for years to come.

Reiff: We did it with the Barge Denizens pack, the Blurrg [for the Razor Crest], you see that we're going to continue to go back to support classic pieces.

Houle: HasLabs, for us, are so important. It really anchors a lot of the things that we do. More to come!

Reiff: And that bookends nicely into the Battle of Geonosis theme that we announced. That's going to continue for that, too. You'll see that run for another year, and I don't know yet, but it might be next San Diego [Comic-Con] where we say, ‘Hey, here's our next theme.’ Hopefully we keep doing things like that and give some kind of structured excitement to the community.

For more information and to pre-order many of the above Star Wars toys, be sure to visit Hasbro Pulse’s official website.