As The Mandalorian approaches the season 2 finale, it seems that the show’s latest episode, “The Tragedy,” has lived up to its title—specifically for collectors of expensive toys. Just this past September, the official Star Wars figures producers of Hasbro Toys—via its HasLab crowdfund project—unveiled and successfully funded its second too-pricey-for-retail mega-vehicle: Din Djarin’s signature ship, the Razor Crest. The funding of the toy, which followed last year’s success with the massive Jabba’s Sail Barge (The Khetanna), will bring to life the magnificent starship, presented in-scale for the 3.75” scale action figures, specifically for those willing to pay the $350 price tag. As it turns out, around 28,000 hardcore toy collectors were willing to pay, yielding the company $9.8 million in funding—not bad at all. However, The Mandalorian just threw a monumental—possibly game-changing—curve ball at the Razor Crest: its complete and total decimation! “The Tragedy,” consequential as it was for numerous reasons, ended with the heartbreaking destruction of Din Djarin’s battered-but-beloved ship. Indeed, a single devastating blast from the orbiting Imperial light cruiser under the command of Moff Gideon reduced the repurposed gunship to bits and pieces, leaving only Djarin’s recently-acquired beskar spear and the control knob upon which the dark trooper-abducted Grogu (still “Baby Yoda” to some) perpetually fixated. While the destruction of the Razor Crest was powerful from a dramatic standpoint, it might have been even more shocking if you had just recently forked over $350 to fund production for a toy ship that, up until that moment, you thought would always be The Mandalorian’s signature ride—the show’s proverbial Millennium Falcon. Instead, Djarin is forced to run off with the resurfaced Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) to rescue Grogu in another iconic (many-toys-inspiring) signature ride, Fett’s Slave I. To make matters even worse, Hasbro often coordinates its toy plans with creative personnel from Star Wars shows and films during the developmental phases to ensure accuracy, which might lead some irate collectors to believe that the company already knew the ship’s fate as it was collecting major money from fans. So, where does the ship’s purportedly final fate leave the collectors who crowdfunded Hasbro’s Razor Crest? While, for some, it will likely lead to serious cases of buyer’s remorse, those collectors might be well-served to remember that the Razor Crest has already enjoyed nearly two full seasons of adventures, which is actually far more than the total amount of screen time of other iconic movie ships, notably the aforementioned Millenniun Falcon. Indeed, with The Mandalorian being an expensive prestige series, the ultimate length of its run won’t likely be long, and the time of the ship’s existence could end up covering the majority of its run. Thus, in owning Hasbro’s Razor Crest—which also comes with figures of Din Djarin, The Child with his Season 1 pram, and an Offworld Jawa Elder—funders will have an inevitably-rare collector’s item that serves as a spectacular snapshot of the acclaimed television series during the splendor of its cultural height. In fact, all one needs to do to find a similar example is to look over at Star Wars’ perennial rival franchise, Star Trek. The destruction of the classic original show’s U.S.S. Enterprise in 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock did nothing to diminish the cultural value (and toy marketability) of that ship. The same can be said for Star Trek: The Next Generation’s series-spanning U.S.S. Enterprise-D, which crashed from orbit to its final destruction in 1994’s Star Trek Generations. In the immortal words of Alexander Pope (who, in 1732, probably wasn’t talking about Star Wars toys), “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
