CHEWBACCA
STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES
“A mighty Wookiee nearly two centuries old, Chewbacca has fallen upon hard times during this age of the expanding Empire.”
Let’s keep this extraneous Star Wars love going, I suppose…wait, that doesn’t sound quite right. Never mind.
I broke my rule about the clones, but I also had this other rule with the Black Series, where I was going to avoid minor variations of the same characters. Now, technically Vader was the first one I broke the rule for, but that was a slightly special case. I stayed true with Chewbacca and didn’t buy the Force Awakens variant. Well, Solo broke me, what can I say. Was he worth it? Let’s find out!
THE FIGURE ITSELF
Chewbacca was released right around the same time as the rest of the Solo product launch, but the comparatively soft roll-out of the Solo product compared to prior movies meant that he just started showing up in some places very recently. He’s not part of the main line-up, but is instead a Target exclusive. Chewbacca stands 8 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation. Unsurprisingly, given his generally consistent look over the course of the film’s, this Chewbacca figure shares a lot of parts with the original Black Series release, namely everything but the head, upper torso, and bandolier. I was rather critical of the sculpt back when it was new, and I still stand by those critiques. There are just some issues that are inherent to the process of adapting a design like Chewbacca’s into a highly articulated plastic figure. There are going to have to be some compromises, and they do have negative impact on this sculpt. With all that said, I think this figure does a lot to salvage the sculpt. The new head is really strong. While it’s been reworked to allow for the goggles to sit better on his face, he actually still looks pretty good without the goggles in-place. In fact, he makes a for a decent approximation of Chewbacca’s messier hair style from Empire and Jedi, which I’m definitely okay with. The new torso’s really just a slight change, mostly done to help the new double-strapped bandolier sit better on his shoulders. But it definitely helps, and as a result, this Chewbacca’s bandolier sits a lot flusher to the body than the first one’s did. It’s a minor change, but one that does a lot to help the figure. Minor changes to the sculpt aside, I think the biggest thing that helps this new release is the paintwork. The first Chewbacca was released during the line’s worst period paint-wise. While his paint wasn’t *bad*, it was definitely very basic, and lacking in any form of subtlety, which hit that figure pretty hard. By contrast, this figure’s hitting while the line is at a very high point, and he definitely shows it. The transitions between shades on the fur are less jarring, and work has been done to keep these changes from being right on the joints. In addition, he’s far less glossy overall, which only helps in making him look a lot less goofy. In Solo, Chewbacca hasn’t yet gotten his distinctive bowcaster, so he’s instead carrying a different heavy blaster rifle entirely. This one’s patterned on the M-60 machine gun (thanks Tim!), which is certainly a fun one. The piece is very well sculpted and an accurate recreation of the design from the movie. And, not only does it avoid the usual lack of paint issue, but it’s even got moving parts! A very impressive piece. In addition, Chewbacca also includes his goggles from the train heist, which go on and off pretty easily. Not as impressive as the gun, but fun nonetheless.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
I saw Chewbacca fairly early on, back in May, but decided to pass on him at that time. Of course, then I didn’t see him for a couple of months, so when I came across him again (after having seen and quite enjoyed the movie), I didn’t feel like I could pass him up. I’m glad I opted to get him the second time around, as he’s a pretty sizable improvement on the last one, and definitely my favorite Chewbacca to date.
Changing gears only slightly from last week, I have another movie tie-in blaster for you. I mean, it’s mine, it’s for me. You can’t have this one. The review is for you, though, so you’re welcome. With the building hype surrounding the upcoming Solo film, of course Hasbro brought some goodies to the table. Today, I’ll be looking at the supposed primary weapon of everyone’s favorite space-faring shag carpet, at least for this movie (we don’t like to talk about the Nerf Bowcaster). As a bonus, I’ll be reviewing this blaster entirely in Chewie’s native tongue.
Rara arrarRA RARA rara rARAAA rrrrrr aa A r AR A a RR r RRRR A AAAA ra ARRAARAA aarararra raar ar ra rarar rrr aa ra raa rarra ararr aara ok, that’s enough of that. What I said was, this blaster was released in 2018 as branded merch for the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. Despite its size, it’s actually a very simple blaster, mechanically speaking. It’s effectively a muzzle-loading shotgun that fires two darts at once. It might have been nice to have a staggered trigger on the blaster like the Roughcut, but that would have added a significant amount of additional bulk and moving pieces, and subsequently driven the price up. It does seem like Hasbro are trying to be a little more wallet friendly with this round of Star Wars products, probably after seeing how slowly the more recent Deluxe Stormtrooper blaster and its $80 price tag moved. As with all Star Wars blasters now, the Chewbacca blaster features lights and sounds and uses the Glowstrike darts to approximate the feeling of firing a laser weapon. The sound effect in this blaster is fairly satisfying and bass-y which is definitely fitting. The use of real-world firearms as the bases for the movie props once again gives this blaster pretty good ergonomics. This blaster in particular is built on the receiver and stock of an M60 machine gun. I feel confident that the Nerf version is substantially scaled down from the original but they’ve kept the grips a good size so it’s not bad. The stock of the blaster has a storage area under the butt plate, and is removable, using the 
standard Nerf stock attachment lug. There’s also a rail on the top of the blaster for the included scope if you want, or you could remove it and leave it off forever. That’s valid too, especially with a scope like this. At least you have the option to take it off without using a hacksaw. I know it’s meant to look like the movie prop, so I can’t fault Hasbro for including it, but it’s just a narrow tube in a weirdly shaped shell. The scope on the Han Solo blaster pistol has a sight front post so you can at least pretend you’re aiming it properly. It might have been nice to have something like that here, but sadly no. Something noteworthy about this wave of Star Wars blasters is that the boxes actually advertise range claims. Historically, Nerf only bothers doing this if the performance is at least halfway decent, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when that turned out to be the case here too. It’s almost even more impressive when you remember this blaster fires two darts at once using a single plunger tube (we also don’t like to talk about the DoubleDealer). Having to reload 2 darts for every trigger pull does slow down your potential for follow-ups, the decent amount of power, the lights, the sounds and the Glowstrike darts make this a great blaster for ambushing your younger siblings, especially at night. The Chewbacca Blaster comes packaged with the stock, the scope, and 6 Glowstrike Elite darts. Batteries are only required for the lights and sounds, and the Glowstrike functionality. Fortunately, they come already installed in the blaster.
The Figure In Question 