Chewbacca - ROTS - Basic (III 5)

The Wookiee warrior Chewbacca battles beside fellow warrior Tarfful to save their home planet from the invading Separatist forces. Yoda leads the courageous fight to save Kashyyyk from domination.

So, were you as disappointed with the “big” Battle of Kashyyyk as we were? Apparently there was supposed to be a grand war on Kashyyyk filmed for Revenge Of The Sith but it never came to fruition because of time constraints to fit in the most important part of the film: Anakin’s fall from grace. It was the ultimate opportunity for George Lucas to show the Wookiee species in action and it’s a shame that it just didn’t happen. The few moments that were captured in the film really make us want to see more. And we would have loved to see Jedi generals like Luminara Unduli and Yoda fight alongside Commander Gree as they aided the Kashyyk Troopers and AT-RT Drivers and any other clones helping to restore freedom to this normally peaceful species on the lush planet of Kashyyyk. Helping to connect the dots, George Lucas ensured that everyone’s favorite Wookiee made in into Episode III. A little blonder than before, Chewbacca was a heartwarming addition to Episode III, even if he didn’t fight aggressively like we hoped he would. It was refreshing to see he had a prior relationship with Yoda (in retrospect of course) and wasn’t it interesting to see that Yoda was the linking factor that helped tie together some Original Trilogy storylines?

Perhaps the best part about Chewbacca is his packaging. That might not sound too good to at the moment and may make you worry about the action figure a bit, but is there a cooler call-out than “Wookiee Rage!” to help advertise the figure’s action feature? We think not. Chewbacca isn’t the best action figure ever made so let’s dispel that myth right away. We don’t care if action features are for the kids or not, but we despise seeing them worked into action figures unless there exceptionally well-hidden, like on the Neimoidian Warrior for example. Chewbacca’s action features are unfortunately not bashful and are actually quite proud. To activate his “Wookiee Rage!” all you do is squeeze his legs together to flail his arms. It’s silly and borderline dumb, but he is a Collection 1 figure after all, so Hasbro had to “ruin” him somehow. We are slightly annoyed that Hasbro did this to Chewbacca. The sculpt isn’t half bad at all. Besides giving him the wrong bowcaster (they gave him his Original Trilogy one instead of the more “primitive” style seen in Episode III), Hasbro did a pretty great job is making this version Episode III specific. We’ll just have to wait for a definitive update because this one won’t fly over time.

Chewbacca comes with a slightly limited 11 points of articulation. He has an odd sliding head jointed (hinge-jointed). Then his arms come with ball-jointed shoulders (always nice) with ball-socket elbows (that function more like swivel joints due to their limited movement) and swivel wrists. Chewbacca comes with no waist joint and then the only remaining articulation is his swivel hips (and one of those hips houses the action feature mechanism) and useless swivel knees. Chewbacca has a very awkward lean. In fact, you’d think he was ready to fall right over as that is how much he leans. He comes with his Episode IV-VI bowcaster, but if you look in the reference image, he’s holding a very different model. In fact, the weapon that he is holding is the same thing that 2005’s ROTS Yoda (III 3) figure came with, only smaller. Hasbro blew up this weapon multiple times its original size to add a play feature to Yoda, but this was actually Chewbacca’s weapon in Episode III (as well as other Wookiees we’re sure). Interesting how some things can get obfuscated in the Star Wars toy line sometimes, isn’t it? You’ll probably want this Chewbacca figure for posterity, but he won’t bring you the definitive glory you are seeking…. at all.