Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) [Brown] - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’03 #13)

On the ice planet Hoth, Han rides a tauntaun into the chilling night to find Luke, who has not returned from a patrol. Han locates a badly wounded Luke, but when the tauntaun succumbs to the cold, they are unable to return to the base. In danger of freezing to death, Han uses the creature's body as a makeshift shelter until rescuers can arrive.

One figure that Hasbro didn’t create with much grace in the POTF2 line was Han Solo (Hoth Outfit). From the moment it was released it was evident an all new approach and sculpt was needed. Why was his hood down and his cap on his head? Why was he standing like he is in the middle of doing the hokey pokey? And what in the world was up with the freaky gripping motion that his hands were making? Hasbro tried to remedy the situation by revising this sculpt and/or creating new sculpts based on the original to be more welcomed by collectors and releasing them in different methods like pack-in figures for example. But we’re savvy and we know when an all-new figure sculpt is needed. In an unbelievably long and grueling wait, Hasbro didn’t release their very next version of Han Solo in his Hoth outfit until the Star Wars “Saga” line in 2003. It’s a breath of fresh air by comparison, but it’s still far from perfect. Interestingly, there are enough bells and whistles there that help to cover up where the figure absolutely fails. But does that make it palatable? For us that is to say that while we appreciate the efforts put forth, we still aren’t satisfied with the final figure. In fact, we feel this character needs a lot more work in general. There is no doubt that this 2003 Star Wars “Saga” figure was highly anticipated by many collectors, but once we found out what the nuts and bolts of it were, we became a little less enthused. Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) is an action figure that has some merit. He even comes in two colors and we’ll get to that more in a minute. But lets’ talk about all of the things that make this figure good as well as bad.

Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) has a pose that is action-based. For an all-new take on this character in this outfit, collectors would have much preferred a much more static body form. The “right foot forward” sculpt looks silly with some of the included accessories. Hasbro has to let collectors and kids create these poses by giving us better articulation and not pre-posed sculpts. Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) also has an action feature, much to the chagrin of collectors. You simply press a huge and obtrusive button on his back and it allow him to swing his waist, preferably with the included lightsaber. This is deemed completely unnecessary as far as we’re concerned. After all, he nonchalantly opened up the belly of the tauntaun. He wasn’t fighting a Sith tauntaun and needed dramatic sweeps of a lightsaber to perform this task. In fact, Han Solo didn’t need to swing anything to save Luke Skywalker. He just used it like a utility knife or something like a science student dissecting something would do. Hasbro only included swivel articulation in the shoulders and elbows. As you can imagine, it’s hard to get dynamic poses out of this type of articulation. No matter what you try to do, it looks like he is forcing his arms as close to his body as possible. This ultimately frustrates us. Why design and all-new sculpt for a long-awaited update and not included ball-jointed articulation to make it as awesome as possible? We also don’t appreciate the permanently sculpted macrobinoculars that hang on his left hip. The strap, also permanent, runs diagonally across his chest and will remain forever there no matter what scene you attempt to recreate in your collection. Again, with all of the included accessories here, why didn’t they make this a separately sculpted piece too??

Now for the good points. Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) comes with four incredibly detailed accessories. A nicely designed scanner is perhaps the most impressive accessory of all. It fits well into his hands and looks to be screen accurate. It even has long antennae so that he can find life on Hoth easily in his search for Luke Skywalker. Also included is a blaster pistol and it fits nicely into his functioning holster as well as his hands when not in storage. He comes with Luke’s lit lightsaber, the weapon he used to gut the belly of the tauntaun and it’s the basis of why Hasbro included the action feature with this figure. We’re quite impressed with his facemask the most however. It’s a perfect fit for Han Solo and stays in place quite nicely. As you know, he wore this when he was attempting to save Luke Skywalker, so this attention to detail is much appreciated. There has been a silly debate for years over the color of Han's parka. It’s silly because there is only one real answer to the question of whether it’s blue or brown. It’s brown. Anyway, Hasbro decided to humor collectors and release this action figure in both colors, but at different times. The important trivia to remember here is that the blue coated version can be found in both the phase II and phase III Star Wars “Saga” line look, but the brown coated version can only be found in the phase III packaging. It’s a considerate gesture on Hasbro’s part, but we feel it’s completely unnecessary. For our purposes, we consider it two unique releases: 2003’s SW [S – P2] Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) (’03 #13) (only blue) and 2003’s SW [S – P3] Han Solo (Hoth Rescue) (’03 #13) (blue and brown).