Battle Action Millennium Falcon - TFA - Vehicles (Class III) (Space)

An extensively modified Corellian light freighter, the Millennium Falcon is a legend in smuggler circles and is coveted by many for being the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.

What a piece of junk! (OK, that was too easy, right?) We’ll do our absolute best to provide you with a balanced look at the Battle Action Millennium Falcon but we should forewarn you it’s going to be a very difficult task to accomplish well. Trying to be open-minded about a product that just isn't for you is a tremendous task, but we're up for the challenge. There are about as many positives and there are negatives with the Battle Action Millennium Falcon, but even in this unempirical brief synopsis the positive outliers are so far removed from the negative that they may wrap back around to becoming negative in interpretation. So, as we said, we’ll do our best to provide the best outlook on this new vehicle for The Force Awakens, but it will be much more difficult to do in practicality than in theory. So. We knew the Millennium Falcon would be a part of the new series of Star Wars films thanks to that heartwarming teaser trailer that became public consumption a while back. But we desperately wanted to be comforted in knowing Hasbro would take the stunningly perfect and brilliant 2008 TLC Millennium Falcon vehicle and make it Episode VII specific. Sadly, the furthest thing, except for the price, from the original is what has transpired, and now we have a vehicle we're not even sure we want to keep now. Hasbro tooled an all-new vehicle for this release (much to our surprise). They tried their best to make it a convertible type of vehicle that changes so it could become as much of a playset as it was already a vehicle. That sort of works, but to think how you have to achieve the playset mode, and realize the unfortunately small scale, man, oh man; you’re just going to be left feeling hollow and empty inside or left out in the cold. Hasbro seemed to listen to our pleas of wanting playsets, but if they listened, they did this at the expense of the most popular vehicle in Star Wars. And yes, we’re going to say it. This is geared towards young Star Wars fans and that’s it. We have been completely removed from the equation here and the goal was to add as many gimmicks as possible to a vehicle we literally know nothing about how it works itself into the film at all. As a result, Hasbro had to factor in their own “ideas” of what made sense. But we have to say, that from a collectors’ perspective, nothing they did works.

Let’s talk about the vehicle’s aesthetics. When fully assembled and viewed from a distance, the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is a beautiful work of art. We’re not trying to deceive anyone by this statement nor make anyone happy or angry with that sentiment. It’s the absolute truth. Visually, we don’t think the Millennium Falcon has looked better in the toy line. Paint job wise and deco wise, it may even rival the BMF in a few ways. But the plastic used is that same dang rubbery/soft plastic that is inferior to what has been used for vehicles in the recent past. It is like the Rebels Hero Series Millennium Falcon but in a smaller scale (and more options). Sadly, the same exact materials have been used. Where things really fall apart however is with its functionality and interactivity. By taking off the top and inverting it as a floor, you’re given an instant playset. Sure, it looks pretty cool for about five minutes until you realize just how downsized the entire play areas is. You have to keep in mind, too, the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is nearly identical in length and width as the original Kenner/POTF2 (and any other pre-The Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon) vehicle out there. But the detail and sculpting is night and day when compared to its ancestors. In fact, we’d estimate that even the thickness of the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is about one-third thinner than the older molds used to date. Again, the detail sculptor Mark Boudreaux added is absolutely gorgeous and stunning – the best we have seen in a long time, but he was forced to work within such tiny constraints (due to the directive of going back to a smaller scale vehicle) and as you know, there is only so much room to work with – everything gets “dumbed down” as a result. For example, this is almost funny, but the single “hallway” of the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is only tall enough to barely accommodate the included BB-8 action figure. (We’ll get to this in a moment, but BB-8 may be the sole reason to buy the Battle Action Millennium Falcon Class III vehicle.) This hallway should be tall enough to allow Chewbacca to stand up in in without crouching or slouching.

There are indeed a few fun play features here for kids. We concede we were a little amused as well. A button releases an instant pop-up turret. This is big enough to stand Chewbacca in and he looks pretty cool at the controls. We appreciate the secret smuggler area which is big enough to hide another Star Wars action figure. The electronics and sound effects are good too, but we would have liked to see more. The front sides of the Battle Action Millennium Falcon open up and house extra firing NERF darts, but there is enough space to do a whole lot more with them then just store the darts. Oh, and of course you know the biggest controversy of this vehicle: the NERF dart cannon. Yeah, well, you press a button on the side of the hull and the cannon pops up (in a startling manner no less). The cannon is powerful and shoots the darts far, but did we need something so gimmicky added to a classic Star Wars vehicle? And we’re including the kids in this thought too. Aren't there enough NERF products to deal with foam projectiles that it doesn't need to be cross-pollinated into a Star Wars toy? Wouldn’t something screen specific bode better for the overall success of this vehicle (by capturing the adult element of collectors they're losing by droves)? We’ve briefly described the playset aspect of the Battle Action Millennium Falcon, but there is more to add. When you flip the front cover upside down to extend the playset surface area, the “top/lid” doesn’t “connect” to the rest of the vehicle in any certain way. It just sort of “rests” on the bigger portion of the vehicle. We were let down by that quite a bit because the catalog pictures, in all honesty, deceive the viewer on how this vehicle actually transforms into a playset. We feel like we have been misled here, and that bothers us. The only thing extra that comes with this extra floor piece is a removable cannon that you can set Finn (Jakku) up at and this can be done at either end of the floor piece. We suppose it works, but it’s just really extra “nonsense” to add some additional play value to this item. Oh, and because of the vehicle's waxy, resin plastic, the decals have difficulty staying on it. Or maybe Hasbro used the same adhesive as Dr. Tim Whatley's label maker. (Hey, thank the Maker it wasn't the same adhesive from George Constanza's wedding invitations!)

Three figures are included with the Battle Action Millennium Falcon. A revised version of Finn (Jakku), an all-new BB-8 and a revised Chewbacca are all part of the flying team here. Finn (Jakku) is based on 2015’s TFA Finn (Jakku) (Build A Weapon) (Desert) figure. This time he has been given an all-new head sculpt and coat shell. The hole on the coat shell is no longer there, but it’s an all-new piece that now accommodates the headset radio of his communications headgear. The paint operations are too sloppy on our sample, but it does make Finn (Jakku) look like he belongs somewhere on the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca is based on 2015’s TFA Chewbacca (Armor Up) (Forest) figure. This time an all-new head sculpt and torso was tooled. And in all honesty, this pack-in Chewbacca looks a whole heck of a lot better than the Armor Up version. The head sculpt is tremendously better and the paint operations are just superb. Sadly, Finn (Jakku) and Chewbacca look like sardines when placed in the cockpit together. We’re conspiracy theorists anyway, but we believe Hasbro only used the top half of the figures to shoot the images for the box art work, which shows them comfortably next to each other in the cockpit. But there is no way they used these pack-in figures as is to take the “piloting” shot. For us however, BB-8 is the best pack-in figure of all. We don’t know WHAT went awry with the figure from 2015’s TFA BB-8/Unkar’s Thug/Jakku Scavenger set from the Two-Packs line, but that figure was a hollow piece of junk. The BB-8 pack-in figure from the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is heavy in weight, and brilliantly decorated with lots of dirt and wear. If you metaphorically see the Two-Pack BB-8 as a ping pong ball, then see this one as a golf ball. We're not kidding about this figure' weight! This droid looks gorgeous. The last issue we have for the Battle Action Millennium Falcon is the MSRP. There is NO WAY in the world this Class III vehicle is worth $10 less than The Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon. At the most, the Battle Action Millennium Falcon should cost no more than $79.99. It is really that much overcharged in our opinion.