X-wing Fighter - R - Vehicles

Rebel pilots including Luke Skywalker fly X-wing starfighters in space combat against Imperial forces. Luke, flying as Red Five in the Battle of Yavin, maneuvers his X-wing along the Death Star's trench to blast the battle station's vulnerable exhaust port. Armed with laser cannons, X-wings battle Imperial TIE fighters during the fight to free the galaxy.

In 2013, Jedi Temple Archives broke news about a 6” scaled X-wing Fighter coming to the line. As the rumor was early in development, we didn’t realize that what was coming was a larger X-wing Fighter, but “dumbed-down” in approach to be a cost-effective, yet large in size, toy vehicle release for kids and collectors. Presented at 2014’s New York International Toy Fair, Hasbro formally announced the Rebels Hero Series X-wing Fighter. But what makes the designation of this vehicle so odd (the Hero Series part which means 12-Inch Figure scale) is that the X-wing Fighter is closer in size to a 3.75” action figure than any of their “shampoo bottle” 12-Inch Figures. Keeping in mind that the X-wing Fighter is technically in a scale of its own, if you use your imagination, it can serve as our first “almost to movie scale” X-wing Fighter vehicle ever produced for the Hasbro Star Wars toy line. But before you get too excited, the Rebels Hero Series X-wing Fighter is about as far as any of us can get from a collector-friendly” toy. Without any significant play features and design elements that made the smaller-scaled X-wing Fighter vehicles so much fun, the Hero Series X-wing Fighter comes across as a total piece of junk. It also possesses some redeeming qualities.

Although the Hero Series X-wing Fighter is an almost perfect 1:1 scale for 3.75” action figures, Hasbro decided that a lower price point was more important than adding the most basic of features to the vehicle. To achieve this price point, Hasbro “ripped out” anything collectors were used to seeing in an X-wing Fighter vehicle and made it as simple as possible. There is no functioning cockpit. There is no full droid socket (although this vehicle comes with “half” of a static R2-D2 figure). There are no articulated S-foils. The cannons are hollow. The vehicle shell is hollow (and cast with the weakest plastic we’ve ever seen Hasbro utilize to date). Thank the Maker Hasbro added an articulated landing skid that props up the vehicle when in landing mode. But that’s about the greatest feature, aside from its size, that Hasbro added here. To help make up for the vehicle’s lack of features, Hasbro added to decal sheets to give the wings color and design. Interestingly, the X-wing Fighter comes with many decals pre-applied, but then the collector is responsible for adding the stickers from the two included decal sheets to the X-wing Fighter. We’ve never encountered a toy vehicle from Hasbro that stirred up so much bitterness and sweetness at the same time. Let’s find out why.

Aesthetically, the Hero Series X-wing Fighter is a nightmare. We’re not going to candy coat this. The color of the plastic utilized is wrong. The stickers are not entirely correct. The cannons are missing key details. There is no opening cockpit (which is egregious by our standards). We can forgive the droid socket and the “half” version of R2-D2. But what we can’t let go is the cheap plastic utilized for this vehicle. The plastic is so weak that the HOLLOW cannons make the S-foils bow. Every aspect of the vehicle is hollow, and there isn’t enough support where support is needed. And it’s all very disappointing. But here are some positives. The nearly movie-accurate scale puts things into perspective and shows collectors just how “off” the collector-friendly versions of the X-wing Fighter, including the release from The Vintage Collection. For years, we’ve been receiving beautiful X-wing Fighters that we think are more accurately scaled, but instead, are a long way off from what we see in the Original Trilogy. When you place 2015’s R Luke Skywalker (SL22) figure next to and around the Hero Series X-wing Fighter, you appreciate the size, NOT THE QUALITY, of this vehicle. And its size literally puts things into perspective for you. Again, this is a terrible toy, but we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t nice to have something of this scale available for the 3.75” line.