Death Star Trash Compactor (Princess Leia & Chewbacca) - SW [S - P1] - Scene Packs (2 of 2)

Luke, Han, and Chewie infiltrate the Death Star to free Princess Leia. While making their escape, they dive down a garbage chute and become trapped in a trash compactor with a hungry dianoga. Then the walls begin to close in on them, and our heroes are caught in a tight squeeze!

One of the standout highlights of 2002 came at the tail end of the year in the form of the Star Wars “Saga” Death Star Trash Compactor Scene Packs. It was sadly relegated to becoming a Walmart exclusive, so its lack of availability and escalated MSRP irritated fans. If you were lucky enough to find it however, you quickly overlooked the $17 per unit price tag, because quite honestly $34 for both sets bought you a lot of all-new sculpts and environments that many collectors weren’t even sure we’d ever receive. The Death Star Trash Compactor (Luke Skywalker & Han Solo) (1 of 2) is arguably the “better” of the two sets, but no one can discount the fact that both are needed to complete this wonderfully dreamy diorama of one of the most exciting scenes in any Star Wars film to date. Death Star Trash Compactor (Princess Leia & Chewbacca) (2 of 2) obviously brings us the royal Princess Leia Organa and the adored Chewbacca, both sporting all-new sculpts and fairly impressive likenesses and accurate scales. But more importantly, this set includes the top half/front end of the dianoga so that collectors for the first time ever in the modern line can assemble that abhorred creature living in the bowels of the Death Star’s garbage disposal. When put together, you finally get a good idea of the strength behind that tentacle pulling Luke under the garbage. Of course, at best this is an “Expanded Universe” take on the dianoga since we never see the full beast in the film at all. Still, we’ll accept that Hasbro accessed the appropriate Lucasfilm Ltd. records to accurately recreate the creature for our collections.

The biggest complaint we have regarding the dianoga is Hasbro didn’t paint the “human” like eye on it. All that we get is one big black eye which is honestly a little bit disappointing. Again, we’ll take it nonetheless. It’s not that disappointing enough to prevent us from buying this wonderful set. Also, we would have loved to see Hasbro add a little more articulation to the dianoga. We understand the need for a “bendy” tail to wrap around Luke, but we think they really could have done justice to the dianoga had they pulled out all the stops and actually articulated it. Again, there is enough here to love and it’s just one of our own personal wishes that Hasbro did more with the dianoga. It’s wonderful to see a properly scaled Princess Leia figure with a much better likeness and impressive screen accuracy. After all of The Power Of The Force “2” efforts, it was great for Hasbro to tool a new version from the ground up. All have received this treatment. Because all four characters in these multipacks are in “action” styled poses, they’ve been posed in “dramatic” ways. In other words, and sadly, both Princess Leia and Chewbacca will not serve as definitive updates to your collection despite their wonderful sculpts. But it’s alright. Collectors need to view these figures as one-off attempts exclusive to this exclusive. (We didn’t mean to be so “meta” there.) What we can honestly state however is that they’re the perfect action figures for this set and we’re sure you’ll love them just the way they are. We know you will love them despite their limitations.

Back to Princess Leia, she is holding up a large/long support poll which she used to brace the walls of the trash compactor as it began to close in on the heroes during this dramatic sequence of film. What is so impressive about this Princess Leia figure is the deco. The head sculpt and paint operations are just above average for us, but the impressive aspect is the way Hasbro dirtied her white robes. Not only are there streaks of discoloring (showing how the filthy water adulterated her pure white gown) running up her lower robes, but he also has a collection of dirt in her chest area. These are all screen accurate if you watch A New Hope. Little details like this cannot be underappreciated. It shows the passion has towards the Hasbro brand and how incredibly devoted they are to making the best products possible. Chewbacca is also apparently doing his part to save everyone too. He has been posed in a way which recreates him banging on the trash compactor door seeking escape. (That obviously got them nowhere and it was the droids that ultimately saved their lives. We digress.) But Chewbacca is large and tall and towers over the rest of the figures in these Screen Scene sets. The head sculpt is astounding and frankly one of the nicest Chewbacca figures we have seen in the line to date. In retrospect, it slightly disappointing that Hasbro didn’t give Chewbacca more articulation. He really is a sight to behold. When combined with the Death Star Trash Compactor (Luke Skywalker & Han Solo) (1 of 2) set, this is easily one of the greatest exclusives Hasbro has ever created. Thank you, Hasbro!

About This Review: This review is dedicated to the loving memory of Mark Grimshaw, more affectionately known as studlydudly here at Jedi Temple Archives. His estate bequeathed a portion of his personal Star Wars collection to Jedi Temple Archives and this Hasbro product is one of those items from it. We miss you terribly, Mark.