Chewbacca - TFA - 12-Inch Figures

Faithful First Mate and co-pilot Chewbacca has loyally stood by his captain's side through the twisting fortunes of a galaxy in turmoil.

Did you ever ask yourself what is up with all of these varying Star Wars scaled and formats? How many types of the same characters do we need to complete our collections, and how many different scales are needed for the kids market they're trying to gain strongholds upon when the collector market is ignored? It all seems scattered and unfocused ironically because although they're making the same characters over and over, they certainly are going ape-crazy with varying sizes and features and just confusing the market. We all know now that Hasbro hasn't even touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the characters from The Force Awakens, so we expect there to be significantly more to follow in the next six months or so. But an Original Trilogy main character like Chewbacca seems to be a safe bet no matter how you slice it. And it's perhaps this reason that he has been added to so many different sub-lines under The Force Awakens banner. The only question to ask is if a 12-Inch Figure version is at all necessary.

When you open up Chewbacca, you will probably be alarmed by how he comes packaged. Because of his height, his legs do not come assembled to the figure, so it looks like he has pirate peg-legs for his lower body. It looks as humorous as you might imagine it is. See our photo gallery to see it yourself. But once you pop his lower legs onto his body, they are permanently attached and cannot be removed, or swiveled or articulated in any way. Their removal was only meant to fit him into the box and to ship without issue. Once fully assembled, Chewbacca stands at an imposing height. Modeled after the same digital files as both The Black Series [Phase III] 6" version, but mostly after the Armor Up figure, Chewbacca mirrors some of the smaller scale versions we have already received in the line. The 12-Inch Figure doesn't have much movement at all but does come with enhanced swivel wrists which aids with him holding his bowcaster. His head movement however is inhibited.

The bowcaster comes unassembled in two pieces. It's quite simple to put together and will stay together easily. It can be held in both of his hands but functions much better in his right hand. Chewbacca looks OK when fully assembled and outfitted, but we wouldn't claim that this is a must-have collectible. These simply articulated and hollow figure are very hard to get excited about if you're a lifelong collector, and in all honesty, they're not much more than junk if you want our complete honesty. Thankfully, Chewbacca has decent paint operations, and the sculpt is alright. So you do get a better than average large toy interpretation of Chewbacca if that's the focus you want for your Star Wars collection. We'd suggest saving your money for better toys of Chewbacca out there, but with an MSRP of only $14.99 when vehicles are costing upwards of $50, it appears quite affordable in retrospect. We're surprised Hasbro keeps making these, but apparently, people are buying them. It will be interesting to see how well they fare over a longer period of time.