Han Solo - TFA - Build A Weapon (Forest)

The exploits of Han Solo are legendary – he's been a famed smuggler, captain of the Millennium Falcon, and a hero of the Rebel Alliance. As the galaxy teeters towards war, Solo once again finds himself in the center of the action.

Old man Han Solo. Who would have thought that he would be the star of The Force Awakens? He stole the show with his counterpart Chewbacca and his untimely and surprising death was a matter of great disparity amongst longtime fans. It’s hard to believe that since Force Friday (which was September 4, 2015 by the way), that this is the FIRST human from the trio of human heroes from the Original Trilogy (and it didn’t even arrive until the first month of 2016)! Samples of The Black Series [Phase III] 6” Han Solo (18) hit the market first, and the immediate criticism of the figure was that his hair color is wrong. We agree. Thankfully, The Force Awakens Build A Weapon figure has been revised in a good way. We still think the hair is a bit too brown, but Hasbro added plenty of silver highlights to show that Han Solo is an aged man. And we feel it works quite well. Han Solo also once again proves to us that all Star Wars figures regardless of scale are cut from the same digital files. With a stature, posture, likeness and color scheme that mirrors also perfectly the 6” figure, Han Solo is truly a Mini-Me in multiple fashions. Overall, Han Solo looks pretty good, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t disappointed by his simple articulation.

We all knew that Han Solo, Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker were all going to be in The Force Awakens. We saw some of them in the earliest The Force Awakens trailers. So at worst, why wasn’t Han Solo one of the first figures attempted for all the lines. And especially why wasn’t he in the first wave of Walmart exclusive The Black Series [Phase III] 3.75” figures? You really have to scratch your head over this. And no matter what contrarian finds a defense for Hasbro on this matter, we’re not going to accept it. It was a bad mistake not getting the classic heroes into the basic figure lines. We understand the secrecy behind Luke Skywalker, but the others should have been fair game. You clearly catch our drift. Despite Han Solo’s long wait, the Build A Weapon action figure came out pretty well. The likeness is good. The body frame looks much more accurate in 3.75” scale than it does in 6” scale. For example, the lankiness in the legs is highly diminished in this action figure. And while there isn’t much texture in his leather jacket, the simple solid brown color actually works better because there isn’t an issue of evenness with this release. And for that we’re thankful.

Han Solo has been sculpted with what we’re going to call a semi-functional holster. We were able to “jam” the gun into its spot, but it doesn’t fit in perfectly well. In fact, the gun looks like it hasn’t rested fully into the holster no matter how hard you try to “shove” it into the spot. Maybe it’s our sample, or maybe we just don’t have the technical finesse to make this look right, but we are disappointed nonetheless. Overall, we’re quite confident that many collectors are going to be content with this action figure. In all honesty, it is so refreshing to see an all-new Han Solo sculpt that actually looks like the actor, even if it comes with limited articulation. Does this serve as our definitive choice for a version of Han Solo from The Force Awakens? No, absolutely not. We are hoping and praying that Hasbro has him on tap for the Walmart exclusive line. This character deserves super-articulated status. And because the 6” version has been a letdown in so many ways, Hasbro should make a concerted effort to make us a figure that will enthrall us all. Lastly, Han Solo is in the Forest assortment (whatever that means) and comes with a Build A Weapon part (we still have no idea why these are included with the figures though….).