Han Solo - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (18)

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.

Hmm. Well, we have to be upfront with you. Han Solo from The Black Series [Phase III] 6” line, based on his appearance from The Force Awakens, didn’t turn our fully as we had expected. It has a great deal going for it, but then there are some things that ended up being—disappointing. Visually, the likeness of Han Solo is good, but seems ever so slightly off. Yes, he has the wrong hair color, and many have presumed we’re going to see a running change to gray hair in the near future. That certainly is possible. but we’re more struck by a seemingly bigger issue. Han Solo has a lankiness in his stature that borders on glaring and unfortunately we’re personally having great difficulty getting past it. We believe it has to do with the length of his legs compared to his torso. But whatever it is, Han Solo should not be so long in the legs. The way this figure was done definitely affects the screen accuracy of it. We feel that Hasbro did an admirable job on the head sculpt. This indeed looks like actor Harrison Ford. But the straight ahead shot makes his “jowls” look too loose and enlarged. From side views we think this figure is flawless. But again, a straight on view looking at him eye to eye makes you feel that something isn’t right.

Han Solo is sadly wrought with more issues. Hasbro did a very poor job on matching Han Solo’s sleeves with the jacket shell. They are blatantly mismatched and again, and it’s something very few collectors are going to be able to get past. What’s so tragic is the shell is gorgeously decorated with multiple shades of paint to give a realistic weathered leather appearance. But it's inhibited by the incorrectly colored sleeves. Why would they go through all the trouble developing a complicated deco to be as realistic as possible, and not ensure the different parts matched? We find this unacceptable. These figures cost more than $20 now, and they warrant carefully attention to detail, especially in the deco process, and we find this annoying, lazy, and sloppy. Clearly there are some major issues with Han Solo. Hopefully as this figure hits mass production status, these color variances will be better calibrated and hopefully future samples will have parts that more closely match each other. If they can master the deco, Han Solo would border on excellent. The sculpt is really, really good. If you carefully inspect its design, you’ll find that Hasbro’s toy makers developed a truly excellent action figure. We’d expect the Walmart exclusive The Black Series [Phase III] 3.75” version of this character to look nearly the same.

Han Solo comes with a blaster pistol (it looks to be a DL-44) that fits perfectly into the functioning holster in his belt. His jacket shell is also removable and underneath he is wearing a white shirt. Because it’s a shell, the sleeves should be matching the color of the shell, but as mentioned above that just didn’t happen as it was intended. We’re excited for new characters from The Force Awakens and that may play a powerful part in people picking up this figure. We believe that many will be overlooking its shortcoming because it’s Han Solo after all. In all honesty, we’re surprised that we didn’t fall for Han Solo hook, line, and sinker because this production figure doesn’t differ all that much from the prototype version we saw at Hasbro’s ‘Twas The Night Before NYCC Preview Part in October 2015. But whether the paint operations have encumbered this figure’s wow factor or not, it’s evident that things are off no matter how you slice it. We wish that Hasbro enforced a little better quality control for the final production figure. On the plus side, Han Solo has plenty of premium articulation (nothing outside of the normal The Black Series 6” articulation system) and can be posed very believably in multiple positions. This figure has great potential. Let’s hope Hasbro can clean up the kinks before this figure makes a big splash.