Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) - SW [S - P2] - Basic (’03 #14)

Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance continues the fight against the Imperial forces and suffers a defeat on the ice planet Hoth. Luke Skywalker journeys to the planet Dagobah to train with Jedi Master Yoda, who has lived in hiding since the fall of the Republic. In an attempt to convert Luke to the dark side, the evil Sith Lord, Darth Vader, lures Luke into a trap in the Cloud City of Bespin. In the midst of a fierce lightsaber duel with Vader, Luke faces the startling revelation that the Sith Lord is in fact his father, Anakin Skywalker.

In a desperate attempt to escape pursuing Imperial ships, Chewbacca and Han fly the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field. Landing inside an asteroid, they attempt to remove mynocks, energy-feeding parasites, that have attached themselves to the ship. As the asteroid starts to make strange movements, they discover that they are actually in the gullet of a huge creature that lives in the dark asteroid cavern.

You have to hand it to Hasbro that they find ways to make characters that appear the same throughout the films unique. Whether we get a desert worn versus shiny C-3PO, or an R2-D2 with or without utility arms, small differences are the boatloads of gravy that make the hobby so much fun and the action figures that are part of it so incredibly interesting. When it comes to a character like Chewbacca, the task of making him unique becomes a little more difficult. Sure, he has two different hairstyles between Episode IV and Episode V, but aside from that there aren’t many other things that keep the character scene/film specific or unique. In The Empire Strikes Back however, Chewbacca did exhibit diversity from scene to scene. Whether it was the ice forming on his fur on Hoth, or him carrying C-3PO on his back during the final moments of the film, there were indeed ways for Hasbro to mix it up and make him very scene specific. Obviously it wasn’t as easy in the other two Original Trilogy films. Another scene in Episode V where Chewbacca appears unique was during their time in the space slug when they were hiding from the Galactic Empire. Chewbacca donned a gas mask as he and Han Solo and Princess Leia exited the Millennium Falcon to destroy the mynocks that potentially could be damaging the ship. Hasbro took cue from this scene and released a better than average version of Chewbacca right from this very scene.

For the first time in the basic figure line, collectors can welcome Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) into their collections. And they should be relatively happy with how the figure turned out. It’s not perfect by any means, but Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) looks good and scored decent marks as a display piece. It’s action figure qualities aren’t as good sadly. We should probably clarify first that this wasn’t the very first time we received this style of Chewbacca. A version of him was released in 1998’s POTF2 Mynock Hunt Cinema Scenes multipack. Originally a difficult Cinema Scene to locate, it eventually became quite common during the Great Purge of 1998. Many collectors felt that a decent version of Chewbacca wearing the gas mask was contained within it. Hasbro felt otherwise almost a half decade later and that five years warranted another stab at this iteration of Chewbacca. The Star Wars “Saga” Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) action figure certainly isn’t one of their greatest efforts, but it does provide collectors with a good version of him based on this scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Unlike the POTF2 figure, Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) comes with a non-removable gas mask, but the sculpt, paint job and overall appearance for the 2003 figure is much better. It’s almost no contest. Not having a removable gas mask certainly hides much of his personality, but you probably won’t care since this is meant to only represent from a few moments of the film.

Besides, there are other bigger things that we feel prevent this particular Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) action figure from being a better quality figure. He is sadly pre-posed and there is very little alternate manipulation you can attain from the figure. Hasbro did a fine job in recreating body language/expression in this action figure that is slouched and wary, but collectors want to find their own personal ways of displaying action figures. Here you’re very limited with how you can display him. Chewbacca (Mynock Hunt) comes with three accessories. Included is his infamous bowcaster and a rubbery mynock (with suction cup). The bowcaster is the play feature included here. It comes with a brightly colored red projectile that will shoot pretty far thanks to the pressure of the clamp at the front of the bowcaster. It’s a weak play feature but we imagine it will make some kids happy. It certainly is an exaggerated accessory, but it fits quite well in his hands and his arms have been sculpted in a way that makes his posture carrying it very screen accurate (and pretty darn cool if we may be allowed to editorialize that detail). Chewbacca comes with a good-looking paint job as well. His sculpted fur looks realistic and the various paint operations used to give it some depth and texture have been excellently executed as well. Even his piercing blue eyes look nice as well. This isn’t the consummate Episode V Chewbacca action figure. It needs work, but it isn’t half bad either.