This. This.  One thousand times this.  One MILLION times this.  ELEVENTY BILLION KAJILLION TIMES THIS.  As you may have guessed, I like this product, and I don’t mean this specific product.  I mean the concept.  As you will hear me repeat until the Great War ends and Hasbro starts reducing resources dedicated to the ridiculous giganto scale, the one true scale (3.75”) was invented explicitly to world build.  Star Wars collecting is, was, and always will be about the world.  It’s not Marvel where it’s about the characters and thus the 6” scale makes perfect sense (and was my preferred scale when I collected Marvel figures).  That Star Wars line is as much about the AT-AT as it is about Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker.  World building is only practical in the scale that launched a million sales. Argue against this and you are arguing against perhaps the most intuitive mind in the history of the toy industry. Hasbro has dabbled in the “environment piece” space before, but it’s never been a focus.  We need help elevating our displays, and products such as this Adventure Set do just that.  Before moving on, “Adventure Set” is a brilliant callback to the legendary and iconic Kenner Cantina Adventure Set.

It’s often said that a great product is not a product that the customer wants.  It’s a product that the customer doesn’t know they want until the manufacturer brings it to market. I’m not talking in the broad sense here. I knew I wanted any Jabba’s Palace environment pieces.  But I didn’t know how important displaying the carbonite block suspended off the floor was to me.  I’ve been content to display any of the various carbonite blocks resting on the floor of my cardboard Jabba’s Palace display. What an utter chump I was!  I love this feature.  It looks absolutely amazing and adds so much realism to the display.  The only nitpick is that in order to access the carbonite block with the magnetic attachment, you have to open the included Han in Carbonite figure that you likely already own.  This means you will have to purchase a second Adventure Set just to have one to keep carded, but only suckers would do that (raises hand).  I would have been thrilled if the only piece included in this set were the trophy wall.  There is a lever on the reverse of the wall that facilitates lowering poor frozen Han just as Leia does in the movie.  On my sample, the magnet isn’t strong enough to raise the block, but that is not a negative.  We never see that happen on screen, so I don’t care.  The magnet is, however, strong enough to latch onto the D cell battery that was used to prop it up in the Han Solo sub-gallery above.  I was worried that would result in a mini-black hole.  It may have. The data are still coming in (yeah, I used to hang out with statistician snobs so I pompously use plural verbs with the word “data”).

As far as the piece itself, it “is what it is,” and I don’t mean that negatively.  It is not a faultless and perfectly faithful recreation of the interior of Jabba’s palace.  Artistic license is taken liberally in places, and that’s okay.  The set consists of the main wall on which the carbonite block hangs.  This is the star of the set, and if it was the entirety of the display pieces, I would have been fine with that.  It is sculpted so that that the grates in the top allow light to pass through for some incredible environmental lighting possibilities. Just don’t use the “flashlight” feature of you phone to do so while you wait on Mr. Nomadscout to offer a second opinion of your photo.  He’ll hem and haw until your battery drains.  [Editor’s Note:  I haw more than I hem.  Hemming is for chumps.]  While Solo is clearly the centerpiece of Jabba’s trophy wall, it is bracketed by the Tauntaun and Jerba head mounts.  This hyper accurate detailing helps ground the piece so the aforementioned artistic licences don’t seem so glaring, and those start with scroll work at the top of the trophy wall.  I’m not sure that detailing is present in the film.  It is present in the movie on the archways that lead to Jabba’s sleeping quarters to the right and the upper quarters on the left, but that detailing is missing from this “toy.”  Those archways are also too narrow.  They are more elongated in the movie.  Again, all of this is okay.  Concessions of this type are necessary to bring these products to market at a palatable price points.  They do not have the affect of breaking the illusion due in large part to that detailing of the trophy wall.  The fact that the arches can be attached in right angles or in a straight line with the trophy wall is a killer configuration option.

The co-stars of the set are the included carded Han Solo in Carbonite and Ree-Yees figures.  This was a piece of brilliant maneuvering by Hasbro.  Both of these figures were offered recently in the 3.75” Black Series, so the demand for re-issues, particularly for the Han, was mostly limited to the carded TVC collectors.  That is not a brick and mortar sustainable collector population.  Hasbro allowed the community to have its cake and eat it too.  Those clamoring for TVC releases of the “original 92’s” can get these two repacks via this set while not gumming up the works in the mainline. A sincere tip of the hat for that out-of-the-box thinking, and Hasbro should keep this platform churning for the more esoteric figures. 

I need to sidebar for a moment:  Yerka Mig is my personal, single most wanted Cantina denizen due to his prominence at the front of the display.  But as a “boring human”, his mainline viability is tepid at best. I’ve personally told Hasbro representatives that a Yerka Mig figure would do terrible at retail in the mainline, but if it could be released as part of a Cantina Adventure Set, well, now you’re cooking with gas, brother!

Without further ado, I’m going to get to the score.  It’a a 10 out of 10.  This thing had me in its pocket from the jump, but we do need to briefly talk about the pack-in figures.

Han Solo in Carbonite

This is a repack of the TBS (Blue) #19 figure.  Please consult that review for a detailed analysis of the figure. The one thing to note is that this figure is very specifically sourced to Episode V, so that is a bit of an error.  My aging eyes cannot detect any major differences between the two releases aside from the fact that the paint applications to the hair are more consistently applied in this TVC release.  The magnetic carbonite block can be differentiated by the circular impression of the magnet on the back. 

Ree-Yees

This is a repack of the TBS (Orange) #28 figure.  Please consult that review for a detailed analysis of the figure.  The first thing to note is that the name pill is missing the hyphen in the name “Ree-Yees”.  The vintage Kenner figure included the hyphen and the character page on Wookieepedia does as well.  This seems to be a definite error.  As far as differences on the figure, the hands are more orange to match the paint applications of the head.  This is clearly visible when comparing the two figures in hand.