Hasbro has now produced 4 different versions of Poe’s X-Wing fighter.  From The Force Awakens, Poe had his “decoy” ship which was used to meet with Lor San Tekka on Jakku, as well has his own Black One which he used at Takodana and Starkiller Base.  He then used a “boosted” Black One in The Last Jedi.  When that was destroyed during the escape from D’Qar, he needed a new ship, and so he has this one from The Rise of Skywalker.  This is the first of the four versions to be made in the “proper” big-wing scale.  Previous versions, like Black One from TFA, were scaled in line with POTF2-era ships, which were always a disappointment.  They were also marketed recently as part of the budget line.  The TLJ “boosted” X-Wing had Force Link capabilities. 

Hasbro finally gives us a T-70 X-Wing fighter properly scaled to match the modern T-65’s, such as the recently reviewed TVC release of Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Starfighter.

This is an all new vehicle from Hasbro.  At first glance, it seems very similar to Luke’s.  The first major change is with the engines and wings.  The larger semi-circular engines are accounted for, along with a removable cover for the one on the top left.  We can’t be sure if this is something from the film, or if it’s just a minor play feature giving you an opportunity to see the engine machinery, similar to one of the hatches on the Imperial Combat Assault Tank.  The wings are split lengthwise, which is a very different design than that of its T-65 predecessor.  The wingtip cannons click into place in slots at the curved ends of the wings.  One of these cannons that came with my sample seems to be slightly twisted, so the tip seems to be turned a bit off center.  (It’s the bottom right wing in the photos.)

The wings seem (so far) to be better constructed than on the OT version.  Those wings warp easily, and they don’t close flush, as you would want them to.  We’ll see over time if that holds true here.  More importantly, Hasbro greatly improved the opening/closing mechanism.  In the OT version, Hasbro had a conspicuous lever in the rear hexagonal space at the back of the fuselage.  Here, there are two well-hidden buttons located at the top of the fuselage behind the droid socket.  They look like a natural part of the starfighter.  One button opens the wings, the other closes them.  They respond assuredly to being pressed.  This is a nice step forward in the evolution of this important feature.

The three landing gear also received a major overhaul.  Landing gear have been a major bone of contention by collectors, as they are often very loose, and fail to lock into place.  This makes having the vehicle in question simply stand in position at rest a bit of a challenge.  Sometimes, simply touching a “landed” vehicle will cause the precariously balanced landing gear to give way, and you then have your entire display make like a bunch of dominoes. Hasbro re-engineered the gears.  But it seems like one step forward and one step back.  First of all, all three landing gear are hidden with hatches.  This is a nice touch.  They are a bit tough to open, as it’s difficult to get leverage on the hatches to pop them open.  Once you do get them open, the gear (particularly the two at the rear of the ship) are almost impossible to deploy.  Unless I’m missing something, There is nothing to grip.  I ended up using the ladder accessory (more on that later) to hook into the gear and pulling it out of the stowed position.  The landing gear have flip open pads, which is a nice little feature, although perhaps a bit superfluous.  Now, it turns out the that landing gear itself is actually a separate piece from the hinge.  The gear stows in a position that is a quarter turn away from being properly deployed.  But the gear doesn’t turn at all. You must remove it, turn it, and then plug it back into the hinge.  Sadly, this connection to the hinge is extremely loose.  The hinge itself definitely locks into place.  That’s the step forward.  The step back is the aforementioned loose plug.  There seems to be a lot of engineering that went into this, but in the end, it isn’t a better feature.  It looks very good, but is lacking in functionality.

The fuselage has a few cool features.  The hatch as the bottom rear, which previously seemed utterly useless in the OT ships, now house a removable ladder.  This ladder then plugs into two holes under the cockpit.  I would suspect that in theory, the T-70 has a better system.  The ladder is probably deployable straight from the spot below the cockpit, rather than someone having to grab it from a separate part of the ship.  Just my guess.  But as a toy, it’s nicely done feature.  The ship also lacks a missile launcher.  You’ll get zero complaints from me on this.  I would be totally fine if the days of separate launching missiles were behind us.  I have no use for such a thing, and it only serves as an opportunity to lose the missile and, with it, precious sleep.  The front landing gear is a bit easier to deploy than the rear landing gears, and also doesn’t need to be rotated.  It is still a separate piece from the hinge, but it seems to have been constructed better.  The nose cone is a separate piece, and perhaps a bit too soft.  We’ll see if, over time, it’s a problem.

The cockpit hatch opens and closes well.  The interior is detailed well.  Like the OT version, the dashboard is removable to make it easier to insert and remove a pilot figure.  Here, the piece is not secured with a string.  I guess that helped you not lose the dashboard.  The recent VC160 Poe Dameron figure fits perfectly in his seat.  The droid socket is designed to hold both an R-series astromech a BB-series astromech.  There’s a removable cover piece that helps secure the droids of your choice in place.  The well is deep enough to fit R2-D2, while there are specially curved walls that seat the round BB-8 body.  It’s all pretty seamless, and looks great.  Nice work by Hasbro here.

The paint job is striking.  I assume it’s screen accurate, as I don’t have a frame of reference at this point.  The weathering is muted, but effective.  The details in the sculpt are outstanding.

Overall, this is a fantastic vehicle.  It’s highly detailed, with a lot of smart and well executed features.  The drawback for me are the landing gear.  Hasbro clearly put a lot of effort into re-desgning them, but they just fell short of making the necessary improvements.  The landing gear, slightly turned wing cannon, and soft rubber nose cone are the only things preventing a perfect score.  It’s a very nice effort overall, and I would definitely recommend getting this vehicle.  At some point, perhaps Hasbro could re-release this vehicle, with a Black One paint scheme, and a removable booster engine.