Well, we pretty much all predicted this repaint was coming when the original ROTJ Speeder Bike was first announced.  Shocking to no one, here it is!

The best thing about this set is that you can re-enact one of the more memorable scenes from The Mandalorian.  I had to rewatch it a bunch of times for the purposes of the photography here, and I love everything about it.  Jason Sudekis and Adam Pally (I have no idea who he is, actually) do great turns as a couple of idiot biker scouts who recover The Child from poor Kuiil.  The scene set up actually makes no sense.  The two pause just outside of town and Sudekis calls in to ask for confirmation to proceed.  The officer on the other side of the call gives him the go to proceed, but suggests he double-checks because Gideon just arrived and he’s a jerk.  Who exactly is he supposed to double-check with?  So Sudekis responds that he’ll stand by.  Stand by for what?  He was told he could either proceed, or he could “double-check.”  So that somehow means they’re going to just chill out for a while.  But it’s worth it for the viewer, because it’s a fun scene of them talking about nonsense, having terrible target practice, punching The Child a few times, and then eventually getting absolutely housed by IG-11.  Good stuff.

Before I get into the differences between this and the previous release, I’ll recap the original review.  The set was an overall disappointment because Hasbro invested new tooling dollars to update the speeder bike which the overwhelming majority of collectors feel didn’t need an update.  While the sculpt is definitely nice, there were some meaningful reversals from the 2012 sculpt.  The new bike doesn’t have moveable handlebars nor foot pegs on the pedals.  These head-scratching changes make it difficult for figures to interact well with the bike.  The one upgrade was with the more versatile flight stand.  Regarding the figure, the old Biker Scout has gotten some meaningful upgrades, with a new head and rocker ankles.  However, the hips and wrists remain sorely outdated, and many fans would have preferred a full overhaul rather than the incremental (but solid) updates.  These things resulted in a very disappointing 7/10 score.  If the 2012 bike was left alone and the Scout was overhauled completely, it would probably ave been a 9 or 10.

There are 4 notable changes to this product for The Mandalorian release:

The inclusion of the Grogu sack is an added value for the same price of $44.99.  But even this nifty little accessory, along with the new paint schemes and added weathering to the figure don’t really move the needle a whole lot as far as final score.  It’s slightly better than the original, but none of it is enough to overcome the complaints I have with the set.  7/10.