[Note:  To our good friend RandyS, we offer sincere condolences for the tough loss suffered by his beloved Bengals in Super Bowl LVI…]

Two and a half years after the exhilaration of the Sail Barge campaign, Hasbro finally revisited a Vintage Collection HasLab with the Razor Crest.  A lot of people questioned the decision to use HasLab as the platform to attempt to bring this vehicle to market.  Collectors are a stubborn bunch and simply fail, or flat out refuse, to understand that retailers are the ones that need to bring items to store shelves, not Hasbro.  Hasbro can’t force product on them.  And so while Walmart, Target, and even Amazon probably would balk at taking up valuable retail space with huge boxes of a $350 Star Wars toy while the pain of the Sequel Trilogy 5POA failure is still fresh in the minds, Hasbro actually stepped up to the plate knowing that the market was there for this item.  To hedge their bets, they used HasLab to ensure financial viability and mitigate risk.  And it worked - so much so that Hasbro was even further convinced of TVC’s strength by offering the recently revealed Boba Fett’s Throne Room right on Hasbro Pulse, bypassing the crowdfunding model altogether.  Hopefully this helps convince retailers that TVC has strong viability, and we can have more nice things.

Well, after the lightning fast backing (a little over a day), and then finishing at almost 5x the required number, the Razor Crest was on its way to reality.  It was a long journey, right in the midst of the pandemic.  Manufacturing and logistics delays did their best to derail our backer reward, but almost a year and a half later, they finally began arriving at our doorsteps.  So let’s get on with the review.

A few days ago I came home to find the Razor Crest on my doorstep (after signing the door tag from the previous day’s missed delivery attempt).  I was immediately struck by how small it was!  My brain knew better, but I immediately compared it to the arrival of the Barge.  The box seemed about half the size, and my immediate thought was that somebody messed up and left a Mission Fleet Crest on my doorstep.  The box was in good shape, though.  Upon opening it, the packing was a bit less impressive than the Barge, which had some additional cardboard lining the inside walls to help protect the beautiful TVC box.  Nevertheless, at least in my case, the Crest’s TVC box was pretty close to perfect - and it is awesome looking.  However, I experienced panic attack #1 when I heard pieces bouncing around inside the carton, so I was fearing the worst.  Once I removed the styrofoam packing from the TVC box, I freed all the pieces of the ship, and then noted that the loose pieces were actually the carbon block hooks sliding along the track on the underside of the top piece of the hull.  All good.  Everything was in good shape after unpacking.

Assembling the Crest wasn’t easy.  The instructions are pretty straightforward, but I have to admit that I had difficulties along the way.  Going along with the gallery above (which generally follows the order of the instructions), I first attached the landing gear.  There are two pairs of doors that open (not too easily) to reveal the slot for the rear landing gears.  The gears snap into place nicely, but be careful, because the little doors are easy to break.  In fact, panic attack #2 set in after I nearly snapped the hinge off one of these little doors.  I didn’t break it, but I definitely stressed the plastic enough where it doesn’t stay in place all that great, and has a tendency to fall off when in the open position.  The front gear is a different design.  There’s a sliding door that reveals the slot for the gear.  This little door is very loose.  Not a huge deal, I suppose, but I kind of wish It locked into place, or had a lever so it could be slid open and closed.  When assembled the gears are very sturdy, unlike some previous vehicles over the years, notably the Y-Wings and The Falcon (at least in my experience).  The “cheek” guns are large, and attach nicely, with satisfying “click-stops” as you rotate them.  The engine nacelles are huge, and a main physical feature of the ship’s silhouette.  They snap into place pretty easily.  I was hoping they were removable just as easily, but after a bit of an effort failed to dislodge either engine, I gave up.  I’m hoping other people have luck, especially those looking to fit their Crest onto a shallow bookshelf.

The escape pod / lifeboat, which was the first tier unlock, is secured under a removable panel on the top of the ship.  Like some of the panels, this one is well concealed, and hard to actually pop open because it’s a challenge to find where you are supposed to grip it to remove it.  Once this is done, the pod can be removed, and the panel replaced.  The pod itself opens in two, allowing room for a figure.  The design is a bit odd, as it would be easier if the pod just ejected wthout needing to remove a separate panel.  As for the pod, it’s pretty unexciting.  I think it would have been better if the “window” were actually clear plastic so you could see the occupant’s head, rather than being painted over solid black.  I suspect there’s not much play value here, and unless I’m forgetting something, it was never seen in the show.  A little more than half of the top of the ship consists of a large removable cover which serves as the main overhead access to the interior of the Crest.  This piece is thick in order to accommodate the aforementioned carbonite block claws and rail.  It is removed with the push of a well concealed button right in the center of the top of the ship.  An additional panel on the top at the rear of the ship reveals a hidden cannon.  The cannon must be manually pulled out of the compartment, where it can then swivel 360.  While I’m rarely a fan of action features, I think this would have been better served as a pop out cannon at the push of a button.  Pulling it out of the compartment is not an easy task and induced panic attack #3, and I almost gave up before I finally freed it, fortunately nothing was broken. 

The port side of the ship has the main side hatch and ramp.  Panic attack #4 set in when I was unable to engage the ramp extension, which was stuck inside the main ramp.  After giving up, I received a tip which was found on the SW The Vintage Collection Facebook page by our good friend Victoria.  Using a hairdryer for what seemed like an eternity, the heat finally allowed the pieces to become unstuck.  Most of the rest of the port side behind the hatch is a removable panel providing the bulk of side access to the interior of the Crest.  The rear of the ship has a large ramp that lowers to the ground (without an extender).  All around the hull of the ship are various panels that can be removed to reveal the “guts” of the ship, and are meant to help recreate any of several scenes in which Din Djarin’s ride is pulled apart, perhaps most notably by the Jawas of Arvala-7.  Some of the panels are concealed well, while others don’t fit perfectly.  Most of them aren’t that easy to remove.

Finally, the cockpit window canopy is meant to be removed, rather than hinged, as are most vehicles in the Star Wars line.  This is good, as it gives greater access to the cockpit.  The interior is highly detailed, with 3 seats.  Sadly, none of them swivel like in the Falcon.  The dashboard and controls look great, and Mando can comfortably sit in the main chair while convincingly gripping any of the control levers at his disposal.  Also present is a lever with a threaded top, and is missing the round knob that was so coveted by the mischievous Mr. Grogu.  The doorway from the cockpit does not open, and therefore provides no passage to the main cabin.  I believe this was intentional, as the ship in the TV show is a double decker, and the cockpit door would lead into the toy’s non-existent upper deck.  3 figures seem to fit comfortably in the cockpit.  The windows are clear and well designed, and the canopy is reminiscent of a WWII bomber’s.

Things kind of go a little south from here, sadly.  First of all, completing the weapons locker was one of the more frustrating tasks I have ever undertaken when assembling a Star Wars toy.  Unless you have a child in your home that you can get to do this for you, you are likely going to have some problems getting your adult hands to coax all the weapons onto the appropriate pegs.  I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me almost an hour just to accomplish this.  And during the effort, which I had undertaken with needle-nosed plyers rather than my fingers, I accidentally lost control of one of the thermal detonators, which may actually be the smallest accessories in the entire history of the line.  The piece fell into the ship somewhere, and after finally shaking it free from wherever it was hiding, it almost fell onto the carpet, which would have been the end of life as I knew it.  This was panic attack #7.  That’s right.  It was so stressful, this one passed right over panic attacks 5 and 6.  Once I finished, I decided that I would never remove any of the weapons, and then wondered why Hasbro didn’t just sculpt them into the locker.  It was also suggested by someone else that the interior of the locker could have been a removable panel, which would allow you add and remove weapons outside the confines of the ship, and then just pop into the locker whenever you wanted.  This experience was extremely frustrating, and soured the rest of my time with the Crest, coming on the heels of the aforementioned panic attacks.

Besides all the weapons, you also get a variety of backpacks, knapsacks, and supply pouches, which are intended to hang on the provided hooks sculpted on the interior of the main side panel (port side). Yet another problem here, as the panel is removable for access to the interior, every time you do so, be ready for all these bag accessories to fall off.  Not great.  Lastly, there is a small locker accessory.  At first, I though this was just random stuff, but after re-watching some of the episodes, I noted that this lock box is what Din gave to Grogu as a temporary pram after the first was destroyed, prior to Kuiil building the newer one. 

Like the Barge, the interior is pretty special looking, with lots of amazing details, but with a huge problem. The amazing part is the depth of detail throughout the main cabin.  There’s a privy (which may be a first in the toy line), Grogu’s alcove and hammock, the carbon freezing chamber, the weapons locker, a ladder, some cargo netting, and a bunch of hooks for the aforementioned supply bags.  And that gets us to the huge problem.  While you can access the main cabin interior from the main door/hatch, the removable side panel, the rear ramp, and the top panel, all of this just doesn’t give your adult hands a whole lot of room to work with.  As mentioned, the weapons locker is basically a non starter.  If you can pop the doors open for a view, great.  But forget using the weapons as accessories.  The toilet is nicely detailed, but you can’t really get to it to easily - not that you should really want to, you weirdos!  Sadly, Grogu’s hammock is almost impossible to access.  I was able to get him in there for a photo, but it took many tries, and then was almost as hard to get him back out.  The ladder is removable, but is really just for show, as it leads to the phantom upper deck I mentioned earlier.  There is enough room for a few figures, but it honestly is an excercise in frustration to set up your figures in a meaningful way.

The main feature of the interior are the carbonite blocks.  Offered as a stretch goal, you get 4, including the Mythrol, as well as a male and female human, and a Rodian, just like in the show.  A figure or one of the blocks can fit nicely in the carbon freezing unit.  Strangely, the upward hinged door doesn’t open fully unless you also have the main hatch open across from it, which is odd.  The 4 blocks are gripped by 4 corresponding claws which move on a rail on the underside of the top hatch.  Obviously you’ll need to open the top hatch to access all this, so it’s a bit clumsy to assemble, and then once you close the lid, it again becomes trick you move your fingers around the things to get it to look the way you want.  This is as close to play feature as the Razor Crest offers, and like many play features, it doesn’t quite work.  It’s not terrible, but not particularly satisfying either.  The blocks themselves are sculpted nicely, but lack any kind of paint details or lights on the side panels. 

Finally, the ship comes with a flight stand, which was another stretch goal.  While this item was mocked mightily during the campaign, I have to say that it’s one of my favorite features of the Razor Crest package.  The ship looks awesome fully assembled and in flight mode.  Note that you have to remove the landing gears (or at least one of them) in order to attache the stand.  It’s big, sturdy, emblazoned with the show’s logo, and works perfectly.

As for the figures, you get an uncarded Mandalorian figure, which seems to be the same (or a slight repaint) of VC181, but this one comes with a soft goods cape, which is tattered enough to resemble a good shmata.  The cape allows the figure to be seated at the controls of the ship.  It can be swapped with the plastic capes from other Mando figures, so you can use any version of Din with the Crest.  There’s not much else to say about the figure that you haven’t already seen before.  It’s very nice.

Grogu (previously called “the Child” during the campaign) comes on a card.  Mine arrived almost perfectly mint and unpunched, which made it all the more satisfying to rip open.  The figure looks almost identical to previous versions, but with a new head that includes perked up ears.  On my sample, the eyes are ridiculous, and someone pointed out to me that they make him look like Venom Grogu.  It’s super creepy.  Zoom in on the photo gallery above and you’ll see.  Its horrifying.  Hopefully your sample is better painted.  Grogu has the silver shift knob sculpted into his hand, so he’s never giving it up to Din.  Also included is a small bowl, which is essentially useless, as the figure cannot grip it in any way.  One thing to note as that this Grogu has a peg hole in his feet.  The recently released Maldo Kreis figure also has a peg hole, while the earlier two releases do not (Editor’s note: Some samples do).  The star of the show here is the pram.  It’s the nice one that Kuill fashioned.  In the show it was just metal with a graphitey finish.  But Hasbro opted to make this a Cadillac of prams.  It got the good ol’ vac metal treatment that we’ve missed.  Or have we?  I will now lose sleep over chipping the finish.  Opening the pram isn’t easy, and doing so risks damaging the paint.  So do it at your own risk.  I also assume the clear “hover” stand is removable (as it is with the original pram), but I couldn’t get it loose, so I stopped trying.  The little blanket/pillow on the inside is a separate piece that comes out of the pram, if you so desired. 

And the last figure is a carded Jawa Elder.  Like Grogu, mine was pretty minty and unpunched.  Now it’s the opposite. This Jawa is the same body as VC203, which means no knee or ankle articulation, but that’s not surprising.  It’s too bad, though, because in the show, the Elder kneels while negotiating with Din and Kuiil, which can’t be recreated by the figure.  Otherwise, the accessories are unique to this release, which include the opened Sooga, an elder necklace, and a scimitar-like knife used to slice open the aforementioned Sooga.  It’s a cool looking figure, but nothing spectacular here. 

So that about covers all the features.  So what do I think overall?  Well, as expected, the ship looks amazing on the shelf or table, and the flight stand gives it an extra dimension.  The paint is typical of Hasbro’s recent TVC quality offerings, which is to say it’s very nice, with a lot of depth.  Some might think it looks like an amateurish attempt at weathering, but we have to remember that this isn’t a holystone statue by a high end collectible company like Hot Toys or Sideshow.  This is ultimately a toy for adult collectors, and it’s an impressive display piece.  However, the shortcomings cannot be easily overlooked.  The act of snapping some of the removable panels into and out of place feels like it could cause damage.  Needing the hairdryer to loosen the ramp was annoying.  The paint finish also seems to be prone to a bit of flaking, so be careful.  Some of the doors might sustain damage if you are too rough with them (as I was with the landing gear doors).  The weapons locker is the stuff of nightmares.  And while the interior is a work of art, it just isn’t that accessible, despite all the removable access panels.  That makes it much less fun to populate and set up scenes with, than was the Barge.  The interior is cramped and difficult, if not impossible in some areas, to navigate and access.  The carbonite block feature is a neat idea, but the execution isn’t solid. 

I was definitely tired and cranky right at the time my Crest arrived and I had to photograph it, so that may play into my final evaluation.  But I have to say, I absolutely loved opening, assembling, and setting up the barge.  And taking all the pictures for the review was a blast.  The Crest…not so much.  And while this point was completely understood at the time of purchase, it’s hard having this huge and expensive item only serves as a backdrop to a handful of figures at a time.  And not because the characters aren’t all available, but because there are never more than 5 or so on the ship at any one time.  After doing a run through of all the episodes so I could take diorama shots, I found that there the droid Zero was the only character besides Din to pilot the Crest, while Mayfeld’s crew and Frog Lady were the only characters not yet issued by Hasbro in TVC to be on the ship at all - if I remember correctly (feel free to jump in on the comments below if I’m missing anyone.). Other characters are near the ship, like Peli, Ran Malk (Mark Boone Junior), and Paz Vizla.  There are Blurrgs on board at one point, but I highly doubt that a single potential Hasbro blurrg would fit, let alone three.  Over the course of the show, there’s a lot of dialogue in the cockpit of the Crest, but surprisingly little goes on in the main body of the ship.  And other than Mayfeld’s Crew and Frog Lady, you’ll pretty much be able to recreate almost any scene you’d want.

In the end, this looks amazing, but with the flaws, especially the difficulty in accessing the main cargo hold, it falls short of the excellence of the Barge.  Not to mention, this thing sucks up a huge amount of space, and really doesn’t enhance your collection of figures very much, even if Hasbro gave us “nearly all” of the figures that interact with the Razor Crest.  So while the Sail Barge was that elusive dream item that fits perfectly on a long shelf and serves as the perfect diorama for over 30 figures, the Razor Crest is really just a giant space ship.  I like it, and I’m very happy to own it, but it just doesn’t give the sheer joy that I experience from owning the Sail Barge.

It gets a respectable but very disappointing 8.