So we finally have all the announced ANH mains.  There’s still a certain Goldenrod missing from the lineup, but so far so good - even if not perfect.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi review, each of the figures falls at least a tad short of perfection.  We’ve got Luke, Han, Leia, Ben, and now Chewbacca.  Chewie is no exception, and may the most frustrating of the bunch.  Like the others, this Chewie is at least a decent improvement over previous versions.

The base figure remains the same - at least the upper body.  This dates back to 2004.  Personally, I really like this part of the figure, with one important problem which I’ll get into shortly.  As I’ve done before, I have to give Hasbro some credit for designing a figure 21 years ago that has a significant portion of it good enough to hold its own today.  The torso, with with dual chest articulation is great.  The headsculpt is also terrific, and that goes for just about every one of the variants over the years.  The bandolier looks great, and the arms are also top notch with nice range of motion at the shoulders and elbows.  In fact, the elbow go beyond 90 degrees - which was probably a revelation back in 2004, and is something the HASBRO SHOULD STANDARDIZE.  The problem - and it’s not insignificant, is the sculpt of the hands.  First of all, the long hair looks terrible in every position except when Chewy is posed with a standard two handed weapon grip on his bowcaster.  If you pose him almost any other way, the hair sticks out at weird angles and looks awful.  Just look at him in the package, as well as in the first picture of him standing naturally. The hair on his left hand is nonsensical.  Secondly, the grips for both hands are rigid and designed for only one good pose - the aforementioned THWG.  The issue with the plastic is that its rigidity makes it difficult to coax around the bowcaster.  The trigger hand isn’t too bad, but the support hand is horrible. This release uses a softer plastic, but not soft enough to overcome the specific grip sculpt. 

Unfortunately, Hasbro opted to leave the entire upper body as is.  I could have accepted the torso, head, and upper arms being re-purposed from 2004, but the forearms/wrists/hands needed an overhaul badly.  Those pesky, penny-pinching spreadsheet warriors strike again!  Hasbro has to figure out a way to stop cutting corners on the main characters.  I thought we went through this with the Endor Han Solo debacle, but apparently Hasbro forgot about the collector internet rage, and plowed forward with a similar approach to Chewie.

It’s not all bad news, as the lower body got a complete overhaul.  Chewbacca now has modern ball jointed hips as well as rocker ankles.  Unfortunately, this great news is mitigated by some issues.  The rocker ankles have limited range of motion, which I would attribute to the attempt at accuracy with the hairy shins/ankles.  They work, just not as easily as I would prefer.  And then there’s the issue of the crotch.  We love crotch talk here at Banthaskull, but this isn’t superfluous for the sake of likes.  The 2004 figure had the problem of legs being too close together, which looked awkward and caused posing issues.  This figure sought to correct this, but may have overcompensated.  Instead of no gap, now you can drive a landspeeder through there.  I’m being a little harsh, as it’s not quite that bad, it’s just a little frustrating that even with the resources spent on the legs, this part fell a little short.

The included 2-piece bowcaster is old hat, but does the trick.  However, I’m over the huge looping shoulder strap.  There is no way for Chewy to sling this thing across his body without looking ridiculous.  You can try to hide it with a straight on view like in the image in the above gallery, but it’s just optical trickery.  The loop is ginormous, and should be addressed.  One last nitpick is the ammo pouch.  I would have liked Hasbro to engineer a solution to it being a hindrance to Chewy being posed sitting down.  It can work, especially if there’s space off the edge of the seat for the pouch to fall naturally, like in the Falcon cockpit.  I just wish that maybe it could be removable, to accommodate other sitting positions.

I’ve got a healthy respect for the 2004 VOTC Chewbacca.  It was a remarkable achievement for the time, and has managed to survive over two decades, but it has overstayed its welcome when compared to the most modern figures.  Hasbro bunted here, and gave us another half-measure, which just isn’t cool for a main character.  I had given VC141 Chewbacca (a variant of the original VOTC base) an 8, which I downgraded to a 7 when the base was re-used for the AT-ST and Chewbacca due to the passage of time - and it might have even slipped a bit more.  I would give this Chewbacca a high 7, so it rounds to an 8. 

I implore Hasbro to work on the hands/wrists (at the very least) before they go to town with the inevitable repaints and headsculpt variants.  While this figure is a definite improvement, it’s not quite time to yeet your older VOTC-based Chewbaccas into the New Zealand wilderness.  You’ll at least need your non-roaring version for the Cantina as well as your ROTJ version (with the parted hair and “eyebrows”).