Original Review by Chris, 10/7/14

I have to be honest.  The concept Chewbacca is not among my favorite McQuarrie designs.  First the head is not particularly canine looking in nature and almost resembles a bat.  The most iconic sketch of the concept Wookiee was drawn with the character’s mouth open and Hasbro translated that into the figure.  If the attempt was to give a hint of ferocity, it did not work.  The end result is a figure that looks like a slack jawed mouth breather or gives the impression that the character is aghast.  Lastly I’m not a huge fan of the miniskirt and the Robin Hood boots.

The figure was released in the third wave of the 30th Anniversary Collection which was perhaps the most heavily shipped of the line.  The concept Chewbacca became the slowest selling of the McQuarrie signature series.  It could be because it was the most available or because the community shares my relative lack of enthusiasm for the design or some combination of the two. Thankfully the special light blue color coding of the concept series served as a siren’s call to the Hot Wheels guys, so the figure never “peg warmed”.  If Hasbro had put a cartoon treasure chest on the card, we never would have seen a single one.

As always, however, Hasbro is not judged on the design of the character, but on how well they execute it, and there aren’t a lot of faults here.  The leap from concept painting to action figure was executed quite adeptly.  The most impressive aspect is the detailing.  The sculpting of the clothing and gear is highly detailed and there are numerous paint applications to bring it to life.  Highlights were painted on the furs to give it amazing depth.  The piercing yellow eyes do not bleed outside the intended area and they are in the correct location.  The pink inside the ears and individually painted teeth round out the impressive paint applications.  If this were attempted in the Black Series with its non-existent quality control, it would be a modern art train wreck. 

All the super articulation joints are there, but one of the types of articulation is now considered substandard.  The shoulders only feature swivel joints and the figure’s “posability” would definitely been enhanced with ball jointed shoulders.  The plastic skirt hinders the swivel hips and this is a another disappointment.  The figure’s right hand is posed to interact with the included rifle, which is a tad rubbery.  This restricts the other options for that hand to include interacting effectively with the sidearm blaster.  Despite these complaints, the figure is still safely at an 8 out of 10.  Decency demands that you own this figure to pose with your concept Han Solo.  Possibly because of the reasons I mentioned above, the secondary market value of the figure is somewhat depressed, so it’s quite accessible. 

Updated Review by Bret, 9/16/19

As Chris stated, the figure is lacking in proper articulation by today’s standards.  The swivel shoulders and the lack of range of motion of the hips (due to the hard plastic skirt) hinder the posability of the figure.  But it’s still a wonder that it exists.  It’s huge.  It towers over other figures, and is way more massive than regular Chewbacca figures.  It’s an impressive looking figure, and along with the other McQuarrie figures, it’s a great niche item.  As a pure action figure by modern standards, it’s probably a 6, falling short of a standard 7 for super-articulated figures.  But the sculpt, size, and coolness factor all conspire to keep this at the original 8 awarded by Chris.