Han Solo (Bespin Outfit)

February 4, 2012 | By More


 

My very first General-Purpose Han Solo was precisely the Bespin Outfit version from Kenner‘s vintage line, and while it lacked the iconic feel of the ANH scoundrel, at least it did fit in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon alongside Chewbacca, which was something the Hoth Gear Han could not do. Fast forward a few years, and Hasbro decided to release a Han Solo (Bespin Outfit) as part of their Star Wars Vintage Collection (VC50) and it is a pretty good figure, although not precisely a groundbreaking release.

 

The problem is, we already had at least half of this figure because the lower half of this Han Solo was constructed using the exact same molds that were used for General Lando Calrissian. Even though this means the articulation is good and construction is solid, the fact that Hasbro chose to release these pieces before kind of takes away something of the novelty.

 

The rest of the figure does it’s best to assuage this situation, and more or less succeeds. The jacket is well sculpted and has a nice level of detail with all the wrinkles and pouches. I half expected the torso of the jacket to be a removable rubber piece, but Hasbro decided to make the whole torso as one piece.

 

The head sculpt on Bespin Han is also a newly sculpted piece, although it doesn’t actually improve on previous Harrison Ford likenesses; At least it is still a decent enough portrait of him.

 

As far as articulation goes, Bespin Han comes away with:

 

Ball jointed head.

Pegged hinge shoulders.

Pegged hinge elbows.

Swivel wrists.

Swivel waist.

Angled, pegged hinge hips.

Pegged hinge knees.

Pegged hinge ankles.

 

Similarly to the General Calrissian figure, the hip joints are serviceable, but not quite as versatile as one would expect. Sure, Han can sit and kneel, but in order to do so, you have to swivel the thigh pieces in such a way that the painted stripes at the sides of the legs end up facing all the way down, which looks rather weird.

 

And speaking of paint, the applications on most of these Vintage Collection figures tend to be quite neat and this Han solo figure is no exception, although there is not a lot of paint operations going on in this figure. With most of the parts being molded in the correct color of plastic, the paint apps are limited to simple block color operations and minute detailing.

 

The original Bespin Han from Kenner came only with a blaster pistol, but his time Hasbro decided to include a couple of extra pieces in the form of a pair of goggles and what appears to be a powered screwdriver. The screwdriver has silver paint apps and seems to be molded in black plastic, but the goggles are made of transparent rubber with the straps and rim of the lenses painted in black. Both accessories fit Han’s head and hands well, and add to the ever-growing contents of the Millennium Falcon’s toolbox.

 

The greatest challenge this Han solo faced was that the figure was a part of a wave of figures with much cooler characters in it, like Fordo and Bom Vimdin, so in comparison, Han turned out to be the “boring one”. In fact, had it not been part of a full-wave deal, I might have passed up on this figure, but as it turned out, Han Solo in Bespin Outfit is a pretty good addition to my collection.

 

Errex Score: 90/100

 

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Category: Featured, Star Wars, Toy Reviews

About the Author ()

I've been collecting action figures since the original Kenner Star Wars days. Nowadays, I still collect pretty much anything that catches my eye.

Comments (1)

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  1. Joseph Tages says:

    Bespin Han was one of my favorite SW figures as a kid. Which only made things more frustrating since I couldn’t find this guy anywhere last year. I’m waiting for the next wave refresher assortment and hope there will more chances to grab him then. I think we have yet to see the definitive Bespin Han ’cause the head on this newest version is a bit off and his hands are too big, due in part to the tools included here. But it’s a long way from the static POF2 stuff from the 90. Someday, maybe.