Han Solo (Mos Eisley Escape) - OTC - Basic (’05 #14)

Han Solo is a fearless fighter for the Rebel Alliance. At first, Han doesn't want to be part of the Rebel fight against the evil Empire. But he soon sees that it is a cause worth fighting for, and he becomes one of the Rebel Alliance's greatest heroes. Daring and courageous, Han pilots the Millennium Falcon across the galaxy to come to the aid of his friends.

Overuse can be quantified with one Star Wars action figure. And that is 1999’s POTF2 [FB/CT] Han Solo figure. It was the “go to” figure for more than half a decade and used twice again for The Original Trilogy Collection. Much like the Princess Leia (OTC #09) figure, we’re slightly surprised that Hasbro would release Han Solo (Mos Eisley Escape) (’05 #14) with a competing definitive version of Han Solo in The “Vintage” Original Trilogy Collection. Talk about night and day! While it’s like comparing apples and oranges, there is no way possible that these two versions of Han Solo are remotely in the same league, let alone a similar one. However, we still find that we have affection for this older sculpt of Han Solo despite its aged sculpt and lack of articulation. Surprisingly, we haven’t grown completely tired of this figure regardless of how many times it has been released at retail. We do not discount that it’s probably time now to retire the sculpt, but we also cannot say that we despise the figure either. Let’s look at some of the reasons why this figure both is great and not so great as a 2004 and 2005 release.

Han Solo comes with 10 points of articulation. This is quite a healthy dose of articulation for a figure that was sculpted and released in 1999. The likeness to Han Solo is just average, but Hasbro was careful to give him leaner proportions that echo more of an athletic build than that of a lunk. On top of a very good sculpt, Han Solo also comes with a functioning holster and a very accurate and scaled back blaster pistol. The deco for the gun isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than the guns and weapons Hasbro produced in the earlier days of The Power Of The Force “2” line. Although Han Solo comes with mostly swivel articulation, Hasbro added a few unconventional points to help aid in giving the figure more ranges of motion that you might expect. These include a swivel left bicep and a swivel left thigh. These points certainly don’t give the figure super-articulated motion, but they do add some versatility that allows the figure to attain some interesting and believable poses. The swivel thigh in particular aids the swivel hips in becoming much more useful than without. And then the inclusion of hinge-jointed knees serves as a bonus to help you pose the figure in some very cool stances.

Paint operations vary from figure to figure, but for the most part it's the same across the board. Most people will look at this figure and probably become instantly exhausted. It has absolutely overstayed its welcome as a basic figure and its time to put it to rest. Despite its incessant rereleases, it has gone through extremely minor paint variances throughout the years, but they’re so insignificant that it’s not worth itemizing here. As with most figures in The Original Trilogy Collection, Han Solo is made to look better thanks to very nice packaging, even in the transitional line. The backdrop is the Millennium Falcon (most likely from the Docking Bay 94 scene) and it is encased around gorgeous silver and black details intended to be a modern take on the classic vintage Kenner packaging. His subtitle is also featured on the insert. The Original Trilogy Collection was indeed rushed, and the transitional line was a last minute addition to keep products fresh at retail, but Hasbro did a fine job of quickly pulling together a great collection of action figures to serve as symbols for the Original Trilogy.