Ewoks [Wicket W. Warrick/Kneesaa] - TVC - Multipacks

Join the small but mighty furry heroes, the Ewoks, on their exciting adventures in Bright Tree Village on the Forest Moon of Endor!

With the obsessive focus on dreadful Disney Star Wars, it borders on miraculous that an Expanded Universe source like Star Wars: Ewoks is remotely on Hasbro's radar. But creating a multipack like Ewoks [Wicket W. Warrick/Kneesaa] likely has more to do with existing tooling and cost-saving measures than genuinely desiring to get out this two-pack to the Star Wars collecting community. We're thrilled to see this set come to fruition. The George Lucas era of Star Wars gets so little love these days, and most are burned out with the umpteenth carbonized and holiday figures that Hasbro incessantly produces. Yes, these are repacks also, but it's a refreshing set. It pays homage to the classic Kenner line but also adds a canceled Kenner figure: Kneesaa. The Ewoks line only got six official figures. Only two of the released action figures were Ewoks. The second wave focused more on Ewoks but got canceled due to the line's abysmal sales. We count ourselves fortunate that Hasbro would expend time and energy recreating figures and characters of little consequence to Kenner in the mid-1980s.

The Ewoks [Wicket W. Warrick/Kneesaa] two-pack brings the Season 1 likeness of Wicket and Kneesaa from Star Wars: Ewoks into the basic figure line. In 2010, Hasbro gave us the Season 2 outfit for Wicket with 2010's TVC Wicket (VC27) figure. The green cowl was specific to the later episodes of the show. We also received Kneesaa in 2012's Star Wars [The Phantom Menace 3D] Ewok Pack Toys R Us exclusive set. Now, Hasbro has repainted both figures for inclusion in the 2023 set. Wicket gets a very bright orange cowl. It's much more colorful than what we see in the series. And Hasbro brightened up Kneesaa a bit and tweaked a couple of paint operations here and there to clean it up somewhat. The updated paint jobs look good, but we must confess that if you scrutinize Wicket W. Warrick, it feels like an exorcist-like or Sith-like interpretation of the character. Is this a "killer" version of Wicket? The Ewok looks a little evil, if we're being honest. And we can't help but notice the connection to the Widdle W. Warrick figure that was part of 2007's TAC The Battle Of Endor Ultimate Battle Packs Target exclusive multipack. You'll have to check that out.

Wicket W. Warrick and Kneesaa have connections to the 2010 TVC Wicket (VC27) figure. They both share that body, but Kneesaa has a different head sculpt. As mentioned, both received all-new paint jobs to be unique to the cartoon series from 1985 and 1986. The set comes in Hasbro's new "multipack" packaging. Collectors don't like the newly designed packaging, but we're agnostic. We can take it or leave it. What's inside the box matters most to us, and we get the individually carded action figures in standard The Vintage Collection packaging. Hasbro did a decent job recreating the vintage Kenner card tyles, but they put the characters' names directly below the placement of the coin instead of the bottom of the figure like the 1985 figures. It's a strange change they made, and we need to understand the motivation here. We also get two bronze coins of Wicket W. Warrick and Kneesaa. The Wicket coin is almost a direct copy of the original, but it is shinier and thicker, and the details could be more crisp. Kneesaa, however, was never a coin Kenner produced as a prototype or released officially, so this coin sets a new precedent for Hasbro. It's a lovely addition to have in the line.