Search For Luke Skywalker, The - SW [SOTDS] - Exclusives

When Han Solo orders a deck officer to locate Luke, C-3PO tells him that no one can find Commander Skywalker anywhere. Han realizes that Luke is still outside and leaves to find his friend, even though the nights on Hoth are perilous. Han rides a native tauntaun into the icy night, a daring search that saves Luke's life.

Every now and again Hasbro just doesn’t realize what choices they present to collectors at retail. Just moments after they released the Landspeeder Vehicle and Luke Skywalker’s Tauntaun singly in The Vintage Collection packaging for $24.99 each, they released the awesome The Search For Luke Skywalker multipack in the “Shadow Of The Dark Side” packaging which contains not just Han Solo’s Tauntaun, but also Han Solo and Rebel Trooper action figures as well! So, you can have one Tauntaun for $24.99 or one Tauntaun and two action figures for $24.99. Take your pick! The only thing that you’ll need to note is that Luke Skywalker’s Tauntaun has a unique paint job as well as a unique sculpt (the left horn in broken from battle-damage), so you’ll need both for your Hoth dioramas. As a set, it shines and introduces and odd but equally neat version of Han Solo in his Hoth gear. And once again playing on the blue versus brown coat issue, Hasbro goes for novelty in place of accuracy and decides to paint him in a very bright blue paint job. More on that figure in a moment. And collectors get yet another stab at the formerly elusive Hoth Rebel Trooper variant figure that never got released in The Legacy Collection. Yes, now known as the rebel Trooper, it gets a third chance at retail after being included in 2010’s SW [SOTDS] Defense Of Hoth and 2011’s TVC Special Action Figure Set (Rebel Set) TARGET exclusives. (It’s a very cool figure so all of these chances at retail are extremely welcomed again and again by us!) What's more, he comes with the accessory that was shown with him at 2009's NY Toy Fair. It's called an artillery remote and we all now have the wonderful chance to own it finally! Additionally, the packaging is cool and for the first time Hasbro has multiple films cells running across the back of the packgaig which shows specific scenes that are based on the concept of this multipack.

But this set isn't about the packaging and it's all about what's in the box. And there is a lot to enjoy here. It’s great to get two distinct Tauntaun figures back to back, especially when we can knock out both with minutes of each other of our favorite heroes. Although they are part of two separate collections, Hasbro made it fairly easy to attain them together by making them available at retail on or about the same time. Hasbro saw the success in their 2010 SW Defense Of Hoth and Attack On Hoth multipack sets and thought they would take another stab at a multipacks based on some event from The Empire Strikes Back. And The Search For Luke Skywalker is a great set, but we think Hasbro could have made it better by fixing the included Han Solo figure and throwing a completely different figure into the mix altogether. Obviously, the bright blue Han Solo outfit is not screen accurate. And since they made Han Solo super-articulated here and included for the first time ball-jointed hips, it would have been superb that this figure be made realistically and not gimmicky. And while the “hood down” version works very nicely, it would have been our preference to include the “hood up” version instead because there is more screen time with him in this configuration than the latter. The ball-jointed legs look to be all-new. We will continue to reference previous figures until we’re proven otherwise, but they (the legs) straddle the saddle beautifully and Han Solo is able to maintain an upright position while riding his beats of burden. The designs of Han Solo and his tauntaun were well thought out here and Hasbro engineered parts perfectly for flawless interaction. You’re really going to be impressed with how great they look together. But you will also be wishing that Han Solo wasn’t so bright either.

Putting Han Solo’s color to the side for a minute, this action figure is very well made. Hasbro took the upper body to 2007’s VTSC Han Solo (Hoth Outfit) figure and designed an all-new cod section and all-new ball-jointed hips through the thighs. They also added an all-new free hanging holster and repainted the entire figure for this set. Although Hasbro utilized the same head sculpt from the 2007 figure as well, they've painted it in a manner that most closely resembles the paint job application given to 2009’s TLC Han Solo (BD 31) figure (with the solid dark brown hair) and quite honestly it looks fantastic on this release. One strange but necessary convention added to this figure is the soft-goods lower portion of his parka. It has been cut nicely from a believable fabric, but it looks a little shoddy. The stitching however looks good and it does a fair job in representing the full three-quarter length of his parka. We have seen varying samples already and we've noticed that some look slightly uneven and out of place, but as we've stated, they’re obviously needed so Han Solo can be placed on the back of the tauntaun. And also just like the 2007 figure, he comes with a removable hood, cap, scarf and goggles combination and his signature blaster pistol. All of the important parts are included here but they need a little further tweaking before we will be completely happy. If Hasbro can translate all of these updates to a correctly colored movie accurate version and place in The Vintage Collection, this will be our definitive update to the Han Solo (Hoth Outfit) vintage figure from 1980. The Search For Luke Skywalker is pure goodness. Regardless, you will definitely want this exclusive set. Make it your mission to pick it up. If you do the math, you're paying slightly over $8 each for all the items contained within, including the tauntaun!