Toy Review: ‘Star Wars’ Black Series Chewbacca Is A Home Run

There are some fans (me) who would argue that the real hero of the Star Wars saga is a hundred-plus-year-old Wookiee. And of the main characters of the saga, Chewbacca was the one figure from Hasbro’s Black Series I was missing until recently.

Chewbacca, played first by Peter Mayhew and later by Joonas Suotamo, is best known as the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon. Fans first met him in the Mos Eisley cantina as Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi were searching for a transport to get them off Tatooine and en route to Alderaan.

Since then, he’s become one of the beating hearts of the Star Wars franchise. He’s witty and sarcastic. He’s caring and paternal. He’s fiercely loyal and just plain fierce. And he’s never spoken a word that we can understand, making both actors’ performance iconic. His loyalty to Han Solo is one of the most endearing parts of the character and extends to the rest of the main crew, even decades later after Han dies and he takes over ownership of the Falcon (I think Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker said it went to Rey, but we all know it went to Chewie).

Also, on a personal note, Suotamo is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He spent ten minutes talking to my autistic child in Suriwook at a convention here in Salt Lake, then demanded we take a picture with him and not pay for it.

Now right off the bat, this figure is massive. Typically Black Series figures are between five-and-a-half to six-and-a-half inches. While I don’t have a ruler or tape measure in my office, Chewie easily was seven plus inches. He’s tall, and he’s hefty too.

As far as design, the figure jumps off the screen. This is just Chewbacca. It captures the costume and feel of one of Star Wars’ most iconic characters — the most iconic non-human character frankly, with only Yoda and Grogu coming close to challenging that. I think the only thing I didn’t like about the design of the figure was that his bandolier was glued onto his fur.

For the most part, the posing is fantastic. For such a large figure, he was able to pose extremely well, and stand even better. There were a few things I couldn’t do with him, just because he was such a large figure, but you don’t need to pose him jumping. On the downside, that glued bandolier didn’t allow the figure’s head to turn to the left much at all.

And yes, this is another Star Wars Black Series figure with minimal accessories. I would argue though that Chewbacca really doesn’t need them … unless you count Han Solo. Because adding a Han figure made him instantly better. A swappable head might have been nice, but overall, the figure came with Chewie’s bowcaster, and that’s all I needed.

So after a week of mixed reactions to some of my favorite heroes, I got one that was nearly perfect, and far and away a win. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go perfect my Wookiee yell.