Review – Star Wars Jumbo Vintage Chewbacca

One important point that this Star Wars Jumbo Vintage Chewbacca* really drives home for me — maybe more than any other release in the Star Wars Jumbo Vintage series (Amazon.com search*) — is just how much artistic license the Kenner designers took with the Star Wars characters back in the seventies. For years it was the action figures — as well as the Marvel Star Wars comics — that really drove my visual impression of the characters, and now that decades have passed by I can say that this toy looks very little like the movie character.

And I think that’s a lot of the charm (for me) of this action figure.

Thank You, Tooth Fairy!

I can remember owning two vintage Chewbacca action figures when I was a kid. The second was one of sixteen action figures that I got in a mail order delivery (mentioned here), but the first one was found in my home in 1978 when the Tooth Fairy left me a Chewbacca in exchange for a lost tooth. And trust me, five year old me was far happier to have the action figure and could care less about the missing tooth. I’m still not clear on what happened to that first Chewbacca because I can’t remember ever owning two at once . . .

Anyway, Back to Chewbacca Not Looking Quite Like Chewbacca

If we compare the action figure photos to the Star Wars Wikia pics of the character we can see that Kenner got it basically similar to the movie design, but there are some oddities. The feet are more traditional Bigfoot-like than they are Chewbacca-like, the thinness of the action figure is super obvious because of the lack of fuzzy hair, and the face is even more dog-like on the toy.

As Much Fun as Ever

The Star Wars Jumbo Vintage Chewbacca* is a fun addition to my growing collection of Star Wars Jumbo Vintage action figures (Amazon.com search*) and is a masterfully-constructed as the others. I know the prices are high, but the tooling to make the toys and all of the paint apps — not as complex as statues, yes, but there’s still a lot of paintwork if only because the toy is so large — no doubt add to the costs. And then there’s licensing, shipping massive packages, advertising . . . making and selling toys isn’t cheap, but when they’re this cool I’m happy to help out as best I can by buying some every now and then.

My reviews will never make you change your mind about the series — by now, everyone has decided they either love or hate this line of upsized classic action figures — but I hope that the reviews and pics are at least entertaining for you. Because if I’m not keeping you entertained when you visit battlegrip.com then I am doing something terribly wrong . . .