UPDATE: Yeah yeah, this information is somewhat outdated but I spent a long time working on it and it’s all at least true. So yeah – a little outdated but stick with me and I’ll churn out something more recent very shortly!
I know guys (and possible gals), I been a little quiet, but please, bear with me and take a look at my previous entry for a little bit of explanation. For the time being though, I’m trying to make some real time to keep this thing updated and push out some real content. This “news” is a couple of days old at this point, but I feel like it’s still pretty dang relevant.
So for whatever reason, Solo: A Star Wars Story will be hitting us around Memorial Day of 2018 instead of Christmastime. Disney’s reasoning behind continuing to oversaturate the world with Star Wars? Not sure, unless they really want the dust to settle before releasing the conclusion of the Sequel Trilogy come 2019. At any rate, I was getting little antsy about not seeing any Solo merchandise on the shelves yet….well, they still aren’t on any of my shelves but they’re popping up all over eBay with numbers rapidly increasing over the past 48 hours or so. So far it looks like Hot Wheels/Mattel is covering all 4 bases when it comes to their usual lineup: Character Cars, Starships, Carships, and the newer All-Terrain Character Cars. Solo may not be getting generating a huge amount of related merchandise (and who can really blame the toy companies after being so heavily inundated with Star Wars products these past few years) but Hot Wheels does appear to be spreading the brand across multiple forms.
Character Cars
This time around we’re seeing a release of 8 Character Cars, 3 new and 5 re-releases. Joining the cast for the very first time is Lando Calrissian, albeit a younger version and not quite the true Billy Dee Williams Lando. But hey, I’ll take it. Lando has been missing for way way way too long…now we just need to get some of those Prequel Trilogy players out in the open (Qui-Gon, Padme, Dooku, Mace, Jar Jar, etc.). Han Solo has been given a slight redesign/recolor to represent a younger version of himself, which will be interesting because we’ll now have a “young,” “regular (?),” and “old” version of Han as a Character Car, not to mention him frozen in carbonite as well. Lastly there’s a retooled Chewbacca; I’ll need to take a closer look at him, but he appears to retain the same general flatbed shape albeit with a more fusiform and less boxy cabin.
Returning with no discernible differences (that I’ve been able to tell so far) are Vader, Stormtrooper (Imperial), R2, 3PO, and Boba Fett. Not too sure what sort of role the droids will have in this flick, and of all people, I’d really like to see a redesign of Boba Fett. Or maybe some more general focus on Jabba’s court, since Han has evidently dealt with the gangster at some point in his younger years.
Carships
Let me reiterate that I have not yet seen any of this Solo stuff for sale…however, several sellers on eBay attempting to bundle up all this new stuff include 9 items: the 8 Character Cars plus a single Carship. Kinda weird, huh? Turns out that we are in fact getting a new-ish Carship this time around…a repainted (and possibly slightly redesigned) Millennium Falcon! I guess it’s not that exciting, but it makes perfect sense. Not sure why so many sellers are including it with the cars though…perhaps they’re all being bundled together in the factory cases since it seems like so far the Falcon is the only new Carship. I mean seriously, after this last wave I don’t exactly see Hot Wheels shipping out cases full of only a single carship.
Starships
I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what the release of Starships looks like for Solo, (lots o’ re-releases) but I do think I have a good handle on what’s new: Han’s Speeder, AT Hauler, Imperial Arrestor Cruiser, what looks to be a slightly redesigned (“younger”) Millennium Falcon, and what looks to be a very oddly tacked on First Order AT-ST (Chicken Walker). I really don’t understand why a First Order vehicle is being introduced here, but whatever. Hot Wheels is always doing weird shit like this, i.e. release a Saw Gerrera Character Car a year after Rogue One and right in the thick of Episode VIII material. It’s worth noting that I only know about the AT-ST via pictures on the back of the cards and as of right now, they doesn’t seem to be any for sale.
Han’s Speeder
Arrestor Cruiser
AT Hauler
“New” Millennium Falcon
All-Terrain Character Cars
Last but not least (maybe least?) is the relatively newish line of All-Terrain Character Cars, Hot Wheels’ 1:43 monster truck-ish answer to their original Character Cars. Basically we’ve got new/young Han Solo and Chewbacca. I’ll want a closer look at ’em before I say much more, but yeah, here they are.
Alrighty – that covers it for now. Like I said, this info is a little old and I have more to add but I really wanted to go ahead and get this out in its current form before I moved on. Enjoy!
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