Old New Cars, Part 1

I thought I’d said my peace about this next little cluster of Character Cars but apparently I was mistaken! So yeah, this is old news now, but we do have 2 new Character Cars from Star Wars: Boba Fett (updated armor) and Bo Katan.

Thanks to the new series The Book of Boba Fett, our titular bounty hunter gets a makeover…well sort of. It’s more like his clothes get a good wash and the rest of his armor gets a good scrubbing. Of all the reasons to crank out a new Character Car I guess this is good enough, but I ask, where is Qui-Gon? Where is Padme? Where is Bodhi? …

The new car is a little underwhelming. It’s the same shape and it’s still covered 90% in that drab teal-green. Scorches and scrapes are painted over and the dent is filled in. The whole package is somehow less interesting than it was before. I understand the intent (I think) but shouldn’t the result be a little more dazzling…?

Bo Katan is a female with that whole Mandalorian aesthetic going on. Apparently she’s been a pretty big part of The Mandalorian and the lore on this girl stretches back into prequel times. I still haven’t watched The Mandalorian so my commentary is limited.

I do like the car though and I’m always happy when females get some recognition. It’s pretty much just the helmet stretched out to the shape of a car but I’m not complaining.

With so much new Star Wars stuff bubbling under the surface right now it’s hard to say what direction the Character Cars should take. I just hope Hot Wheels will cover more of the classics before they get neck-deep in all this new material.

The Latest Star Wars Character Cars

It took me a while to find these, but finally I’ve got ’em, thanks to my kid spotting them at a Dollar General of all places. We all knew The Child was coming at some point, but Cara Dune was evidently such a surprise that early sales were reaching nearly $200! They dropped heavily over the next couple of weeks, though sellers were routinely asking for ~$40 and the ones actually selling were around $20. All the while, sales of The Child had dropped to about $6. This was all fueled by the removal of the actress who portrayed Cara and the announcement that toys with her likeness would not be reprinted.

In addition to a handful of re-releases, we also got Wrecker, a character from the new, animated The Bad Batch on Disney+.

Alright, so first let’s get a look at The Child. This “entity” has the distinction of being made as both Character Car and a Starship. That’s pretty cool. He comes with his own “feature” – his head bobs up and down in the hover pram as the wheels roll. He’s also got one of those aqua frog-like things hanging out of his mouth, as is featured with a lot of “Child” merchandise.

And then the briefly notorious Cara Dune, some kind of ex-Shock Trooper working with the Mandalorian. It’s a good looking car, obviously designed for rough and rugged travel. I don’t know Cara’s gear well enough to correctly speculate on what all the details align with. Clue me in if you want…I plan to play catch up one day.

Finally there’s this Wrecker guy, part of some cohort of genetic misfit Stormtroopers called The Bad Batch. I’m a little indifferent on this…maybe it’s inevitable that the Star Wars canon gets so large that its difficult to keep up with, but I just wish we had guys (and girls) like Bodhi and Qui-Gon and Padme and Mace before advancing into super-new fringe territory. You can vaguely make out the likeness of a Stormtrooper’s helmet and I guess chalk up the rest to equipment, but he just feels a tad out of place, more like something out of Death Race than Star Wars.

A strange release to be sure, it’ll be interesting to see where Hot Wheels and Star Wars goes from here.

Newest Star Wars Character Cars Include LANDO!

To be fair, I should’ve been more timely with this “coverage.” This release wasn’t at all on my radar; in fact the most recent news I had regarding Star Wars Character Cars was “The Child” coming sometime early 2021. So when I first spotted these on shelves just a couple of weeks before Christmas I was in near disbelief. Hell, I was already very very excited when Nien Nunb dropped a few months back.

Captain Rex was first to catch my eye, followed by Luke – Bespin which was pretty unexpected. Unfortunately, I had to find out about Lando from the back…he wasn’t at the store right then but I did snag him a couple of weeks later. Now I know, I know, we got Lando back when Solo got its 15 minutes of fame, but this was a young Lando and I got nothin’ against Donald Glover, but he just ain’t got the swagger that Billy Dee Williams had in his heyday. And yes, I know it’s pretty much the same car except now it’s blue and not orange, but the very fact that we have a Lando Calrissian Character Car based specifically off of Billy Dee Williams’ portrayal is worth celebrating.

While not necessarily my top pick, it’s pretty cool to see Captain Rex – a character born from The Clone Wars animated film – make an appearance. He’s basically a more detailed and battle-worn version of the 501st Clone Trooper Character Car but that’s exactly what he was. Honestly I would think we’d see Commander Cody ahead of Rex, but I’ll take Rex with a healthy dose of satisfaction.

Then there’s Luke Skywalker: Bespin Edition which I’m kinda on the fence about. Wasted opportunity? Not quite, but damn, there are some other guys I’d put first. However, I guess since they were trying to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of ESB to some extent the choice is more than acceptable. But why not give us Lobot? Or a Snowtrooper? …a Tauntaun…? One of those spider-like probe droids would make a good Character Car…ok, I’ll be fair and say that there aren’t a lot of big obvious choices outside of Lando that originated in Episode V.

The rest of the wave is all fairly common, though it does include the “action feature” versions of Vader and the Imperial Stormtrooper if you missed out on either of them. I know 2020 has been a little nuts, but I do kinda wish this ESB Anniversary was made a bigger deal of. But hey, we got an honest to god, OT, Bill Dee Williams, blue caped, Lando Calrissian car on our hands. Good job, Hot Wheels! Now give us Qui-Gon, Dooku, Mace, BODHI BODHI BODHI, and Padme and I’ll hush.’

Don’t forget to start watching out for a Character Car of The Child!

The Newest Star Wars Character Cars: Nien Nunb & Heavy Infantry Mandalorian

Alright alright, cut me a little slack here. I know these Character Cars aren’t exactly new but they are at least the latest we’ve seen from Star Wars. As somewhat expected, one of the newcomers was pulled from the new The Mandalorian> TV series: the Heavy Infantry Mandalorian. Joining him (her?) is the marginally obscure Nien Nunb, who is easily one of my favorite marginally obscure characters. It’s tough to stretch Nien out to top-tier status, but I generally stuck him in a 2nd-tier slot if for no other reason than that he was Lando’s copilot in the Battle of Endor. If you think about it, this would really put his name out there. You’ve got this huge battle that marked a massive political shift that the Rebels one against all odds…you just know that the co-pilot of the freakin’ Millennium Falcon has his name written all over historical sources.

Our favorite Sullustan pops up again in The Rise of Skywalker. There is some confusion as to whether or not Nien survived the Battle of Exegol. A lot of people count his departure just as unceremonious as Admiral Ackbbar; others say that despite the Tantive IV (where Nien was) being crippled by Palpatine’s Force-Lightning, it is shown lading safely near the end. We’ll probably never know, though the new directors seem A O-K with killing off any and everything from the OT.

Griping aside, I think the Nien Nunb car looks pretty good. If you were familiar with Nien and someone showed you that car I believe the average fan would make the connection, mostly due to the colors and placement. The vehicle doesn’t really capture his unique facial shape, but I’m ok with that as I feel like any attempt to do so would just look like Nien’s face on four wheels. The blasters along the rocker panels are a nice touch.

I wish I had more to say about the Heavy Infantry Mandalorian, but based on the Black Series action figure the Character Car looks pretty good. The backpack or ammo reserve or power supply or whatever it is is well represented and the 3-barreled gun thingy can be seen on the front right. There are lots of little components and details that are not symmetrical from left to right which really helps connect the vehicle to the character. Honestly this strikes me as a somewhat strange choice since so many other characters have been (so far) left behind, but I do appreciate that Hot Wheels didn’t half-ass it. It’s a great looking vehicle even if a little random.

Hot Wheels, if you’re listening: We desperately need Character Cars for Qui-Gon Jinn, Padme, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, and please please please crank us out a BODHI! I could do a full-on Rogue One recreation it you’d just throw me a Bodhi!

Ok that’s it – just wanna put one of those little blurbs our every now and again in the off chance that someone comes across it.

I doubt Star Wars is done, but they do seem to be on a cool-down, eh? When and with what do you think they’ll pop back up with? More stuff from Mandalorian? Characters like Cal and Darth Revan from the video games? This line of toys has a high collectibility value so even if a Star Wars-breather is needed it wouldn’t be difficult to keep collectors interested.