Now I realize that if we were to accurately reenact each film using Character Cars we’d have to literally fill a parking deck with the likes of Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes and Jedi Master Shaak Ti. No no, I’m not talking that specific. As much as I like the guy, we don’t need a Nien Nunb for a complete Return of the Jedi. Nor do we need a Sandtrooper to tell the tale of A New Hope. We don’t even really need the likes of Sebulba or Shmi for The Phantom Menace, though I’d go so far as to call these “bonus points” that would ultimately yield a better narrative.
- Episode IV: A New Hope
- We’ve got pretty much every major character we need here: Luke, Han, Leia, Chewy, Obi-Wan, 3PO, R2, Vader, Stormtroopers, and that’s pretty much it. Bonus points include Greedo, Jawas, Tusken Raiders, and I guess Biggs. We can even account for the insertion of Jabba back in the mid-90’s. Give us a Wedge, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Owen & Beru (I know, crazy unlikely) and we’d be close to replicating the flick scene-by-scene. (I know I know, we’d have to write off Mos Eisley but that’s ok.)
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back- No Lando.
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi- No Lando!
Episode I: The Phantom Menace- No Qui-Gon, no Padme, no Jar Jar, no Nute Gunray. Other pluses would be a Young Anakin, Young Obi-Wan, Mace Windu.
Episode II: Attack of the Clones- No Padme, no Count Dooku. Other pluses would be Young Obi-Wan, Mace, Yellow/Orange Clone Trooper, those 3 creatures in the arena just for the hell of it.
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith- No Padme, no Dooku, no Commander Cody (or Yellow/Orange Clone Trooper). Pluses would include Mace, maybe a “Human” (Chancellor/Senator) Palpatine (I think his first name is Sheev…?), a few other recognizable Jedi from the council such as Kit Fisto (to tie into the implementation of Order 66).
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens
- It took some time, but we’ve got pretty much what we need for this one: Finn, Rey, Poe, BB-8, Han, and Chewy rounding out the protagonists, with Kylo, Phasma, First Order Troopers, Flame Troopers as the bad guys. Bonus points for Maz, Sidon, Snoke, Luke (Ep.8). The only thing really missing is an older Leia…and maybe a slot for the Riot Control Trooper. “TRAITOR!” He was pretty cool. And possibly General Hux, who’s in a Tarkin-esque position where it seems like he may possibly outrank Kylo (at the very least, he doesn’t seem to be a subordinate to Kylo).
Rogue One (A Star Wars Story)- No Bodhi. That’s it. I would’ve even said it was doable without Saw, but now we have a Saw, still no Bodhi. C’mon Hot Wheels. Stash him away in some obscure playset, I don’t care, just give us the Bodhi. It’s not even that I really care about Bodhi, but we’ve got every other necessary figure from Rogue One! I mean who else could we even add? Jyn’s father? Mon Mothma? (She wouldn’t be the worst…tertiary character to turn into a car…) But damn. I need the team. Jyn, K2, Cassian, Chirrut, Baze, and Bodhi. Let us not forget that Bodhi’s actions are essentially the catalyst for everything that happens in Rogue One. We focus a lot on Jyn’s father placing the intentional design flaw in the Death Star (a fucking spectacular retcon by the way – maybe the best ever) but it’s easy to overlook the fact that Bodhi was an Imperial pilot who defected to the Rebellion and actually brought them news of these plans! My hero. I wouldn’t be so bent out of shape if we were gonna see the guy again, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. I mean maybe in 10 or 15 years someone will be scraping the proverbial barrel and try to prequel or interquel Rogue One, but let’s face it – Rogue One was a one-off, it was always gonna be a one-off, and Disney made it pretty damn clear by the end of it that it was unambiguously a one-off. Mon Mothma is basically the only person who can ever really appreciate who this team was and what they did, and I sort of like the fact that this rag-tag team gave their lives for an immensely greater good without even giving a damn if anyone knew who they were.
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
- I may need to rewatch Last Jedi again before coming to a definite conclusion, but I think between the inclusive first wave of character cars and the lack of new characters means we have everyone we need. Good guy-wise we’ve got Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8, and Chewy returning, along with the addition of “Old Luke” and the all-new Rose. Kylo returns as does Snoke with a much more prominent role, not to mention Captain Phasma, the typical First Order Troopers and variations like the Executioner and Praetorians, and the unforgettable BB-9E. Again, I think an older “General Leia” car is in order and perhaps a General Hux since Kylo did little to represent the First Order’s military interests. But that’s it really. You could even leave out the Executioners and BB-9E. (I seriously expected some type of epic yet comedic showdown between BB-8 and BB-9E.)
And there we have it. I guess it would make sense that the newer films are more complete than the older ones, though it still bothers me that we get a slightly darker Chewbacca or hell even someone like Bossk or Ackbar and yet we are missing massive staples like Lando and Padme. Don’t get it twisted: I don’t want Hot Wheels to sift through the Prequel Trilogy (or even the Original Trilogy) and unearth each and every “Sidon Ithano” to make a character car out of, but it’s just ludicrous that some of the series’ biggest heavyweights have still been ignored after 3 or 4 years of steady releases (and re-releases for that matter).
I’m aware that I haven’t mentioned either of the canonical animated TV shows…I don’t watch them so I know next to nothing about them. From what I understand though, Rebels has been fairly well represented over time while The Clone Wars has basically been ignored up until the new Ahsoka Tano car. Being that these are TV shows I’m sure they deal with lots of one-off characters so I guess I can understand why we’ve only really been given a single villain (The Inquisitor).
I was gonna go ahead and wrap this up but you know what I’d really like to see!? I’d like to see Disney get off their butts and re-canonize Shadows of the Empire. What a great story. Hell, just give me a Prince Xizor car and I’ll be happy. Honest!
Alright I guess that’ll do it for me for now…don’t wanna get too crazy over Shadows (although I think it’s fucking stupid of Disney to discount it!)….maybe we’ll do a more thorough rundown another time. I know I’ve got like half a dozen other vaguely time sensitive things I need to be writing about instead but I had to take a little “fun break.” For a while now I’ve toyed with the idea of doing some sort of crude, stop-motion recreation of one or two films using the Character Cars as well as either the Carships or Starships. So I took the opportunity to “officially” take stock of who’s available and who needs to be available… I hope it was at least an interesting read.
Stay tuned because I’m gonna try to work on a few more pieces today, including the 2017 Holiday Hot Rods, a couple of strange new offshoots from the “Character Car” line, some shit about Batman, some Spidey cars, this other article I should’ve finished a hella long time ago, some LEGO stuff, some Milano stuff, oh man. Just stick with me! I’ma tryin’!
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