Dave's Transformers Star Wars Rant: Ultra Set 1 Han Solo and Chewbacca (Millennium Falcon) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/SW/Ultra1 It's very rare that an official Transformers toy has several robots combining into one altmode without having individual altmodes of some sort. In fact, the only ones that immediately spring to mind are G1 Reflector and Animorphs Tri-Rex. (D Buster Prime points out that the Micromaster Combiners also tended to have partial vehicle modes on their own...while some were standalone, others were as extreme as the Falcon duo in terms of the robots not having plausible altmodes of their own.) Anyway, this is the first boxed set for SWTF, and they're kinda taking baby steps by having it be a combiner. I suppose they want to keep all the robot modes kinda close to each other in size for now. These do tower over the others, but a single robot made from a Falcon of this size would be 9-10 inches tall. [Much Later Note: I have gotten a report of Gold Plastic Syndrome hitting Chewbacca. His knee joint had become brittle with age, and snapped.] CAPSULE Some problems with weapon-holding in robot mode, and both are a bit kibbly as robots, but they're a lot sturdier than previous SWTFs. Nice solid vehicle mode, decent transformation. Recommended. $34.97 at Wal-Mart. RANT Packaging: This is a big box. Maybe not as large in volume as some of the larger Cybertron boxes, but it has a lot of shelf frontage. Corrugated cardboard 16.75" (42.5cm) wide, 12" (30cm) tall and only 4" (10cm) deep, most of the front, top and sides are plastic window with reinforcing cardboard bits here and there. Both toys are in robot mode, Han on the left and Chewie on the right. The pilot figures are on a little blister pillar at the very front and center of the box. There's "Try Me!" holes for both sound buttons, which probably explains Chewie's sombrero: to get his backpack's button in reach of the window plastic, it was folded up behind his head, where it looks somewhat hat-like at a first glance. Front content: In the upper left is the proclamation "Electronic lights and sounds!" Star Wars logo in the upper center. Age warnings upper right. Han Solo robot mode art (not very good) in lower left. Very center has a sticker saying "With Han & Chewbacca pilot figures!" Below that is a touched up photo of the vehicle mode, with arrows swooping in from the sides to indicate that the toys combine into this, and text to that effect. Below that is the Transformers logo. Lower right is Chewbacca art, a little less bad. The bottom has just some Rebellion symbols, the UPC and some legal text. The top has more Rebel symbols and the bio note. There are no techspecs on the outer package. Both side panels have top view photos of the vehicle mode. The back shows photos of both robots, and the top view of the vehicle (digitally) split into front and back sections. Various blurbs include: "Mech mode to vehicle - Han Solo & Chewbacca combine to form the Millennium Falcon!" Weapon/accessory notes: Bowcaster, launching projectile, top cannon, front light-up lsers, rear light-up thrusters. Some other notes that I interpret to be bio-note contents, so see them below. The co-sells are for wave 2 Standards. A picture in the upper right of the back shows where to put the pilot figures in robot mode (the main cockpit goes on Chewie's shoulder, Han goes under the panel that would hold the main guns in vehicle mode. Inside the box, the instructions are loose and folded in quarters. Same basic style as with the Standards, and no indication of techspecs inside either. Between this and Standard wave 3, looks like they're gone for good. The instructions also tell how to change the AA batteries, but for once a Transformers toy that uses AA's comes with them included. There's also a catalog as seen in wave 3 Standards. A rubber band connects the two pilot figures behind the blister. The solo missile is banded into the blister with an H-connector on the back of the tray. The main gun's missiles are also banded in, but easily pulled out without bothering with their H-connector, which is good considering that those are inaccessible. They finally resort to twist-ties for this one, though, with the main figures all twist-tied in. And a LOT of H-connector rubber bands to tie down the smaller stuff on Chewie (7, to be precise, 3 of which just hold the Bowcaster in place). One twist-tie holds the cockpit in place, 7 hold Chewie to the tray, 8 hold Han to the tray. Rubber bands hold the dish and gun in position next to Han but not really connected solidly. (Han is mistransformed slightly in package, he needs his buttblock stowed and his heel spurs deployed.) Aside from the backpack issue, Chewie seems to be mostly correctly transformed. Just need to fiddle with his feet and add the cockpit to his shoulder. MILLENNIUM FALCON * Han Solo and Chewbacca combine to form the Millennium Falcon! * Hear sounds and phrases from the movie! * Press buttons for electronic light-up features! * Includes 2 pilot figures! Han Solo and his first mate, Chewbacca, have really done it this time! After making the Kessel Run in just under twelve parsecs, an Imperial spy on the Garrison Moon alerts the Empire to their presence. Han and Chewie are determined not to give up without a fight. Using a new modification technology, Han morphs the Falcon into mech mode as a Star Destroyer approaches. The Falcon suddenly splits into two heavily armed attack robots! The Imperial ship is rocked with a barrage of missile fire. Although she may not look like much of a threat, the Millennium Falcon sure does pack a solid one-two punch of speed and power! Wow, what a badly written blurb. Incoherent where it isn't just plain stupid. Although Han does seem to understand the Gundam Principle...no matter how much bigger than you a ship is, you can always beat it in a humanoid mech. Lights and Sounds: There's two buttons, one on Han's belt buckle and one on the engine chunk that form's Chewie's backpack/sombrero. In each case, a quick press will give you a character quote and a longer press gives you ship sounds. All sounds are accompanied by lights: red LEDs for Han, blue LEDs for Chewie. Han says five things: "Charge up the main gun!", "May the Force be with you.", "She's the fastest ship in the fleet!", "I've got a really bad feeling about this." and "Prepare to make the jump to lightspeed." These are all very good lifts from the movies. His two ship sounds are the chattering of the quad guns and the alarm that went off when the Falcon came out of lightspeed into the ruins of Alderan (I think...some kind of bleeping alert in any case). The light flashing is somewhat inconsistent. Han's sounds cycle through the list, they are not random. Chewie seems to use the sort of "one from column A, one from column B" combinations seen in the more expensive Go-Bots, combining four or five different Wookie growls. It's either a randomizer or a list of combos long enough that my lack of fluency in Wookie-speak keeps me from keeping track. There's only one ship sound, that of taking off and zooming away. [Later note: there are actually three ship noises, I just had a hard time telling them apart, as they sound like so much static white noise on mine. Two taking-off sounds, one cruising.] [MUCH later note: Someone with more patience than I worked out the Chewbacca cycle. "Four roar-of-some-kind followed by chuffing, then two roar-roars" according to chiasaur11.] Pilot Figures: Both are of the standard mold of arms connected through the torso by an axle, feet molded into a base. Both can actually stand on their own, which doesn't always happen. Han is all black plastic, with somewhat sloppily painted caucasian skintone, brown hair and white shirt. His brown gunbelt is fairly well painted, though. Chewie is all brown plastic with silver and warmer brown paint on his bandolier and pouch. Han is 33mm tall, Chewbacca is 37mm tall. Chewie can't really sit well in the front seat of the cockpit, even when Han is off in his own cockpit. Han Robot Mode: 8" (20cm) tall at the head, add another half inch for the shoulderpads. Shoulderpadspan is 7" (18cm). Mostly made of the very light gray plastic appropriate to the vehicle mode, but with black thighs and dark blue-gray upper arms. His gun, its missiles and the solo missile sticking out of the left shoulderpad are very dark gray (333333), and the communications dish plugged into the right shoulderpad (will work both sides, though) is light gray (CCCCCC). The chest window cockpit for the pilot figure is clear colorless plastic with very light gray paint on the structural elements. There's very dark blue (darker than 0033CC) paint on the shoulders, forearms, flanks, collar and shins, mostly parts that are concealed in vehicle mode. There's various red, yellow and char gray accents on the ship bits. The fists and face are painted silver, and the hair helmet is a somewhat mottled brown, with gold "ears". His somewhat sad-looking eyes are blue. Harrison Ford's chin scar is reproduced on the robot head. The classic holster belt is molded in place, but left unpainted so as to blend in with the vehicle mode. The belt buckle is silver, but it's his sound button. The head turns, but the waist does not. The butt is sorta poseable if you're into that sort of thing. The shoulders are ratcheting universal joints, although some conflicting kibble issues prevent them from rotating all the way around. The upper arms are connected by pegs, giving a swivel joint but also popping off occasionally. The elbows are ratchet hinges, and the wrists are swivels. Hips are ratcheting universal joints, with ratcheting poppable peg swivels just above the knees (takes significant force to pop them, though). The knees ratchet bend, and there's some hinged flexing in both meaningful directions on the ankles, letting them stay flat on the table when the figure has its legs spread by one click out from the center. Han gets all the firepower in this combo. Not only is he assigned the oversized main gun unit, but he also gets a launcher built into his left shoulderpad. The pistol fires two missiles, each with two blaster-mold tips. A single button launches both missiles at the same time (more or less... they're sometimes staggered, but I can't reliably get one to fire before the other). Unfortunately, the peg on the bottom is too short. Han has to hold the gun sideways or it fits in loosely and pops off with little provocation. Also unfortunately, the figure does not have a single standard peg size, so he can't move the gun to one of the shoulder mounts or to any of the screw holes. He can plug it into his chest, but it looks dumb there in robot mode. This also means, by the way, that he can't hold the comm dish in his hand, its peg is too large. On the other hand, the peg holes on Chewie's shoulders are just right for Han's gun. I think Chewie gets it, gives him balanced shoulders. Chewie should be more heavily armed than Han in any case, I think. Han Transformation: Remove the dish from his shoulder, remove missile (it'll fire accidentally anyway) and gun. Next, fold the buttchunk back down, it won't go in if you try to do this later. The legs are fairly straightforward, you rotate the lower legs so the toes point to each other, stow the heels, then bend the knees so that the boots become the "buck teeth" of the Falcon. The arms require a lot of twisting and bending to get into the right position, but aren't too hard once you figure it out once. Finally, the shoulderpads rotate around to lock in place. You will probably need to massage and squeeze it a bit ot get everything to lock into place. Chewbacca Robot Mode: 8.5" (21.5cm) tall at the head, a little bit taller if you count the cockpit on his right shoulder. In addition to the ship color plastics (and dark gray on his bowcaster), his upper arms, fists, thighs, head and toes are a dark copper or metallic brown. Copper and gold paint accents on his chest, abdomen, forearms and shins. A bit below his knees is painted gold, and his face is gold with white fangs and silver eyes. Very dark gray paint on the windows of the dorsal gunnery port (which is on his pelvis in robot mode). The head is sculpted so that the fur looks like a mass of cables and ducts, and the backs of his hands are similarly molded to evoke fur without actually having any. Poseability is almost the same as Han, but the knees aren't as ratchety, and the feet aren't quite as poseable despite having more weird jointing. The mid-thigh swivel is more likely to pop because Chewie's legs have to be pulled out in transformation, and the force required to lock them in position is greater than the force required to pop the thigh swivel. And they don't stay locked very well anyway, so sometimes Chewie will sag to one side a little. His chest actually slides forward for transformation, which acts as a sort of point of articulation...he can slouch or throw his chest out dramatically. He cannot, however, pound his chest, it's too bulky for his arms to get around. He has "Gundam Skirt" joints on his pelvis to let the armor bits get out of the way some when his legs lift, although they're not enough to let the legs lift straight forward very far. The engine chunk on his backpack pops off kinda easily, but since the peg side is on the figure and not the chunk, the chunk can't really be placed anywhere else or held as a big weird gun. His assigned weapon is a sort of double-barrelled bowcaster that transforms into the ship's underside gun. It doesn't actually launch anything. Note: his copper plastic is all swirly with metallic inclusions, suggesting he may end up susceptible to a variant of Gold Plastic Syndrome a few years down the line and crack along lines of too much metal dust. Chewbacca Transformation: Remove cockpit from shoulder, fold bowcaster up. The arms should be transformed first, with the inside of the forearm rotating and folding up against the side of the shoulderpad. Then the entire piece does a slide rorate so that the forearm section is horizontal, with the landing gear tab facing Chewie's forward. Then bring the engine up and over to snap over the shoulders...it will likely pop off at its peg joint repeatedly until you get the hang of just how to hold it. Finally, the legs transform in a really weird way into the side galleries. I figured it out without the instructions, but it's more complicated than is worth describing here. Combination: Pretty much just snap the two halves together. It works a little better if you leave the accessories off and the top window slid forward. Then slide the window back to snap into place once the halves are wedded, and put the various guns and dish back on. Chewbacca's bowcaster folds up into a serviceable underside gun. Vehicle Mode: 9.25" (23.5cm) long and 7.5" (19cm) wide, there are three sturdy and correctly placed (I think) landing gear that fold down for it to rest on. Weighs 1 lb 9.5oz, or 725g. Mostly light gray plastic with red and yellow painted accents on top, gold and copper paint on the bottom, and dark gray scorchmarks throughout. The guns and oddly placed (in this mode) single missile are dark plastic, and the windows are colorless clear. The engine cover is blue clear plastic. The red LEDs for the main gun are positioned to uplight it. While not all of the transformation seams are along places where the ship is supposed to have seams, I must admit that this is one of the few designs where a few extra cracks look perfectly in place. The only robot kibble to speak of are Chewbacca's toes, which are visible from the side. And while the single missile looks kinda weird, you don't *have* to leave it loaded. Overall: A lot more sturdy than Standard SWTFs, although they still need to learn about this thing called "standardized pegs and holes", and some of the joints pop off too easily. Not anywhere near the monstrosity that early pictures suggested, and definitely a step in the right direction. A bit pricey, but considering that a single 7-8" Cybertron Transformer costs $20 or $27 and these have electronics, it's not actually that bad a deal. Dave Van Domelen, got through all of his July 1 purchases by July 6. It helped that comics were delayed until July 7 here.