Monday, December 6, 2010

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 15" Chewbacca

This is Kenner's 15" (1/6 scale) Chewbacca from 1978.

Chewbacca has always been a difficult character to "pull-off" for toy companies. We usually get a figure that's all plastic or one that's all plush but haven't really gotten one that's a mix of the two.


Kenner chose to go the "all plastic" route with their first sixth-scale Chewbacca action figure. In fact, Chewie's construction is very similar to another large action figure that Kenner produced for their Six Million Dollar Man line of toys... Bionic Bigfoot. In fact, early prototype images of Chewbacca reveal that Kenner used a repainted Bigfoot with a bandolier strap as a stand-in for our intrepid furry hero until an official figure could be produced. If you examine both toys together, it's very apparent that they were "cut from the same cloth," so to speak.

Chewbacca was one of the first four large-sized action figures produced along with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia. Chewie's articulation is somewhat limited. He has ball-jointed shoulders, of sorts (held in place by rubber banded tension), and swivel hip joints... that's it. Due to the way he is sculpted, there is no head or neck articulation.


I like the way that Chewie is sculpted. There's plenty of sculpted fur detail but not too much. He's somewhat simplified and this choice works well with the somewhat simplified features of some of the human characters (like Han or Luke) in the line.

One neat aspect of this figure is that the cartridges on his strap are actually removable and can be placed on a peg on his crossbow blaster.

A complete Chewbacca comes with crossbow blaster (make sure the crossbow piece is present. It's a separate piece), bandolier strap with plastic pouch, and enough cartridges to fill all the slots on the strap.

Chewbacca has always been one of the more lovable characters in the Star Wars saga. This figure is fun representation of the beloved furry oaf.

8 comments:

  1. I would love to have one- I have the Darth Vader, which totally got me into toy collecting/blogging just a few short months ago

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awe Yeah! Chewbacca! Welcome back, feeling a little vintage Star Wars are we?

    Funny how close the large version is so close to the 3-3/4 version, except the large version actually received a correct looking blaster.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You've done it!!!

    You solved the mystery of Bigfoot.

    The Six Million Dollar Man had one part of the puzzle solved = Bigfoot is an alien.
    You have solved the rest.
    Bigfoot is a Wookie and Wookies are aliens.
    It all ties together nicely.
    Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  4. superb toy...

    neway, love ur blog, hope to keep in touch ;-)p

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have one of these 12' inch chewbacca's and I brought it along with my 12' vader to the adventure con toy convention back in 07 and I had chewy autographed by Peter Mayhew and the vader autographed by David Prowse. Mayhew was cool and let me hang out and chat with him a while, but Prowse was very stuck up and wouldn't speak to me. oh well, I got my autographed 12 inch star wars figs and that made my entire year! :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have one of these for sale if anyone is interested :) message me

    ReplyDelete