This is kind of a weird figure for me. The legendary Rocket Firing Boba Fett has long been considered the Holy Grail of Star Wars toy geekdom. I’m still not clear on the whole story after all these years, but apparently a small number of production samples were made and escaped into the wild before the Imperial Federal Government decided that parents weren’t smart enough to make decisions and decreed said Firing Rocket to be a choking hazard. Another of countless instances of the minority’s inferiority restricting the liberty of the majority. Yeah – that’s been going on for decades, and it’s only going to get worse.
But this isn’t a political article – this is a toy article.
So a bunch of nerds got really upset that their Boba Fett figure couldn’t fire an ugly, oversized, non-screen-accurate rocket out of his jetpack; something that never even happened in the fucking movies anyway.
I have personally never thought it anywhere near necessary for Boba Fett’s jetpack rocket to even be removable, let alone have a firing mechanism. I’d much rather have a well-articulated Princess Leia that doesn’t look like a man. Or a General Grievous that can fucking stand up.
I am, however, a sucker for gimmicks. I am also a sucker for Mandalorians – particularly ones with the surname “Fett”. When Hasbro announced that the big new mail-away figure for Fall 2010 was going to be a Boba Fett that could not only perform the naughty, life-endangering function of firing his rocket, but was also a recreation of the original Boba Fett figure; well, you know I was hooked.
I saved up my UPCs and sent off for two as soon as I could. They came relatively quickly for Hasbro mail-aways, but I would rather they have been later if it would mean they wouldn’t be smashed. Dammit. How smashed were they? Let’s find out… NEXT!